Setup

Follow the steps listed in the section to complete the pre-requesites for the setting up the lab environment.

Step 1: Sign up for IBM Cloud

Ensure you have an IBM Cloud ID

Step 2: Claim and Access IBM Cloud Kubernetes cluster

Use the IBM Kubernetes cluster provided for the workshop. Alternatively, you can provision a cluster and use it for this lab. Find the private endpoint and VRF enablement requirements here.

1. Login to IBM Cloud in a browser and select the appropirate account under which the cluster is provisioned.

2. Navigate to https://cloud.ibm.com/kubernetes/clusters to see a list of available IKS clusters. Select your IKS cluster from the list to open it to land at the cluster Overview page. Observe the information under Summary and note how the endpoints are enabled.

   

Step 3: Connecting to the Kubernetes cluster

1. In the left pane of Kubernetes cluster details page, select the Access tab. This page provides CLI commands to setup your IKS cluster using a terminal environment.

   

2. Click IBM Cloud Shell link next to your account number on the toolbar. It's on the top-right corner of the screen.

   

   This opens IBM Cloud Shell window in a new tab of your browser. Note that additions terminal sessions can be opened by clicking the + icon.

   

3. Execute the CLI commands listed on the Access tab of your IKS cluster details ppage (see above) sequentially to connect to your cluster.

   $ ibmcloud login -a cloud.ibm.com -r us-south -g Default
   API endpoint: https://cloud.ibm.com
   
   Email> rj@gmail.com
   
   Password> 
   Authenticating...
   OK
   
   Select an account:
   1. Rojan J's Account (6ec1c2ec26xx49d6b5ad8b632e629c3d)
   2. Amce Corp (2c426324dd934f71a2a053c9185791ff) <-> 6272168
   Enter a number> 2
   Targeted account Amce Corp (2c426324cc934f71a2a053c9185791ff) <-> 6272168
   
   Targeted resource group Default
   
   Targeted region us-south
   
   
   API endpoint:      https://cloud.ibm.com   
   Region:            us-south   
   User:              rj@gmail.com   
   Account:           Amce Corp (2c426324cc934f71a2a053c9185791ff) <-> 6272168   
   Resource group:    Default   
   CF API endpoint:      
   Org:                  
   Space:                
   

   $ ibmcloud ks cluster config --cluster c13mk2cd0pfrniovo4r0
   
   ....
   OK
   The configuration for c13mk2cd0pfrniovo4r0 was downloaded successfully.
   
   Added context for c13mk2cd0pfrniovo4r0 to the current kubeconfig file.
   You can now execute 'kubectl' commands against your cluster. For example, run 'kubectl get nodes'.
   If you are accessing the cluster for the first time, 'kubectl' commands might fail for a few seconds while RBAC synchronizes.
   

4. Use CLI command kubectl config current-context to verify the connection to your cluster before continue the exercise.

5. Store the cluster id in an environment variable. Copy the id from the cluster Overview tab as shown in the picture below and set that as the value for the MYCLUSTER variable.

   export MYCLUSTER=<your cluster id>
   

   Verify the cluster id set correctly.

   echo $MYCLUSTER
   

   $ echo $MYCLUSTER
   
   c13mk2cd0pfrniovo4r0
   

This completes the necessary prereqs for the labs.