1 Introduction

Describes how to create a Kubernetes cluster using the Oracle Cloud Native Environment CLI. The cluster is created using the libvirt provider.

The libvirt provider creates a virtualized cluster on the local host using the Oracle KVM stack. This is the fastest method to create a cluster with Oracle Cloud Native Environment.

The libvirt provider is the default cluster provider, and can be used to provision Kubernetes clusters using Kernel-based Virtual Machines (KVM). The Oracle KVM stack is used to install libvirt as this KVM version offers many more features for Oracle Linux systems.

The libvirt provider provisions Kubernetes clusters using libvirt on a single host, and is useful for creating and destroying Kubernetes clusters for testing and development. While the libvirt provider can be used for test and development clusters, it does deploy a production worthy cluster configuration.

Important:

As all libvirt cluster nodes are running on a single host, be aware that if the host running the cluster goes down, so do all the cluster nodes.

You can also create clusters using other providers, and information on those providers is available in Oracle Cloud Native Environment: Kubernetes Clusters.

Steps are also provided to expose the Oracle Cloud Native Environment UI, and install applications from the default application catalog.

You're guided through:

  1. Installing the CLI on an Oracle Linux host. The host can be Oracle Linux 8 or 9.

  2. Setting up the Oracle KVM stack on the host.

  3. Using the CLI to create a Kubernetes cluster using the libvirt provider. This is a virtualized cluster, running on the localhost. Use the ocne cluster start command to create a default, single node, cluster. You can also use ocne cluster start command options, or a cluster configuration file, to customize the cluster to add more nodes.

  4. Creating a Kubernetes access token to access the UI. The UI is installed by default in the cluster.

  5. Exposing the UI on the localhost using port forwarding.

  6. Installing applications from the default application catalog available in the UI. You can use the CLI or the UI to search for, and install applications. Both CLI and UI options are provided.