Kubernetes Basics

Kubernetes Basics

Kubernetes is an open-source container orchestration platform that automates the deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications.

Core Concepts

Pods

The smallest deployable units in Kubernetes that can contain one or more containers.

Nodes

Physical or virtual machines that run your applications and constitute the Kubernetes cluster.

Clusters

A set of nodes that run containerized applications managed by Kubernetes.

Services

An abstract way to expose applications running on a set of pods as a network service.

Key Features

  1. Container Orchestration
    • Automated container deployment
    • Load balancing
    • Self-healing capabilities
  2. Scalability
    • Horizontal scaling
    • Auto-scaling
    • Rolling updates
  3. High Availability
    • Multi-node clusters
    • Pod replication
    • Service discovery

Getting Started

Installation

# Install kubectl
curl -LO "https://dl.k8s.io/release/$(curl -L -s https://dl.k8s.io/release/stable.txt)/bin/linux/amd64/kubectl"
sudo install -o root -g root -m 0755 kubectl /usr/local/bin/kubectl

# Install Minikube for local development
curl -LO https://storage.googleapis.com/minikube/releases/latest/minikube-linux-amd64
sudo install minikube-linux-amd64 /usr/local/bin/minikube

Basic Commands

# Start Minikube cluster
minikube start

# Deploy an application
kubectl create deployment nginx --image=nginx

# Expose the deployment
kubectl expose deployment nginx --port=80 --type=LoadBalancer

Best Practices

  1. Resource Management
    • Set resource requests and limits
    • Implement horizontal pod autoscaling
    • Use namespaces for organization
  2. Security
    • Enable RBAC
    • Use network policies
    • Implement pod security policies
  3. Monitoring
    • Deploy monitoring solutions
    • Set up logging aggregation
    • Implement alerts

Next Steps

  • Learn about Kubernetes manifests
  • Explore Helm package management
  • Study service mesh implementations
  • Implement GitOps workflows