Install Kubernetes dashboard

Introduction

It is understood that you already have a successfully created kubernetes cluster. If you are having issues follow instructions from Create Your own Kubernetes cluster on AWS

Ensure the Cluster is up and Running

We have the cluster operational; Validate the cluster as mentioned in the previous article. Once all the nodes and master are up and running we can also test this internally with kubectl

ubuntu@ip-10-0-1-79:~$ kubectl get nodes
NAME                                          STATUS   ROLES    AGE     VERSION
ip-172-20-35-205.eu-west-1.compute.internal   Ready    master   5h42m   v1.18.2
ip-172-20-53-48.eu-west-1.compute.internal    Ready    node     5h41m   v1.18.2
ip-172-20-67-18.eu-west-1.compute.internal    Ready    node     5h41m   v1.18.2
ip-172-20-97-65.eu-west-1.compute.internal    Ready    node     5h40m   v1.18.2

This ensures the master and node are all ready and it also displays the version of Kubernetes in each of the nodes

Create the dashboard components

We need to create the dashboard components. Again, there are multiple places where I found multiple leads. This works with clusters created using kops on AWS. 

ubuntu@ip-10-0-1-79:~$ kubectl create -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kubernetes/dashboard/v2.0.0-beta1/aio/deploy/recommended.yaml
namespace/kubernetes-dashboard created
serviceaccount/kubernetes-dashboard created
service/kubernetes-dashboard created
secret/kubernetes-dashboard-certs created
secret/kubernetes-dashboard-csrf created
secret/kubernetes-dashboard-key-holder created
configmap/kubernetes-dashboard-settings created
role.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/kubernetes-dashboard created
clusterrole.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/kubernetes-dashboard created
rolebinding.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/kubernetes-dashboard created
clusterrolebinding.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/kubernetes-dashboard created
deployment.apps/kubernetes-dashboard created
service/dashboard-metrics-scraper created
deployment.apps/kubernetes-metrics-scraper created

We have now successfully created the kuberneter-dashboard and the service is implemented. The following steps help us browse the dashboard

To browse the dashboard we need to perform the following actions

1. Create a service account

   ubuntu@ip-10-0-1-79:~$ kubectl create serviceaccount dashboard-admin-sa
   serviceaccount/dashboard-admin-sa created

2. Bind the account created to the cluster-admin role

   ubuntu@ip-10-0-1-79:~$ kubectl create clusterrolebinding dashboard-admin-sa --clusterrole=cluster-admin --serviceaccount=default:dashboard-admin-sa
   clusterrolebinding.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/dashboard-admin-sa created

3. Find the url how your cluster can be invoked

   ubuntu@ip-10-0-1-79:~$ kubectl cluster-info
   Kubernetes master is running at https://api-k8-shivag-io-covt8s-**********.eu-west-1.elb.amazonaws.com
   KubeDNS is running at https://api-k8-shivag-io-covt8s-**********.eu-west-1.elb.amazonaws.com/api/v1/namespaces/kube-system/services/kube-dns:dns/proxy

4. Find the Kubernetes cluster password

   ubuntu@ip-10-0-1-79:~$ kops get secrets kube --type secret -oplaintext --name k8.shivag.io --state s3://k8-kops-cluster-state-s3
   FURT*****YPyC*****S6w4*****GPVfd

5. Find the dashboard-admin-sa user token

   ubuntu@ip-10-0-1-79:~$ kubectl get secret $(kubectl get serviceaccount dashboard-admin-sa -o jsonpath="{.secrets[0].name}") -o jsonpath="{.data.token}" | base64 --decode
   eyJhb**********1NiIs**********VETHQ**********FVZWH**********cUhjW**********LdGp0**********.eyJp**********Jlcm5**********nZpY2**********Iiwia**********lcy5p**********NlYWN**********W1lc3**********ZWZhd**********iZXJu**********zZXJ2**********VudC9**********eyJhb**********1NiIs**********VETHQ**********FVZWH**********cUhjW**********LdGp0**********.eyJp**********Jlcm5**********nZpY2**********Iiwia**********lcy5p**********NlYWN**********W1lc3**********ZWZhd**********iZXJu**********zZXJ2**********VudC9**********eyJhb**********1NiIs**********VETHQ**********FVZWH**********cUhjW**********LdGp0**********.eyJp**********Jlcm5**********nZpY2**********Iiwia**********lcy5p**********NlYWN**********W1lc3**********ZWZhd**********iZXJu**********zZXJ2**********VudC9**********eyJhb**********1NiIs**********VETHQ**********FVZWH**********cUhjW**********LdGp0**********.eyJp**********Jlcm5**********nZpY2**********Iiwia**********lcy5p**********NlYWN********

6. The link for the dashboard when installed locally is 

   http://localhost:8001/api/v1/namespaces/kubernetes-dashboard/services/https:kubernetes-dashboard:/proxy/#/login

   substitute the http://localhost:8001 with the cluster url 

   https://api-k8-shivag-io-covt8s-1234567890.eu-west-1.elb.amazonaws.com

   the final url is 

   https://api-k8-shivag-io-covt8s-1234567890.eu-west-1.elb.amazonaws.com//api/v1/namespaces/kubernetes-dashboard/services/https:kubernetes-dashboard:/proxy/#/login

Now we have the url for the dashboard; we have two password prompts 

• First for the kubernetes cluster where the user is "admin" -> password from Step 4
  
  
  
• Next the token -> Token from Step 5