Quickstart: Deploy an Azure Linux Container Host for an AKS cluster using Azure PowerShell

Article
11/22/2023

Get started with the Azure Linux Container Host by using Azure PowerShell to deploy an Azure Linux Container Host for an AKS cluster. After installing the prerequisites, you create a resource group, create an AKS cluster, connect to the cluster, and run a sample multi-container application in the cluster.

Prerequisites

If you don't have an Azure subscription, create an Azure free account before you begin.
Use the PowerShell environment in Azure Cloud Shell. For more information, see Azure Cloud Shell Quickstart.
If you're running PowerShell locally, install the Az PowerShell module and connect to your Azure account using the Connect-AzAccount cmdlet. For more information about installing the Az PowerShell module, see Install Azure PowerShell.
The identity you use to create your cluster has the appropriate minimum permissions. For more details on access and identity for AKS, see Access and identity options for Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS).

Create a resource group

An Azure resource group is a logical group in which Azure resources are deployed and managed. When creating a resource group, you need to specify a location. This location is the storage location of your resource group metadata and where your resources run in Azure if you don't specify another region during resource creation.

The following example creates resource group named testAzureLinuxResourceGroup in the eastus region.

Create a resource group using the New-AzResourceGroup cmdlet.

New-AzResourceGroup -Name testAzureLinuxResourceGroup -Location eastus

The following example output resembles successful creation of the resource group:

ResourceGroupName : testAzureLinuxResourceGroup
Location          : eastus
ProvisioningState : Succeeded
Tags              :
ResourceId        : /subscriptions/00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000/resourceGroups/testAzureLinuxResourceGroup

Note

The above example uses eastus, but Azure Linux Container Host clusters are available in all regions.

Create an Azure Linux Container Host cluster

The following example creates a cluster named testAzureLinuxCluster with one node.

Create an AKS cluster using the New-AzAksCluster cmdlet with the -NodeOsSKU flag set to AzureLinux.
```
New-AzAksCluster -ResourceGroupName testAzureLinuxResourceGroup -Name testAzureLinuxCluster -NodeOsSKU AzureLinux
```
After a few minutes, the command completes and returns JSON-formatted information about the cluster.

Connect to the cluster

To manage a Kubernetes cluster, use the Kubernetes command-line client, kubectl. kubectl is already installed if you use Azure Cloud Shell.

Install kubectl locally using the Install-AzAksCliTool cmdlet.
```
Install-AzAksCliTool
```
Configure kubectl to connect to your Kubernetes cluster using the Import-AzAksCredential cmdlet. This command downloads credentials and configures the Kubernetes CLI to use them.
```
Import-AzAksCredential -ResourceGroupName testAzureLinuxResourceGroup -Name testAzureLinuxCluster
```
Verify the connection to your cluster using the kubectl get command. This command returns a list of the cluster pods.
```
kubectl get pods --all-namespaces
```

Deploy the application

A Kubernetes manifest file defines a cluster's desired state, such as which container images to run.

In this quickstart, you use a manifest to create all objects needed to run the Azure Vote application. This manifest includes two Kubernetes deployments:

The sample Azure Vote Python applications.
A Redis instance.

This manifest also creates two Kubernetes Services:

An internal service for the Redis instance.
An external service to access the Azure Vote application from the internet.

Create a file named azure-vote.yaml and copy in the following manifest.

If you use the Azure Cloud Shell, you can create the file using code, vi, or nano.

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: azure-vote-back
spec:
  replicas: 1
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: azure-vote-back
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: azure-vote-back
    spec:
      nodeSelector:
        "kubernetes.io/os": linux
      containers:
      - name: azure-vote-back
        image: mcr.microsoft.com/oss/bitnami/redis:6.0.8
        env:
        - name: ALLOW_EMPTY_PASSWORD
          value: "yes"
        resources:
          requests:
            cpu: 100m
            memory: 128Mi
          limits:
            cpu: 250m
            memory: 256Mi
        ports:
        - containerPort: 6379
          name: redis
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: azure-vote-back
spec:
  ports:
  - port: 6379
  selector:
    app: azure-vote-back
---
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: azure-vote-front
spec:
  replicas: 1
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: azure-vote-front
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: azure-vote-front
    spec:
      nodeSelector:
        "kubernetes.io/os": linux
      containers:
      - name: azure-vote-front
        image: mcr.microsoft.com/azuredocs/azure-vote-front:v1
        resources:
          requests:
            cpu: 100m
            memory: 128Mi
          limits:
            cpu: 250m
            memory: 256Mi
        ports:
        - containerPort: 80
        env:
        - name: REDIS
          value: "azure-vote-back"
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: azure-vote-front
spec:
  type: LoadBalancer
  ports:
  - port: 80
  selector:
    app: azure-vote-front

For a breakdown of YAML manifest files, see Deployments and YAML manifests.

Deploy the application using the kubectl apply command and specify the name of your YAML manifest:
```
kubectl apply -f azure-vote.yaml
```
The following example resembles output showing the successfully created deployments and services:
```
deployment "azure-vote-back" created
service "azure-vote-back" created
deployment "azure-vote-front" created
service "azure-vote-front" created
```

Test the application

When the application runs, a Kubernetes service exposes the application frontend to the internet. This process can take a few minutes to complete.

Monitor progress using the kubectl get service command with the --watch argument.

kubectl get service azure-vote-front --watch

The EXTERNAL-IP output for the azure-vote-front service initially shows as pending.

NAME               TYPE           CLUSTER-IP   EXTERNAL-IP   PORT(S)        AGE
azure-vote-front   LoadBalancer   10.0.37.27   <pending>     80:30572/TCP   6s

Once the EXTERNAL-IP address changes from pending to an actual public IP address, use CTRL-C to stop the kubectl watch process. The following example output shows a valid public IP address assigned to the service:
```
azure-vote-front   LoadBalancer   10.0.37.27   52.179.23.131   80:30572/TCP   2m
```
Open a web browser to the external IP address of your service to see the application in action.

Delete the cluster

If you don't plan on continuing through the following tutorials, remove the created resources to avoid incurring Azure charges.

Remove the resource group and all related resources using the RemoveAzResourceGroup cmdlet.
```
Remove-AzResourceGroup -Name testAzureLinuxResourceGroup
```

Next steps

In this quickstart, you deployed an Azure Linux Container Host AKS cluster. To learn more about the Azure Linux Container Host and walk through a complete cluster deployment and management example, continue to the Azure Linux Container Host tutorial.

Azure Linux Container Host tutorial

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