Quickstart

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This guide walks you through creating your first Rackspace Spot Kubernetes cluster (Cloudspace), accessing it, and deploying a simple application.

Step 1: Click Quick Start Button

Navigate to the dashboard and click "Quick Start"

Step 2: Review Cluster Preset

Quickstart shows you recommended configuration options for your cloudspace cluster. On this page you can adjust the configuration to suit your needs and click "Go to Summary" when finished.

Step 3: Add payment information and Deploy

Cluster creation typically takes 5-15 minutes as worker nodes are acquired and configured.

Cluster creation typically takes 5-15 minutes as worker nodes are acquired and configured. You can proceed to downloading the kubeconfig and getting setup locally to access your cluster while worker nodes provision.

Step 4: Access Your Cloudspace

Navigate to the Kubeconfig section on the sidebar then click the "Download" button. This file contains the credentials needed to access your cluster.

Configure kubectl: Ensure you have kubectl installed. Place the downloaded kubeconfig file in a secure location. Tell kubectl to use it:

# Option 1: Set KUBECONFIG environment variable export KUBECONFIG=/path/to/your/downloaded-kubeconfig.yaml # Option 2: Merge with your existing ~/.kube/config # Backup your existing config first cp ~/.kube/config ~/.kube/config.backup KUBECONFIG=~/.kube/config:/path/to/your/downloaded-kubeconfig.yaml kubectl config view --flatten > ~/.kube/config.new mv ~/.kube/config.new ~/.kube/config

(See Access your Cloudspace via kubectl for more details)

Verify Connection: Test your connection and view your cluster nodes:

kubectl get nodes -A

You should see the nodes from the server pool(s) you created listed with a Ready status. If you do not see any nodes check the spot dashboard to see if provisioning is still in progress or if there is an issue with your node pool.

Step 5: Deploy a Sample Application

Let's deploy a simple Nginx web server.

Create a Deployment: This tells Kubernetes to run Nginx containers.

kubectl create deployment nginx-quickstart --image=nginx:latest

Expose the Deployment: Create a Service of type LoadBalancer to make Nginx accessible externally. Rackspace Spot will provision a load balancer for you.

To access this example locally we will use port forwarding:

kubectl port-forward deployment/nginx-quickstart 8080:80

While the port-forward command is running, access Nginx at:

http://localhost:8080

To terminate the connection, press Ctrl+C in the terminal.

To expose the example deployment via Node Port use the following command:

kubectl create service nodeport nginx-nodeport --tcp=80:80 --node-port=30080 --selector=app=nginx-quickstart # Find the NodePort Service details kubectl get service nginx-nodeport # Access your NGINX (replace with your node's IP) # http://<node-ip>:30080

Access your NGINX (replace with your node's IP)

http://<node-ip>:30080

Warning

Load balancers are billed at $10/mo. See additional details: Load Balancers

Expose nginx via a loadbalancer to access externally

kubectl expose deployment nginx-quickstart --port=80 --type=LoadBalancer

Find the External IP: It might take a minute or two for the load balancer to get an external IP address. Check the service status:

kubectl get service nginx-quickstart

Initially, the EXTERNAL-IP will show as <pending> while Rackspace Spot provisions the load balancer. After a few minutes, an external IP address will be assigned.

Look for the EXTERNAL-IP value. Once it appears, you can access the Nginx welcome page by navigating to http://<EXTERNAL-IP> in your web browser.

(See Deploy your Application for more examples)

Next Steps

Congratulations! You've created a Rackspace Spot Cloudspace and deployed an application.

Explore Spot vs On-Demand to understand hybrid clusters.
Learn about Pre-emption
Review Bidding Best Practices
Review Adding Servers.

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