Kubernetes dashboard - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Kubernetes dashboard

📖 Scenario: You are managing a Kubernetes cluster and want to set up the Kubernetes dashboard. This dashboard helps you see and manage your cluster resources visually through a web interface.

🎯 Goal: Set up the Kubernetes dashboard by deploying it, create a service account with admin rights, and access the dashboard using a secure token.

📋 What You'll Learn

Deploy the Kubernetes dashboard using the official YAML manifest

Create a service account named admin-user in the kubernetes-dashboard namespace

Bind the admin-user service account to the cluster-admin role

Retrieve the login token for the admin-user service account

Start the dashboard proxy to access the dashboard

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Kubernetes dashboard is widely used by cluster administrators to monitor and manage cluster resources visually without using complex command-line commands.

💼 Career

Knowing how to deploy and secure the Kubernetes dashboard is a key skill for DevOps engineers and Kubernetes administrators to provide easy cluster management and troubleshooting.

1

Deploy the Kubernetes dashboard

Run the command kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kubernetes/dashboard/v2.7.0/aio/deploy/recommended.yaml to deploy the Kubernetes dashboard in your cluster.

Kubernetes

# Run the kubectl apply command to deploy the dashboard
# Your code here

Need a hint?

This command downloads and applies the official dashboard manifest to your cluster.

2

Create the admin-user service account

Create a service account named admin-user in the kubernetes-dashboard namespace by running kubectl create serviceaccount admin-user -n kubernetes-dashboard.

Kubernetes

kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kubernetes/dashboard/v2.7.0/aio/deploy/recommended.yaml
# Create the admin-user service account in the kubernetes-dashboard namespace
# Your code here

Need a hint?

This creates a user that the dashboard can use to authenticate.

3

Bind admin-user to cluster-admin role

Bind the admin-user service account to the cluster-admin role by running kubectl create clusterrolebinding admin-user-binding --clusterrole=cluster-admin --serviceaccount=kubernetes-dashboard:admin-user.

Kubernetes

kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kubernetes/dashboard/v2.7.0/aio/deploy/recommended.yaml
kubectl create serviceaccount admin-user -n kubernetes-dashboard
# Bind admin-user to cluster-admin role
# Your code here

Need a hint?

This gives the admin-user full permissions to manage the cluster via the dashboard.

4

Get the admin-user token and start dashboard proxy

Run these two commands: kubectl -n kubernetes-dashboard get secret $(kubectl -n kubernetes-dashboard get sa/admin-user -o jsonpath='{.secrets[0].name}') -o jsonpath='{.data.token}' | base64 --decode to get the token, then kubectl proxy to start the proxy. Print the token value as output.

Kubernetes

kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kubernetes/dashboard/v2.7.0/aio/deploy/recommended.yaml
kubectl create serviceaccount admin-user -n kubernetes-dashboard
kubectl create clusterrolebinding admin-user-binding --clusterrole=cluster-admin --serviceaccount=kubernetes-dashboard:admin-user
# Get the admin-user token and start the kubectl proxy
# Your code here

Need a hint?

The token lets you log in to the dashboard. The proxy command lets you access the dashboard securely on your local machine.