Welcome to my opinionated and extensible template for deploying a single Kubernetes cluster. The goal of this project is to make it easier for people interested in using Kubernetes to deploy a cluster at home on bare-metal or VMs. This template closely mirrors my personal home-ops repository.
At a high level this project makes use of makejinja to read in a configuration file which renders out templates that will allow you to install and manage your Kubernetes cluster with.
The features included will depend on the type of configuration you want to use. There are currently 2 different types of configurations available with this template.
"Flux cluster" - a Kubernetes cluster deployed on-top of Talos Linux with an opinionated implementation of Flux using GitHub as the Git provider and sops to manage secrets.
"Flux cluster with Cloudflare" - An addition to "Flux cluster" that provides DNS and SSL with Cloudflare. Cloudflare Tunnel is also included to provide external access to certain applications deployed in your cluster.
Other features include:
[!NOTE]
- The included behaviour of Talos is that all nodes are able to run workloads, including the controller nodes. Worker nodes are therefore optional.
- Do you have 3 or more nodes? It is highly recommended to make 3 of them controller nodes for a highly available control plane.
- Running the cluster on Proxmox VE? My thoughts and recommendations about that are documented here.
| Role | Cores | Memory | System Disk |
|---|---|---|---|
| Control | 4 (6*) | 8GB (24GB*) | 120GB (500GB*) SSD/NVMe |
| Worker | 4 (6*) | 8GB (24GB*) | 120GB (500GB*) SSD/NVMe |
| * recommended |
Head over to https://factory.talos.dev and follow the instructions which will eventually lead you to download a Talos Linux iso file (or for SBCs the .raw.xz). Make sure to note the schematic ID you will need this later on.
Flash the iso or raw file to a USB drive and boot to Talos on your nodes with it.
Continue on to 🚀 Getting Started
Once you have installed Talos on your nodes, there are six stages to getting a Flux-managed cluster up and running.
[!NOTE] For all stages below the commands MUST be ran on your personal workstation within your repository directory
Create a new public repository by clicking the big green "Use this template" button at the top of this page.
Clone your new repo to you local workstation and cd into it.
Continue on to 🌱 Stage 2
You have two different options for setting up your local workstation.
devcontainer which requires you to have Docker and VSCode installed. This method is the fastest to get going because all the required CLI tools are provided for you in my devcontainer image.Start Docker and open your repository in VSCode. There will be a pop-up asking you to use the devcontainer, click the button to start using it.
Continue on to 🔧 Stage 3
Install the most recent version of task and direnv
# Homebrew
brew install direnv go-task
# or, Arch
pacman -S --noconfirm direnv go-task \
&& ln -sf /usr/bin/go-task /usr/local/bin/taskHook direnv into your preferred shell, then run:
task workstation:direnv📍 Verify that direnv is setup properly by opening a new terminal and cding into your repository. You should see something like:
cd /path/to/repo
direnv: loading ... .envrc
direnv: export +VIRTUAL_ENV ... ~PATHInstall the additional required CLI tools
📍 Not using Homebrew or ArchLinux? Try using the generic Linux task below, if that fails check out the Brewfile/Archfile for what CLI tools needed and install them.
# Homebrew
task workstation:brew
# or, Arch with yay/paru
task workstation:arch
# or, Generic Linux (YMMV, this pulls binaires in to ./bin)
task workstation:generic-linuxSetup a Python virual environment by running the following task command.
📍 This commands requires Python 3.11+ to be installed.
task workstation:venvContinue on to 🔧 Stage 3
[!NOTE] The config.sample.yaml file contains config that is vital to the bootstrap process.
Generate the config.yaml from the config.sample.yaml configuration file.
task initFill out the config.yaml configuration file using the comments in that file as a guide.
Run the following command which will generate all the files needed to continue.
task configurePush you changes to git
📍 Verify all the ./kubernetes/**/*.sops.* files are encrypted with SOPS
git add -A
git commit -m "Initial commit :rocket:"
git pushDeploy your cluster and bootstrap it. This generates secrets, generates the config files for your nodes and applies them. It bootstraps the cluster afterwards, fetches the kubeconfig file and installs Cilium and kubelet-csr-approver. It finishes with some health checks.
task bootstrap:talos⚠️ It might take a while for the cluster to be setup (10+ minutes is normal), during which time you will see a variety of error messages like: "couldn't get current server API group list," "error: no matching resources found", etc. This is a normal. If this step gets interrupted, e.g. by pressing Ctrl + C, you likely will need to nuke the cluster before trying again.
