Ubuntu Virtual Machine for NGINX Microservices March 2022 Labs

Preface

Since I didn't have access to the lab environment in UDF, I decided to setup and run my own environment in VMware Workstation, so that I can run the Microservices March Labs at my own pace. This guide should help anyone to setup their own Ubuntu VM to run the labs in your environment. I won't cover the installation of the Ubuntu OS itself. One hint: on my Ubuntu host I disabled swap.

Additionally consider these setup instructions for CoreDNS and NGINX from the devcentral github repo.

Software and Versions used

• Ubuntu 20.04 LTS
• Docker 20.10.13
• kubectl 1.23.4
• Helm 3.8.1
• Minikube v1.25.2

Step 1: Install Docker

Set up the repository

Update the apt package index and install packages to allow apt to use a repository over HTTPS:

daniel@ubuntu:~$ sudo apt update
daniel@ubuntu:~$ sudo apt-get install \
 ca-certificates \
 curl \
 gnupg \
 lsb-release

Add Docker’s official GPG key:

daniel@ubuntu:~$ curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/docker-archive-keyring.gpg

Use the following command to set up the stable repository.

daniel@ubuntu:~$  echo \
"deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture) signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/docker-archive-keyring.gpg] https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu \
$(lsb_release -cs) stable" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list > /dev/null

Install Docker Engine

Update the apt package index, and install the latest version of Docker Engine and containerd:

daniel@ubuntu:~$ sudo apt update
daniel@ubuntu:~$ sudo apt install docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io

Add your user to the 'docker' group.

daniel@ubuntu:~$ sudo usermod -aG docker $USER && newgrp docker

Step 2: Install kubectl using native package management

Download the Google Cloud public signing key.

daniel@ubuntu:~$ sudo curl -fsSLo /usr/share/keyrings/kubernetes-archive-keyring.gpg https://packages.cloud.google.com/apt/doc/apt-key.gpg

Add the Kubernetes apt repository.

daniel@ubuntu:~$ echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/kubernetes-archive-keyring.gpg] https://apt.kubernetes.io/ kubernetes-xenial main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/kubernetes.list

Update apt package index with the new repository and install kubectl.

daniel@ubuntu:~$ sudo apt update
daniel@ubuntu:~$ sudo install kubectl

Step 3: Install Helm from script

Download and run the installer script to install Helm

daniel@ubuntu:~$ curl -fsSL -o get_helm.sh https://raw.githubusercontent.com/helm/helm/main/scripts/get-helm-3
daniel@ubuntu:~$ chmod 700 get_helm.sh
daniel@ubuntu:~$ ./get_helm.sh

Step 4: Install Minikube

Download Minikube as a static binary

daniel@ubuntu:~$ curl -Lo minikube https://storage.googleapis.com/minikube/releases/latest/minikube-linux-amd64 \
&& chmod +x minikube
daniel@ubuntu:~$ sudo cp minikube /usr/local/bin && rm minikube

Move the Minikube binary to your /usr/local/bin location.

daniel@ubuntu:~$ sudo cp minikube /usr/local/bin && rm minikube

Step 5: Start your local minikube cluster

minikube start --memory=4G

From here on you can follow the lab guides.

Problems observed

The lab guide mentions a couple of times that you can run commands like: 

minikube service podinfo and this will display a chart like the one below and it would open the service in your browser.

$ minikube service podinfo
|-----------|---------|-------------|---------------------------|
| NAMESPACE |  NAME   | TARGET PORT |            URL            |
|-----------|---------|-------------|---------------------------|
| default   | podinfo |          80 | http://192.168.49.2:31190 |
|-----------|---------|-------------|---------------------------|
🏃  Starting tunnel for service podinfo.
|-----------|---------|-------------|------------------------|
| NAMESPACE |  NAME   | TARGET PORT |          URL           |
|-----------|---------|-------------|------------------------|
| default   | podinfo |             | http://127.0.0.1:51546 |
|-----------|---------|-------------|------------------------|
🎉  Opening service default/podinfo in default browser...

I could not get this working. However, what worked out for me was the following:

daniel@ubuntu:~$ minikube service --all
😿  service default/kubernetes has no node port
|-----------|------------|--------------|---------------------------|
| NAMESPACE |    NAME    | TARGET PORT  |            URL            |
|-----------|------------|--------------|---------------------------|
| default   | kubernetes | No node port |
| default   | podinfo    |           80 | http://192.168.49.2:30009 |
|-----------|------------|--------------|---------------------------|

And then I could open the app in the browser with the URL displayed here in this chart.