is a lightweight, pure-upstream Kubernetes aiming to reduce entry barriers for K8s and cloud-native application development. It comes in a single package that installs a single-node (standalone) K8s cluster in under 60 seconds. The lightweight nature of Apica Ascent PaaS enables you to deploy Apica Ascent on lightweight, single-node clusters like MicroK8s. The following guide takes you through deploying Apica Ascent PaaS on MicroK8s.
Prerequisites
Ubuntu OS x64 22.04 LTS or RedHat Enterprise Linux 8/9
32 vCPU
64GB RAM
500GB disk space on the root partition
Installing MicroK8s
The first step in this deployment is to install MicroK8s on your machine.
The following instructions pertain to Debian-based Linux systems.
Update package lists by running the following command.
sudo apt-get -y update
Install core using Snap by running the following command.
sudo snap install core
Install MicroK8s using Snap by running the following command.
Join the group created by MicroK8s that enables uninterrupted usage of commands that require admin access by running the following command.
sudo usermod -a -G microk8s $USER
Create the .kube directory.
mkdir ~/.kube
Add your current user to the group to gain access to the .kube caching directory by running the following command.
sudo chown -f -R $USER ~/.kube
Generate your MicroK8s configuration and merge it with your Kubernetes configuration by running the following command.
sudo microk8s config > ~/.kube/config
Check whether MicroK8s is up and running with the following command.
sudo microk8s status
MicroK8s is now installed on your machine.
The following instructions pertain to RHEL-based Linux systems.
Update package lists by running the following command.
we need to use following commands to install microk8s on Red Hat
sudo yum -y update
# Follow the article for installation of [microk8s] (https://snapcraft.io/install/microk8s/rhel)
# The EPEL repository can be added to RHEL 9 with the following command:
sudo dnf install https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-9.noarch.rpm
sudo dnf upgrade
# The EPEL repository can be added to RHEL 8 with the following command:
sudo dnf install https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-8.noarch.rpm
sudo dnf upgrade
Once you added these repl repos to server we need to run the below commands - Note: If you are running RHEL On-Premises with Red Hat CDN (Connected Environment) where subscription management is handled automatically:
sudo subscription-manager repos --enable "rhel-*-optional-rpms" --enable "rhel-*-extras-rpms"
sudo yum -y update
# If you are using RHEL in Disconnected or Air-Gapped Environments
# like cloud environments AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud then you need to
# run below commands in order to pull RHEL updates via RHUI:
sudo yum-config-manager --enable codeready-builder-for-rhel-8-rhui-rpms
sudo yum-config-manager --enable rhel-8-supplementary-rhui-rpms
# Enable snapd for installation
sudo yum install snapd
sudo systemctl enable --now snapd.socket
sudo ln -s /var/lib/snapd/snap /snap
Install core using Snap by running the following command.
sudo snap install core
# In case the core installation gives timeouts or throws any error because
# snapd socket couldn't activate, then try the following commands to install
# core successfully:
sudo dnf install -y epel-release
sudo dnf update -y
sudo dnf install -y snapd
systemctl status snapd.socket
sudo systemctl disable --now snapd.socket
sudo systemctl restart snapd
sudo ln -s /var/lib/snapd/snap /snap
sudo snap install core
sudo firewall-cmd --add-service=https --permanent
sudo firewall-cmd --reload
sudo snap refresh core
yum repolist
sudo snap install core
Install MicroK8s using Snap by running the following command.
Join the group created by MicroK8s that enables uninterrupted usage of commands that require admin access by running the following command.
sudo usermod -a -G microk8s $USER
Create the .kube directory.
mkdir ~/.kube
Add your current user to the group to gain access to the .kube caching directory by running the following command.
sudo chown -f -R $USER ~/.kube
Generate your MicroK8s configuration and merge it with your Kubernetes configuration by running the following command.
microk8s config > ~/.kube/config
Check whether MicroK8s is up and running with the following command.
microk8s status
MicroK8s is now installed on your machine.
Enabling add-ons
Now that we have MicroK8s up and running, let’s set up your cluster and enable the add-ons necessary such as Helm, CoreDNS, ingress, storage, and private registry. MicroK8s readily provides these addons and can be enabled and disabled at any time. Most of these add-ons are pre-configured to work without any additional setup.
To enable add-ons on your MicroK8s cluster, run the following commands in succession.
Enable Helm 3.
microk8s enable helm3
If you get a message telling you have insufficient permissions, a few of the commands above which tried to interpolate your current user into the command with the $USER variable did not work. You can easily fix it by adding your user to the microk8s group by specifying the name of the user explicitly:
This command creates a secret named "https" containing the TLS keys for use in your Kubernetes cluster. Ensure you have the cert.crt and cert.key files in your current directory or specify full paths.
To enable Ingress on microk8s with a default SSL certificate, issue the following command:
Note: This step is optional and will depend on your individual access needs - for instance, if you need to access the PaaS instance from a certain IP. You can skip this step if you are installing the app locally - in that case, you can access the UI after installation via the machine's public IP address.
