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Tiny Cluster

CLI + yaml for the configuration of an at-home Kubernetes fleet with one or more Raspberry Pis.

Read the Blog Post for examples, screenshots, etc. Please open a Github issue for any problems.

Practical Usage

Some configuration requried (see Getting Started). Assume you've aliased ln -sf ./tiny-cluster.py /usr/local/bin/tc and your contexts directiry lives within the pwd.

Create Kubernetes cluster, installing kubeadm with weave/flannel and NFS support enabled per yaml config:

tc master create

Create another node, "rpi", installing docker/kubeadm and using fixed IP defined in the yaml:

tc rpi create

Join the cluster:

tc rpi join

Add some labels to the node per the yaml config:

tc rpi label

Set up the node as a "Kiosk", showing a permanent Chromium browser pointed at a web URL:

tc rpi configure

SSH into one of the nodes:

tc rpi ssh

Reboot a node:

tc rpi reboot

Create a second cluster:

tc -c second-cluster master create

Features

  • Use yaml to provide configuration as code.
  • Set up a brand new Raspberry Pi with a single command.
  • Provide "Kiosk Mode" (turn a Raspberry Pi into a dedicated web browser).
  • Keep the entire cluster of devices up-to-date using stateless technologies like Docker and Kubernetes.
  • Avoid of one-off scripts and backups.
  • Easy to integrate with Home Assistant

What it Does

  • Enable password-less SSH access
  • Perform system updates (apt)
  • Assign a static IP address
  • Install Chromium Kiosk scripts (if Kiosk mode enabled)
  • Install kubeadm, network add-ons, and NFS
  • Apply labels to nodes
  • Provide a simple interface for other advanced management features.

With Many Thanks...

This repo is a tool I cobbled together over the course of a good year or so. I am placing it here in the hopes that it will be useful to others. But much of the work comes from sources like these:

Getting Started

Terminology

  • The controlling computer is, presumably, the computer you're currently using. It's what will run the commands.
  • The master and nodes are Kubernetes terms. Your cluster will first need to have a master set up, and then the nodes can join the cluster.

Pre-Requisites

  • Your current "controlling" (this) computer must have Python3 installed.
  • One or more Raspberry Pis with ssh enabled, connected to the same network as the controlling computer.

Quick Start

Note: any time you use tiny-cluster.py below, you can append -l DEBUG to change the log mode to be more verbose. You can also run ./tiny-cluster.py --help for assistance with any command.

  • Clone this repository: git clone [email protected]:zaneclaes/tiny-cluster.git
  • Install the required python packages: pip3 install pyyaml deepmerge argparse
  • Run cd tiny-cluster and ./tiny-cluster.py setup to scan the local network and follow the prompts.

If a Raspberry Pi is connected to the network, it should be discovered and walk you through the setup. Note that the auto-detect feature requires the arp tool. The auto-detect feature is generally less well-tested than the following manual setup steps, and should presently be considered "beta."

Manual Setup

See the defaults.yaml file in this repository for a sense of all the options available. Tiny Cluster will look in contexts/home.yaml for your configuration (do not modify defaults.yaml). If you want to run Tiny Cluster in multiple locations, see "Advanced Configurations" below.

The following is an sample contexts/home.yaml file which is used in the example setup steps below. Key concepts to understand:

  • It assumes you know the IP addresses of the Raspberry Pis you wish to configure (192.168.0.1, etc.). Tiny Cluster will ensure these IP addreses are static at a later point.
  • It defines a Kubernetes master, as well as two nodes (if you look closely, you'll note the master actually shares an IP address with one of the nodes, which implies that the master also acts as a node).
  • Both of the two nodes will have Kiosk mode enabled, which means that they will open Chromium on boot to the URL http://192.168.0.1:8123/lovelace/home?kiosk and http://192.168.0.1:8123/lovelace/rpi?kiosk, respectively.
  • The rpi node will have a Kubernetes label of tiny-cluster/node-pi-beacon=true. This is helpful in the later steps for deploying a Docker container to this node.
kubernetes:
  master:
    address: 192.168.0.1
    connect: ssh
    username: pi

nodes:
  192.168.0.1:
    name: main
    kiosk:
      url_slug: home

  192.168.0.2:
    name: rpi
    labels:
    - tiny-cluster/node-pi-red=true
    kiosk:
      url_slug: rpi

defaults:
  kiosk:
    url_base: http://192.168.0.1:8123/lovelace/
    url_query_params:
    - kiosk
    url_slug: null

