Launching Pods with Kubernetes

In this lab, you would learn how to launch applications using the basic deployment unit of kubernetes i.e. pods. This time, you are going to do it by writing declarative configs with yaml syntax.

Launching Pods Manually

You could use kubectl run to launch a pod by specifying just the image.

For example, if you would like to launch a pod for redis, with image redis:alpine, the following command would work,

kubectl run redis  --image=redis

Kubernetes Resources and writing YAML specs

Each entity created with kubernetes is a resource including pod, service, deployments, replication controller etc. Resources can be defined as YAML or JSON. Here is the syntax to create a YAML specification.

AKMS => Resource Configs Specs

apiVersion: v1
kind:
metadata:
spec:

Use this Kubernetes API Reference Document while writing the API specs. This is the most important reference while working with kubernetes, so its highly advisible that you bookmark it for the version of kubernetes that you use.

To find the version of kubernetes use the following command,

kubectl version -o yaml

To list the running pods,

kubectl get pods

To list API objects, use the following commands,

kubectl api-resources

LAB PART I

Writing Pod Spec

Lets now create the Pod config by adding the kind and specs to schma given in the file vote-pod.yaml as follows.

Filename: k8s-code/pods/vote-pod.yaml

apiVersion:
kind: Pod
metadata:
spec:

Problem Statement: Create a YAML spec to launch a pod with one container to run vote application, which matches the following specs.

  • pod:
    • metadata:
    • name: vote
    • labels:
      • app: python
      • role: vote
      • version: v1
  • containers:
    • name: app
    • image: schoolofdevops/vote:v1

Refer to the Pod Spec find out the relevant properties and add it to the vote-pod.yaml provided in the supporting code repo.

Filename: k8s-code/pods/vote-pod.yaml

apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  name: vote
  labels:
    app: python
    role: vote
    version: v1
spec:
  containers:
    - name: app
      image: schoolofdevops/vote:v1

Use this example link to refer to pod spec

Launching and operating Pods

To launch a monitoring screen to see whats being launched, use the following command in a new terminal window where kubectl is configured.

watch kubectl get all

kubectl Syntax:

kubectl
kubectl apply --help
kubectl apply -f FILE

to do a dry run before applying use the following command,

kubectl apply -f vote-pod.yaml --dry-run=client

to finally launch pod using configs above, remove dry run options and run as

kubectl apply -f vote-pod.yaml

To view pods

kubectl get pods

kubectl get po

kubectl get pods -o wide

kubectl get pods --show-labels

kubectl get pods -l "role=vote,version=v1"

kubectl get pods vote

To get detailed info

kubectl describe pods vote

Commands to operate the pod


kubectl logs vote

kubectl exec -it vote  sh


Run the following commands inside the container in a pod after running exec command as above

ifconfig
cat /etc/issue
hostname
cat /proc/cpuinfo
ps aux

use ^d or exit to log out

LAB PART II

Adding a Volume for data persistence

Lets create a pod for database and attach a volume to it. To achieve this we will need to

  • create a volumes definition
  • attach volume to container using VolumeMounts property

Local host volumes are of two types:

  • emptyDir
  • hostPath

We will pick hostPath. Refer to this doc to read more about hostPath.

File: db-pod.yaml

apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  name: db
  labels:
    app: postgres
    role: database
    tier: back
spec:
  containers:
    - name: db
      image: postgres:9.4
      ports:
        - containerPort: 5432
      volumeMounts:
      - name: db-data
        mountPath: /var/lib/postgresql/data
  volumes:
  - name: db-data
    hostPath:
      path: /var/lib/pgdata
      type: DirectoryOrCreate

To create this pod,

kubectl apply -f db-pod.yaml

kubectl get pods

At this time, you may see the pod in CrashLoopBackOff state. Try debugging the issue by checking the logs and resolve it before proceeding.

Once resolved, check the pod is in running state

kubectl get pods

kubectl describe pod db

kubectl get events

Exercise : Examine /var/lib/pgdata on the node on which its scheduled (use kubectl get pods -o wide to find the node) to check if the directory is been created and if the data is present.