Note: Since MetalLB is available as an add-on for MicroK8s, you can also run these steps while enabling add-ons for your MicroK8s cluster.
To provision an IP address, do the following:
Check your local machine's IP address by running the ifconfig command, as shown below.
microk8s enable metallb
Enabling MetalLB
Enter each IP address range delimited by comma (e.g. '10.64.140.43-10.64.140.49,192.168.0.105-192.168.0.111'): 192.168.1.27-192.168.1.27
Note: MetalLB will not work on macOS due to network filtering that macOS applies. MetalLB might not work if you're provisioning an EC2 instance on AWS due to your private/public IP configuration.
Installing Apica Ascent PaaS
Now that your MicroK8s environment is configured and ready, we can proceed with installing Apica Ascent PaaS on it. To install Apica Ascent PaaS using Helm, do the following:
Add the Apica Ascent PaaS Helm chart to your Helm repository by running the following command.
Create a namespace on MicroK8s on which to install Apica Ascent PaaS.
microk8s kubectl create namespace apica-ascent
Make sure you have the necessary permissions to copy a file to the specified folder on the Linux machine.
microk8s enable metallb
Enabling MetalLB
Enter each IP address range delimited by comma (e.g. '10.64.140.43-10.64.140.49,192.168.0.105-192.168.0.111'): 192.168.1.27-192.168.1.27
In the values file, add the below fields global-> environment section with your own values.
If you see a large wall of text listing configuration values, the installation was successful - Ascent PaaS is now installed in your MicroK8s environment!
Spin up an internal S3 bucket using minio - If you are not using S3 cloud related variables in the values.yaml file and want to create an internal S3 bucket, then create a s3-batch.yaml file and execute the below batch job to spin S3 bucket using minio:
Create s3-batch.yaml file and insert the below contents:
Delete the Thanos pods (apica-ascent-thanos-compactor-XXXXXX and apica-ascent-thanos-storegateway-0) so it can created again after applying the s3-batch.yaml:
kubectl delete pod apica-ascent-thanos-storegateway-0 apica-ascent-thanos-compactor-XXXXXX -n apica-ascent
Accessing Apica Ascent PaaS
Now that Apica Ascent PaaS is installed on your MicroK8s cluster, you can visit the Apica Ascent PaaS UI by either accessing the MetalLB endpoint we defined in the pre-install steps (if you installed/configured MetalLB), or by accessing the public IP address of the instance over HTTP(S) (if you aren't utilizing MetalLB).
If you are load balancing the hosting across multiple IPs using MetalLB, do the following to access the Apica Ascent PaaS UI:
Inspect the pods in your MicroK8s cluster in the apica-ascent namespace by running the following command.
microk8s kubectl get pod -n apica-ascent
Find the exact MetalLB endpoint that's serving the Apica Ascent PaaS UI by running the following command.
microk8s kubectl get service -n apica-ascent |grep -i loadbalancer
The above command should give you an output similar to the following.
Using a web browser of your choice, access the IP address shown by the load balancer service above. For example, http://192.168.1.27:80.
If you aren't utilizing MetalLB, you can access the Ascent UI simply by accessing the public IP or hostname of your machine over HTTP(S); you can utilize HTTPS by following the "enabling HTTPS" step in the "Enabling Add-Ons" section above.
You can log into Apica Ascent PaaS using the following default credentials.
Username: flash-admin@foo.com
Password: flash-password
Note: You can change the default login credentials after you've logged into the UI.
MicroK8s Networking Note:
Services default to host IP using NodePort/ClusterIP; MetalLB is enabled for explicit LoadBalancer use only. Automatic MetalLB IP assignment is disabled.
4. Deactivates MetalLB, enabling services of type LoadBalancer to utilize the host's IP, thereby designating the host as the load
microk8s kubectl disable metallb
Troubleshooting
If we have any issues on injecting the logs are something then we have to add new paths that we need to add as part of upgrade of the image, from cli edit the ingress.
microk8s kubectl get ingress -n<namespace>
microk8s kubectl edit ingress -n<namespace>
ubuntu@ip-172-31-31-72:~$ microk8s status
microk8s is not running. Use microk8s inspect for a deeper inspection.
ubuntu@ip-172-31-31-72:~$ microk8s start
Restarting the Ascent installation after a failed installation
If the Ascent installation using the supplied .yaml file fails, you must first remove the name in use. Error text:
Error: INSTALLATION FAILED: cannot re-use a name that is still in use
helm.go:84: [debug] cannot re-use a name that is still in use
helm.sh/helm/v3/pkg/action.(*Install).availableName
...
In this step, we'll provision an endpoint or an IP address where we access Apica Ascent PaaS after deploying it on MicroK8s. For this, we'll leverage which is a load-balancer implementation that uses standard routing protocols for bare metal Kubernetes clusters.
Prepare your values.microk8s.yaml file. You can use the file we've created to configure your Apica Ascent PaaS deployment. If you need to download the file to your own machine, edit, and then transfer to a remote linux server, use this command:
Optionally, if you are provisioning public IP using Metallb, use the instead. run the following command.