The kubeconfig for interacting with your cluster should have been created in the root of your repository.
Verify the nodes are online
📍 If this command fails you likely haven't configured direnv as mentioned previously in the guide.
kubectl get nodes -o wide
# NAME STATUS ROLES AGE VERSION
# k8s-0 Ready control-plane,etcd,master 1h v1.30.1
# k8s-1 Ready worker 1h v1.30.1Continue on to 🔹 Stage 6
Verify Flux can be installed
flux check --pre
# ► checking prerequisites
# ✔ kubectl 1.30.1 >=1.18.0-0
# ✔ Kubernetes 1.30.1 >=1.16.0-0
# ✔ prerequisites checks passedInstall Flux and sync the cluster to the Git repository
task bootstrap:flux
# namespace/flux-system configured
# customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/alerts.notification.toolkit.fluxcd.io created
# ...Verify Flux components are running in the cluster
kubectl -n flux-system get pods -o wide
# NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE
# helm-controller-5bbd94c75-89sb4 1/1 Running 0 1h
# kustomize-controller-7b67b6b77d-nqc67 1/1 Running 0 1h
# notification-controller-7c46575844-k4bvr 1/1 Running 0 1h
# source-controller-7d6875bcb4-zqw9f 1/1 Running 0 1hMic check, 1, 2 - In a few moments applications should be lighting up like Christmas in July 🎄
Output all the common resources in your cluster.
📍 Feel free to use the provided kubernetes tasks for validation of cluster resources or continue to get familiar with the kubectl and flux CLI tools.
task kubernetes:resources⚠️ It might take cert-manager awhile to generate certificates, this is normal so be patient.
🏆 Congratulations if all goes smooth you will have a Kubernetes cluster managed by Flux and your Git repository is driving the state of your cluster.
🧠 Now it's time to pause and go get some motel motor oil ☕ and admire you made it this far!
The external-dns application created in the networking namespace will handle creating public DNS records. By default, echo-server and the flux-webhook are the only subdomains reachable from the public internet. In order to make additional applications public you must set set the correct ingress class name and ingress annotations like in the HelmRelease for echo-server.
k8s_gateway will provide DNS resolution to external Kubernetes resources (i.e. points of entry to the cluster) from any device that uses your home DNS server. For this to work, your home DNS server must be configured to forward DNS queries for ${bootstrap_cloudflare.domain} to ${bootstrap_cloudflare.gateway_vip} instead of the upstream DNS server(s) it normally uses. This is a form of split DNS (aka split-horizon DNS / conditional forwarding).
[!TIP] Below is how to configure a Pi-hole for split DNS. Other platforms should be similar.
- Apply this file on the Pihole server while substituting the variables
# /etc/dnsmasq.d/99-k8s-gateway-forward.conf server=/${bootstrap_cloudflare.domain}/${bootstrap_cloudflare.gateway_vip}- Restart dnsmasq on the server.
- Query an internal-only subdomain from your workstation (any
internalclass ingresses):dig @${home-dns-server-ip} echo-server-internal.${bootstrap_cloudflare.domain}. It should resolve to${bootstrap_cloudflare.ingress_vip}.
If you're having trouble with DNS be sure to check out these two GitHub discussions: Internal DNS and Pod DNS resolution broken.
... Nothing working? That is expected, this is DNS after all!
By default this template will deploy a wildcard certificate using the Let's Encrypt staging environment, which prevents you from getting rate-limited by the Let's Encrypt production servers if your cluster doesn't deploy properly (for example due to a misconfiguration). Once you are sure you will keep the cluster up for more than a few hours be sure to switch to the production servers as outlined in config.yaml.
📍 You will need a production certificate to reach internet-exposed applications through cloudflared.
By default Flux will periodically check your git repository for changes. In order to have Flux reconcile on git push you must configure Github to send push events to Flux.
[!NOTE] This will only work after you have switched over certificates to the Let's Encrypt Production servers.