Creating Multi Container Pods - Sidecar Example

file: multi_container_pod.yaml

apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  name: web
  labels:
    tier: front
    app: nginx
    role: ui
spec:
  containers:
    - name: nginx
      image: nginx:stable-alpine
      ports:
        - containerPort: 80
          protocol: TCP
      volumeMounts:
        - name: data
          mountPath: /var/www/html-sample-app

    - name: sync
      image: schoolofdevops/sync:v2
      volumeMounts:
        - name: data
          mountPath: /var/www/app

  volumes:
    - name: data
      emptyDir: {}

To create this pod

kubectl apply -f multi_container_pod.yaml

Check Status

root@kube-01:~# kubectl get pods
NAME      READY     STATUS              RESTARTS   AGE
web     0/2       ContainerCreating   0          7s
vote      1/1       Running             0          3m

Checking logs, logging in

kubectl logs  web  -c sync
kubectl logs  web  -c nginx

kubectl exec -it web  sh  -c nginx
kubectl exec -it web  sh  -c sync

Observe whats common and whats isolated in two containers running inside the same pod using the following commands,

shared

hostname
ifconfig

isolated

cat /etc/issue
ps aux
df -h

Adding Resource requests and limits

We can control the amount of resource requested and also put a limit on the maximum a container in a pod could take up. This can be done by adding to the existing pod spec as below. Refer to official document on resource management here.

Filename: vote-pod.yaml

apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  name: vote
  labels:
    app: python
    role: vote
    version: v1
spec:
  containers:
    - name: app
      image: schoolofdevops/vote:v1
      resources:
        requests:
          memory: "64Mi"
          cpu: "50m"
        limits:
          memory: "128Mi"
          cpu: "250m"

Lets apply the changes now

kubectl apply -f vote-pod.yaml

If you already have vote pod running, you may see an output similar to below,

[sample output]

The Pod "vote" is invalid: spec: Forbidden: pod updates may not change fields other than `spec.containers[*].image`, `spec.initContainers[*].image`, `spec.activeDeadlineSeconds` or `spec.tolerations` (only additions to existing tolerations)
{"Volumes":[{"Name":"default-token-snbj4","HostPath":null,"EmptyDir":null,"GCEPersistentDisk":null,"AWSElasticBlockStore":null,"GitRepo":null,"Secret":{"SecretName":"default-token-snbj4","Items":null,"DefaultMode":420,"Optional":null},"NFS":null,"ISCSI":null,"Glusterfs":null,"PersistentVolumeClaim":null,"RBD":null,"Quobyte":null,"FlexVolume":null,"Cinder":null,"CephFS":null,"Flocker":null,"DownwardAPI":null,"FC":null,"AzureFile":null,"ConfigMap":null,"VsphereVolume":null,"AzureDisk":null,"PhotonPersistentDisk":null,"Projected":null,"PortworxVolume":null,"ScaleIO":null,"StorageOS":null}],"InitContainers":null,"Containers":[{"Name":"app","Image":"schoolofdevops/vote:v1","Command":null,"Args":null,"WorkingDir":"","Ports":null,"EnvFrom":null,"Env":null,"Resources":{"Limits":
....
...

From the above output, its clear that not all the fields are mutable(except for a few e.g labels). Container based deployments primarily follow concept of immutable deployments. So to bring your change into effect, you need to re create the pod as,

kubectl delete pod vote

kubectl apply -f vote-pod.yaml

kubectl describe pod vote

From the output of the describe command above, you could confirm the resource constraints you added are in place.

Exercise

* Define the value of **cpu.request** > **cpu.limit** Try to apply and observe.
* Define the values for **memory.request** and **memory.limit** higher than the total system memory. Apply and observe the deployment and pods.

Deleting Pods

Now that you are done experimenting with pod, delete it with the following command,

kubectl delete pod vote web db

kubectl get pods

Reading List