(DEPRECATED) Deploy a Kubernetes cluster in Azure Container Service

Tip

For the updated version this tutorial that uses Azure Kubernetes Service, see Tutorial: Deploy an Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) cluster.

Warning

The Azure Container Service (ACS) is being deprecated. No new features or functionality are being added to ACS. All of the APIs, portal experience, CLI commands and documentation are marked as deprecated.

In 2017, we introduced Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) for simplifying Kubernetes management, deployment, and operations. If you use the Kubernetes orchestrator, please migrate to AKS by January 31, 2020. To get started, see migrate to Azure Kubernetes Service.

For more information, see the Azure Container Service deprecation announcement on Azure.com.

Kubernetes provides a distributed platform for containerized applications. With Azure Container Service, provisioning of a production ready Kubernetes cluster is simple and quick. In this tutorial, part 3 of 7, an Azure Container Service Kubernetes cluster is deployed. Steps completed include:

  • Deploying a Kubernetes ACS cluster
  • Installation of the Kubernetes CLI (kubectl)
  • Configuration of kubectl

In subsequent tutorials, the Azure Vote application is deployed to the cluster, scaled, updated, and Log Analytics is configured to monitor the Kubernetes cluster.

Before you begin

In previous tutorials, a container image was created and uploaded to an Azure Container Registry instance. If you have not done these steps, and would like to follow along, return to Tutorial 1 – Create container images.

Create Kubernetes cluster

Create a Kubernetes cluster in Azure Container Service with the az acs create command.

The following example creates a cluster named myK8sCluster in a Resource Group named myResourceGroup. This Resource Group was created in the previous tutorial.

az acs create --orchestrator-type kubernetes --resource-group myResourceGroup --name myK8SCluster --generate-ssh-keys 

In some cases, such as with a limited trial, an Azure subscription has limited access to Azure resources. If the deployment fails due to limited available cores, reduce the default agent count by adding --agent-count 1 to the az acs create command.

After several minutes, the deployment completes, and returns json formatted information about the ACS deployment.

Install the kubectl CLI

To connect to the Kubernetes cluster from your client computer, use kubectl, the Kubernetes command-line client.

If you're using Azure Cloud Shell, kubectl is already installed. If you want to install it locally, use the az acs kubernetes install-cli command.

If running in Linux or macOS, you may need to run with sudo. On Windows, ensure your shell has been run as administrator.

az acs kubernetes install-cli 

On Windows, the default installation is c:\program files (x86)\kubectl.exe. You may need to add this file to the Windows path.

Connect with kubectl

To configure kubectl to connect to your Kubernetes cluster, run the az acs kubernetes get-credentials command.

az acs kubernetes get-credentials --resource-group myResourceGroup --name myK8SCluster

To verify the connection to your cluster, run the kubectl get nodes command.

kubectl get nodes

Output:

NAME                    STATUS                     AGE       VERSION
k8s-agent-98dc3136-0    Ready                      5m        v1.6.2
k8s-agent-98dc3136-1    Ready                      5m        v1.6.2
k8s-agent-98dc3136-2    Ready                      5m        v1.6.2
k8s-master-98dc3136-0   Ready,SchedulingDisabled   5m        v1.6.2

At tutorial completion, you have an ACS Kubernetes cluster ready for workloads. In subsequent tutorials, a multi-container application is deployed to this cluster, scaled out, updated, and monitored.

Next steps

In this tutorial, an Azure Container Service Kubernetes cluster was deployed. The following steps were completed:

  • Deployed a Kubernetes ACS cluster
  • Installed the Kubernetes CLI (kubectl)
  • Configured kubectl

Advance to the next tutorial to learn about running application on the cluster.