Kubernetes for Beginners: Setting Up a Local Environment and Deploying on AWS

Kubernetes (K8s) is the industry-standard container orchestration platform, widely used for managing containerized applications at scale. If you’re new to Kubernetes and want to get hands-on experience, this tutorial will guide you through setting up a local environment and deploying an application on Amazon EKS (Elastic Kubernetes Service) using Terraform and kubectl.

Prerequisites

Before we begin, ensure you have the following installed on your local machine:

• AWS CLI
• Terraform
• kubectl
• An AWS account with IAM access to create EKS clusters

Step 1: Configuring AWS Credentials and Profiles

First, set up AWS credentials using the AWS CLI:

aws configure --profile my-profile

Enter your AWS Access Key ID, Secret Access Key, Region, and default output format.

To verify that your profile is set up correctly, run:

aws sts get-caller-identity --profile my-profile

Step 2: Deploying an Amazon EKS Cluster Using Terraform

We will use Terraform to provision an EKS cluster. Create a new directory and initialize a Terraform project:

mkdir k8s-eks-setup && cd k8s-eks-setup

Create a main.tf file with the following Terraform configuration:

provider "aws" {
  region  = "us-west-2"
  profile = "my-profile"
}

resource "aws_eks_cluster" "my_cluster" {
  name     = "my-eks-cluster"
  role_arn = aws_iam_role.eks_role.arn
  vpc_config {
    subnet_ids = [aws_subnet.public1.id, aws_subnet.public2.id]
  }
}

Run the following commands to deploy the cluster:

terraform init
terraform apply -auto-approve

Once complete, retrieve the cluster details:

aws eks --region us-west-2 update-kubeconfig --name my-eks-cluster --profile my-profile

This sets up kubectl to communicate with your EKS cluster.

Step 3: Deploying a Basic Application on Kubernetes

Now that we have a working Kubernetes cluster, let’s deploy a simple nginx application.

Create a file named deployment.yaml:

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: nginx-deployment
spec:
  replicas: 2
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: nginx
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: nginx
    spec:
      containers:
      - name: nginx
        image: nginx:latest
        ports:
        - containerPort: 80

Deploy it using:

kubectl apply -f deployment.yaml

Check if the pods are running:

kubectl get pods

Step 4: Exposing the Application with a Load Balancer

To make the application accessible externally, create a service.yaml file:

apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: nginx-service
spec:
  type: LoadBalancer
  selector:
    app: nginx
  ports:
    - protocol: TCP
      port: 80
      targetPort: 80

Apply the service:

kubectl apply -f service.yaml

Retrieve the external LoadBalancer URL:

kubectl get services

Once the EXTERNAL-IP is available, open it in a browser to see the running nginx app!

Step 5: Basic Kubernetes Commands

Here are some essential kubectl commands to interact with your cluster:

• List all nodes:

kubectl get nodes

• List all pods:

kubectl get pods

• Get detailed pod info:

kubectl describe pod <pod-name>

• Check logs of a pod:

kubectl logs <pod-name>

• Execute a command inside a running pod:

kubectl exec -it <pod-name> -- /bin/sh

• Scale a deployment:

kubectl scale deployment nginx-deployment --replicas=4

• Delete a deployment:

kubectl delete deployment nginx-deployment

• Check cluster events:

kubectl get events

• Get cluster configuration details:

kubectl cluster-info

• Delete a deployment:

kubectl delete deployment nginx-deployment

Conclusion

Congratulations! You’ve successfully set up a local environment, deployed an Amazon EKS cluster with Terraform, and launched an nginx application using Kubernetes.

This is just the beginning — stay tuned for the next tutorial, where we’ll dive deeper into Kubernetes networking, autoscaling, and monitoring.

📢 Have questions or feedback? Drop a comment below or connect with me on Twitter/X@spysood!

Originally published on Medium.