Configuring kubectl for Remote Access

In this lab you will generate a kubeconfig file for the kubectl command line utility based on the admin user credentials.

Run the commands in this lab from the same directory used to generate the admin client certificates.

The Admin Kubernetes Configuration File

Each kubeconfig requires a Kubernetes API Server to connect to. To support high availability the IP address assigned to the external load balancer fronting the Kubernetes API Servers will be used.

Generate a kubeconfig file suitable for authenticating as the admin user:

{
  KUBERNETES_PUBLIC_ADDRESS=$(gcloud compute addresses describe kubernetes-the-hard-way \
    --region $(gcloud config get-value compute/region) \
    --format 'value(address)')

  kubectl config set-cluster kubernetes-the-hard-way \
    --certificate-authority=ca.pem \
    --embed-certs=true \
    --server=https://${KUBERNETES_PUBLIC_ADDRESS}:6443

  kubectl config set-credentials admin \
    --client-certificate=admin.pem \
    --client-key=admin-key.pem

  kubectl config set-context kubernetes-the-hard-way \
    --cluster=kubernetes-the-hard-way \
    --user=admin

  kubectl config use-context kubernetes-the-hard-way
}

Verification

Check the health of the remote Kubernetes cluster:

kubectl get componentstatuses

output

NAME                 STATUS    MESSAGE             ERROR
controller-manager   Healthy   ok
scheduler            Healthy   ok
etcd-1               Healthy   {"health":"true"}
etcd-2               Healthy   {"health":"true"}
etcd-0               Healthy   {"health":"true"}

List the nodes in the remote Kubernetes cluster:

kubectl get nodes

output

NAME       STATUS   ROLES    AGE    VERSION
worker-0   Ready    <none>   117s   v1.12.0
worker-1   Ready    <none>   118s   v1.12.0
worker-2   Ready    <none>   118s   v1.12.0