Raspberry Pi Kubernetes Cluster — Equipment | Issue #1
Welcome to the Raspberry PI Kubernetes home lab series, its aim is to walk you through the necessary steps to provision a cluster from scratch. Take this as an informative guide and not a tutorial, as there are plenty of those out there. I personally recommend Kubernetes the hard way. This reference guide will suit enthusiasts looking to explore new topics and improve in networking and cloud native applications from the comfort of their home.
Requirements
Requirements for the Kubernetes cluster can be found here. We would need:
- A compatible Linux host
- 2 GB or more of RAM per machine (any less will leave little room for your apps).
- 2 CPUs or more.
- Full network connectivity between all machines in the cluster
- Unique hostname, MAC address, and product_uuid for every node. See here for more details.
- Certain ports are open on your machines. See here for more details.
- Swap disabled. You MUST disable swap in order for the kubelet to work properly.
Equipment:
- 4 X Raspberry Pi 4 (1 Master Node and 3 Slaves)
- 4 X 32GB micro SD card
- 1 x Ethernet Switch
- 1 x Router (with DHCP support)
- Ethernet Cables (1 per node)
- MICRO USB / USB-C Cables (1 per node)
- USB Charger (make sure it can deliver at least 2amp per port)
- A case for the cluster with cooling fans and heat sinks.
- External Hard Drive
Here is a link of an assembly guide for the Raspberry stack, it will walk you through a simple fan set up, be sure to add some heat sinks too.
Leave a comment if you have any questions, we will be setting up the nodes next. Happy Coding.
