How to set up Kind with multiple nodes, and Connect from a remote computer

setup.md

The following shows how to setup Kind locally with multiple nodes and connect to it from a remote computer.

WARNING: DO NOT DO THIS UNLESS YOU KNOW AHT YOU ARE DOING. OR UNLESS YOU ARE IN A SUBNET. KIND HAS VERY LITTLE SECURITY AND EXPOSING IT TO OUTSIDE MAY COMPROMISE YOUR SYSTEM!

Step 1:

• Install Kind in the local computer. Lets assume the ip of the local computer is a.b.c.d and you want the kubernetes control plane to run on port 4321.
• Lets further suppose you want a kind deployment with 1 master node and 3 worker node. Some of this is taken from kubernetes-sigs/kind#873 (comment) .
• Make a file kind_node_config and paste the following in it

  # four node (three workers) cluster config
  kind: Cluster
  apiVersion: kind.x-k8s.io/v1alpha4
  networking:
    apiServerAddress: a.b.c.d
    apiServerPort: 4321
    serviceSubnet: 10.0.0.0/16
  nodes:
    - role: control-plane
    - role: worker
    - role: worker
    - role: worker
  

  This is the configuration to create 3 workers, 1 master. This will expose the kubernetes api server to run on a.b.c.d:4321, which for kind, normally always is configured to run in server 127.0.0.1 and hence remote connection is not possible usually.
• The do : kind create cluster --config kind_worker
• This will create the kind cluster.

  Creating cluster "kind" ...
  ✓ Ensuring node image (kindest/node:v1.19.1) 🖼
  ✓ Preparing nodes 📦 📦 📦 📦  
  ✓ Writing configuration 📜 
  ✓ Starting control-plane 🕹️ 
  ✓ Installing CNI 🔌 
  ✓ Installing StorageClass 💾 
  ✓ Joining worker nodes 🚜 
  Set kubectl context to "kind-kind"
  You can now use your cluster with:
  
  kubectl cluster-info --context kind-kind
  
  Have a question, bug, or feature request? Let us know! https://kind.sigs.k8s.io/#community 🙂
  

• Check your cluster infor by : kubectl cluster-info

  Kubernetes control plane is running at https://a.b.c.d:4321
  KubeDNS is running at https://a.b.c.d:4321/api/v1/namespaces/kube-system/services/kube-dns:dns/proxy
  

Step 2: Configure the remote computer to connect to Kind.

• Basically you would have to copy over the kube config yaml file from the local computer to the remote.
• From the remote computer, assuming you have ssh access do the following:

  cd ~
  mkdir .kube
  cd .kube
  scp <username>@a.b.c.d:4321:~/.kube/config ./
  

• Do kubectl cluster-info to verify you can connect to the kind cluster from the remote computer.

  Kubernetes control plane is running at https://a.b.c.d:4321
  KubeDNS is running at https://a.b.c.d:4321/api/v1/namespaces/kube-system/services/kube-dns:dns/proxy