4 ms·

Get started with KVM and Kubernetes

72 points by alexellisuk 9y ago

Annatar 9y ago
To the author: I would like to know why you stubbornly keep promoting Linux/KVM and keep ignoring SmartOS as if it did not exist at all?
- polskibus 9y ago
  what's smartos?
  - dijit 9y ago
    Solaris based hypervisor/container focused OS I tried running it (for mostly ideological reasons) on a couple of Macs I had lying around. Not only was it impossible to run on the Macs due to lack of EFI in SmartOS it was also problematic on other machines I had once I got it to even install. (they have their own answer to libvirt) If I were to run a hypervisor today Id run coreOS or fedora. But there are no bad options if it fits your usecase.
    - Annatar 9y ago
      How does one install something which runs from RAM and requires no installation?
      - dijit 9y ago
        Like so: https://wiki.smartos.org/display/DOC/Getting+Started+with+SmartOS#GettingStartedwithSmartOS-CreatingaPersistentzpool https://wiki.smartos.org/display/DOC/Getting+Started+with+Sm...
        Annatar 9y ago
        That is not an operating system installation, rather it’s just the ZFS pool storage setup; you could import it later in any OS which has ZFS. There isn’t anything to install with SmartOS and I should know, I build my own version of it. The document even tells you that this is not an installer: “This is not an installer and does not install the live image. The script is simply for data setup. You will still need to boot from live media.” Whoever can read is at a distinct advantage.
- jlgaddis 9y ago
  Wow. There are a huge number of reasons why this may be the case. This is, AFAICT, a personal blog and so I, personally, don't believe that the author owes you -- or anyone else -- any explanation whatsoever for what topics they choose to write about and/or what tools they choose to either "promote" or "ignore". Why do you feel otherwise?
  - dominotw 9y ago
    GP seems like someone who has an axe to grid. Either against the author or against docker/kubernetes. He seems to show up with disparaging remarks whenever there is thread linking to that domain https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16104682 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16104682
  - Annatar 9y ago
    For a very simple reason: Linux/KVM, being a paravirtualized, hard partitioning solution is vastly inferior to kernel virtualization in SmartOS. Additionally, Kubernetes is an order of magnitude more complex to run than Triton. Whether the author owes me anything or not is irrelevant: I‘d still like to know why he keeps on doing that.
mgbmtl 9y ago
As someone who mostly works with a few dozen KVM instances and who will soon have to consider something like Kubernetes to facilitate growth, this was a very good read.
deadbunny 9y ago
I was really hoping this was about running kvm on k8s, not the other way round. Other than hand holding you through how to spin up some kvm machines I'm not sure what this offeres over the official docs on how to install k8s...
- alexellisuk 9y ago
  This is about setting up KVM VMs - not about Kubernetes, it uses Kubernetes as an example application that you can run on your KVM VMs. See the blog post outline: > This post is going to focus on how to create a cluster of Virtual Machines (VMs) using KVM at home in the interests of promoting learning and exploration.
  - deadbunny 9y ago
    Yes I am able to read, thanks. Not sure why you're replying though, given the title and the existence of projects to run kvm on k8s I think it's fairly obvious why I made my post: > Get started with KVM and Kubernetes >> I was really hoping this was about running kvm on k8s, not the other way round. To fill in the blanks: >> I was really hoping [given the title of this post] this was about running kvm on k8s [given there are projects to do just this], not the other way round. Other than hand holding you through how to spin up some kvm machines I'm not sure what this offers over the official docs on how to install k8s...
    - alexellisuk 9y ago
      Have you looked at Kubevirt? https://github.com/kubevirt/kubevirt https://github.com/kubevirt/kubevirt Might be what you're after..
      - deadbunny 9y ago
        You have to be trolling now surely? Of course I have (this being one of the projects alluded to in my last post), which is why I was interested in a blog post about it. Hence the disappointment stated in my first comment...
iatrou 9y ago
For a lightweight single-host deployment of Kubernetes, it's worth considering LXD and conjure-up https://tutorials.ubuntu.com/tutorial/install-kubernetes-with-conjure-up https://tutorials.ubuntu.com/tutorial/install-kubernetes-wit...
- drdaeman 9y ago
  How all this juju compares to `kubeadm init`?
  - bryanlarsen 9y ago
    kubeadm only does single master deployments, so it's not useful for production, but minikube is much better IMO for development. (Minikube isn't just a VM wrapper, `minikube --vm-driver=none` works quite nicely for our dev setups). kubeadm is turning into more of a building block: minikube and kubespray are using it.
    - alexellisuk 9y ago
      I used to think the same, but Weaveworks and Lucas (Kubeadm maintainer) both state kubeadm is production-ready and that K8s doesn't need HA to run in production.
bryanlarsen 9y ago
Kubernetes on KVM: `minikube start --vm-driver=kvm`
- alexellisuk 9y ago
  That is useful too, but this is not Kubernetes on KVM blog post, it's getting started with KVM using Kubernetes as an example of a workload you can run.
alexellisuk 9y ago
Just to clarify the purpose of this blog post as I can see a few people are getting a slightly different message to intended. It doesn't claim to be the preferred or only way to install Kubernetes. It is primarily focused on my audience of Docker / container users. I want to show how it's possible to use KVM to set up VMs easily on Linux and relate that back to something they use often - i.e. Kubernetes. > In this post I want to introduce KVM - Linux's native approach to virtualization. > This post is going to focus on how to create a cluster of Virtual Machines (VMs) using KVM at home in the interests of promoting learning and exploration. If people want help picking the "right solution" for installing Kubernetes for production usage then checkout the documentation - https://kubernetes.io/docs/setup/pick-right-solution/ https://kubernetes.io/docs/setup/pick-right-solution/