Obtain the webhook path
📍 Hook id and path should look like /hook/12ebd1e363c641dc3c2e430ecf3cee2b3c7a5ac9e1234506f6f5f3ce1230e123
kubectl -n flux-system get receiver github-receiver -o jsonpath='{.status.webhookPath}'Piece together the full URL with the webhook path appended
https://flux-webhook.${bootstrap_cloudflare.domain}/hook/12ebd1e363c641dc3c2e430ecf3cee2b3c7a5ac9e1234506f6f5f3ce1230e123Navigate to the settings of your repository on Github, under "Settings/Webhooks" press the "Add webhook" button. Fill in the webhook URL and your bootstrap_github_webhook_token secret in config.yaml, Content type: application/json, Events: Choose Just the push event, and save.
There might be a situation where you want to destroy your Kubernetes cluster. The following command will reset your nodes back to maintenance mode, append --force to completely format your the Talos installation. Either way the nodes should reboot after the command has run.
task talos:reset # --force📍 Ensure you have updated talconfig.yaml and any patches with your updated configuration.
# (Re)generate the Talos config
task talos:generate-config
# Apply the config to the node
task talos:apply-node HOSTNAME=? MODE=?
# e.g. task talos:apply-config HOSTNAME=k8s-0 MODE=auto📍 Ensure the talosVersion and kubernetesVersion in talhelper.yaml are up-to-date with the version you wish to upgrade to.
# Upgrade node to a newer Talos version
task talos:upgrade-node HOSTNAME=?
# e.g. task talos:upgrade HOSTNAME=k8s-0# Upgrade cluster to a newer Kubernetes version
task talos:upgrade-k8s
# e.g. task talos:upgrade-k8sRenovate is a tool that automates dependency management. It is designed to scan your repository around the clock and open PRs for out-of-date dependencies it finds. Common dependencies it can discover are Helm charts, container images, GitHub Actions, Ansible roles... even Flux itself! Merging a PR will cause Flux to apply the update to your cluster.
To enable Renovate, click the 'Configure' button over at their Github app page and select your repository. Renovate creates a "Dependency Dashboard" as an issue in your repository, giving an overview of the status of all updates. The dashboard has interactive checkboxes that let you do things like advance scheduling or reattempt update PRs you closed without merging.
The base Renovate configuration in your repository can be viewed at .github/renovate.json5. By default it is scheduled to be active with PRs every weekend, but you can change the schedule to anything you want, or remove it if you want Renovate to open PRs right away.
Below is a general guide on trying to debug an issue with an resource or application. For example, if a workload/resource is not showing up or a pod has started but in a CrashLoopBackOff or Pending state.
Start by checking all Flux Kustomizations & Git Repository & OCI Repository and verify they are healthy.
flux get sources oci -A
flux get sources git -A
flux get ks -AThen check all the Flux Helm Releases and verify they are healthy.
flux get hr -AThen check the if the pod is present.
kubectl -n <namespace> get pods -o wideThen check the logs of the pod if its there.
kubectl -n <namespace> logs <pod-name> -f
# or
stern -n <namespace> <fuzzy-name>If a resource exists try to describe it to see what problems it might have.
kubectl -n <namespace> describe <resource> <name>Check the namespace events
kubectl -n <namespace> get events --sort-by='.metadata.creationTimestamp'Resolving problems that you have could take some tweaking of your YAML manifests in order to get things working, other times it could be a external factor like permissions on NFS. If you are unable to figure out your problem see the help section below.
#support or #cluster-template channels in the Home Operations Discord server.The cluster is your oyster (or something like that). Below are some optional considerations you might want to review.
To browse or get ideas on applications people are running, community member @whazor created Kubesearch as a creative way to search Flux HelmReleases across Github and Gitlab.
Instead of using k8s_gateway to provide DNS for your applications you might want to check out external-dns, it has wide support for many different providers such as Pi-hole, UniFi, Adguard Home, Bind and more.
The included CSI (openebs in local-hostpath mode) is a great start for storage but soon you might find you need more features like replicated block storage, or to connect to a NFS/SMB/iSCSI server. If you need any of those features be sure to check out the projects like rook-ceph, longhorn, openebs, democratic-csi, csi-driver-nfs, and synology-csi.
If this repo is too hot to handle or too cold to hold check out these following projects.
Big shout out to all the contributors, sponsors and everyone else who has helped on this project.