Master Setup

The following command will install kubeadm and then perform the necessary configuration steps:

./tiny-cluster.py --node master create

The configuration steps are equivalent to running the following commands:

  • ./tiny-cluster.py master create_context: generate a .kube/home.conf configuration file which is downloaded to the controlling computer so that it may subsequently access the cluster.
  • ./tiny-cluster.py master install_network_add_on: Install flannel or weave
  • ./tiny-cluster.py master configure_nfs: Create a network file system at /mnt/tiny-cluster which may be accessed by the local network
  • ./tiny-cluster.py master untaint: If this master is also a node (the same IP is used within the nodes condfig), then remove the master taint.

Node Setup

The folloting command will set up the rpi node, as defined in the above configuration:

/tiny-cluster.py rpi create

It begins by updating the device, assigning the static IP address, and installing the required scripts. Then it performs commands equivalent to running the following:

  • ./tiny-cluster.py rpi configure: write the configuration files (e.g., the kiosk startup URL) to the device and join the Kubernetes cluster.
  • ./tiny-cluster.py rpi update: make sure all packages are up-to-date.
  • ./tiny-cluster.py rpi reboot: restart the device.

The following additional commands may be useful:

  • ./tiny-cluster.py rpi ssh: SSH into the device
  • ./tiny-cluster.py rpi join: (Re)join the Kubernetes cluster
  • ./tiny-cluster.py rpi label: (Re)label the node in the cluster

Deploying Docker Containers

Included in the ./kubernetes folder are a number of sample deployments for Docker containers I have created.

For example, you can use kubectl apply -f ./kubernetes/rode-red.yaml to deploy Node Red. In the above example configuration file, we used the label tiny-cluster/node-pi-red=true, which is what tells Kubernetes to deploy to that node in particular.

The following sample deployments are included:

Advanced Configurations

You may have more than one configuration, known as a Context. The default context is home, thus the fact that your configuration usually resides at contexts/home.yaml. If you were to create a second file named contexts/work.yaml, then you could run ./tiny-cluster.py -c work master create (or any other command), where the context name is the first argument.

Configurations are loaded in the following way:

  • defaults.yaml is loaded.
  • contexts/the-context-name.yaml is merged on top of those values.
  • From the resulting config, the defaults entries are merged with the specific values provided within kubernetes and nodes. For example, in the above sample configuration, there is no need to re-define the url_base for the kiosk in each node, because it is inherited from defaults.kiosk.

Other Linux Flavors

Tiny Cluster supports using a Kubernetes master IP that is not a Raspberry Pi. It has specifically been tested on Ubuntu 18.04. It should generally work with Debian-flavors, but has not been tested beyond that. However, it may require some manual tuning. For example:

Also, be aware that Tiny Cluster will symlink ~/.kube/config to the config file for the kubeadm master it creates.

Advanced DNS Options

defaults:
  node:
    dns: 192.168.0.1 # Set the DNS server
    hdmi: false # Turn off the HDMI
    interface: wlan0 # Default network interface
    usb_ethernet: true # Turn on USB/Ethernet card

Advanced Kiosk Options

See the comments in defaults.yaml

Supported With...

Tested OSs

  • Raspbian Jessie
  • Raspbian Buster

Tested On

  • Raspberry Pi 4 B+
  • Raspberry Pi 3 B+
  • Raspberry Pi 3 B
  • Raspberry Pi Zero W