72 points by alexellisuk 9y ago

To the author: I would like to know why you stubbornly keep promoting Linux/KVM and keep ignoring SmartOS as if it did not exist at all?

polskibus 9y ago
what's smartos?
- dijit 9y ago
  Solaris based hypervisor/container focused OS I tried running it (for mostly ideological reasons) on a couple of Macs I had lying around. Not only was it impossible to run on the Macs due to lack of EFI in SmartOS it was also problematic on other machines I had once I got it to even install. (they have their own answer to libvirt) If I were to run a hypervisor today Id run coreOS or fedora. But there are no bad options if it fits your usecase.
  - Annatar 9y ago
    How does one install something which runs from RAM and requires no installation?
    - dijit 9y ago
      Like so: https://wiki.smartos.org/display/DOC/Getting+Started+with+SmartOS#GettingStartedwithSmartOS-CreatingaPersistentzpool https://wiki.smartos.org/display/DOC/Getting+Started+with+Sm...
      - Annatar 9y ago
        That is not an operating system installation, rather it’s just the ZFS pool storage setup; you could import it later in any OS which has ZFS. There isn’t anything to install with SmartOS and I should know, I build my own version of it. The document even tells you that this is not an installer: “This is not an installer and does not install the live image. The script is simply for data setup. You will still need to boot from live media.” Whoever can read is at a distinct advantage.
jlgaddis 9y ago
Wow. There are a huge number of reasons why this may be the case. This is, AFAICT, a personal blog and so I, personally, don't believe that the author owes you -- or anyone else -- any explanation whatsoever for what topics they choose to write about and/or what tools they choose to either "promote" or "ignore". Why do you feel otherwise?
- dominotw 9y ago
  GP seems like someone who has an axe to grid. Either against the author or against docker/kubernetes. He seems to show up with disparaging remarks whenever there is thread linking to that domain https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16104682 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16104682
- Annatar 9y ago
  For a very simple reason: Linux/KVM, being a paravirtualized, hard partitioning solution is vastly inferior to kernel virtualization in SmartOS. Additionally, Kubernetes is an order of magnitude more complex to run than Triton. Whether the author owes me anything or not is irrelevant: I‘d still like to know why he keeps on doing that.

mgbmtl 9y ago

As someone who mostly works with a few dozen KVM instances and who will soon have to consider something like Kubernetes to facilitate growth, this was a very good read.

deadbunny 9y ago

I was really hoping this was about running kvm on k8s, not the other way round. Other than hand holding you through how to spin up some kvm machines I'm not sure what this offeres over the official docs on how to install k8s...

alexellisuk 9y ago
This is about setting up KVM VMs - not about Kubernetes, it uses Kubernetes as an example application that you can run on your KVM VMs. See the blog post outline: > This post is going to focus on how to create a cluster of Virtual Machines (VMs) using KVM at home in the interests of promoting learning and exploration.
- deadbunny 9y ago
  Yes I am able to read, thanks. Not sure why you're replying though, given the title and the existence of projects to run kvm on k8s I think it's fairly obvious why I made my post: > Get started with KVM and Kubernetes >> I was really hoping this was about running kvm on k8s, not the other way round. To fill in the blanks: >> I was really hoping [given the title of this post] this was about running kvm on k8s [given there are projects to do just this], not the other way round. Other than hand holding you through how to spin up some kvm machines I'm not sure what this offers over the official docs on how to install k8s...
  - alexellisuk 9y ago
    Have you looked at Kubevirt? https://github.com/kubevirt/kubevirt https://github.com/kubevirt/kubevirt Might be what you're after..
    - deadbunny 9y ago
      You have to be trolling now surely? Of course I have (this being one of the projects alluded to in my last post), which is why I was interested in a blog post about it. Hence the disappointment stated in my first comment...

iatrou 9y ago

For a lightweight single-host deployment of Kubernetes, it's worth considering LXD and conjure-up https://tutorials.ubuntu.com/tutorial/install-kubernetes-with-conjure-up https://tutorials.ubuntu.com/tutorial/install-kubernetes-wit...

drdaeman 9y ago
How all this juju compares to `kubeadm init`?
- bryanlarsen 9y ago
  kubeadm only does single master deployments, so it's not useful for production, but minikube is much better IMO for development. (Minikube isn't just a VM wrapper, `minikube --vm-driver=none` works quite nicely for our dev setups). kubeadm is turning into more of a building block: minikube and kubespray are using it.
  - alexellisuk 9y ago
    I used to think the same, but Weaveworks and Lucas (Kubeadm maintainer) both state kubeadm is production-ready and that K8s doesn't need HA to run in production.

bryanlarsen 9y ago

Kubernetes on KVM: `minikube start --vm-driver=kvm`

alexellisuk 9y ago
That is useful too, but this is not Kubernetes on KVM blog post, it's getting started with KVM using Kubernetes as an example of a workload you can run.

alexellisuk 9y ago

Just to clarify the purpose of this blog post as I can see a few people are getting a slightly different message to intended. It doesn't claim to be the preferred or only way to install Kubernetes. It is primarily focused on my audience of Docker / container users. I want to show how it's possible to use KVM to set up VMs easily on Linux and relate that back to something they use often - i.e. Kubernetes. > In this post I want to introduce KVM - Linux's native approach to virtualization. > This post is going to focus on how to create a cluster of Virtual Machines (VMs) using KVM at home in the interests of promoting learning and exploration. If people want help picking the "right solution" for installing Kubernetes for production usage then checkout the documentation - https://kubernetes.io/docs/setup/pick-right-solution/ https://kubernetes.io/docs/setup/pick-right-solution/