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Quick Start

Get a fully functional multi-node Kubernetes cluster running on your local machine in under 5 minutes.

Prerequisites

Make sure you have VirtualBox and Vagrant installed before proceeding.

Step 1 — Clone the Repository

git clone https://github.com/Ruhanyat-994/kubeadm-automation.git
cd kubeadm-automation

Step 2 — Review the Configuration

Open cluster.yaml to see the default cluster layout:

cluster:
  pod_cidr: "10.244.0.0/16"
  service_cidr: "10.96.0.0/16"
  calico_version: "v3.31.5"
  box: "ubuntu/jammy64"

nodes:
  - name: "controlplane"
    ip: "192.168.56.10"
    memory: 2048
    cpus: 2
    role: "controlplane"

  - name: "node01"
    ip: "192.168.56.11"
    memory: 1536
    cpus: 1
    role: "worker"

  - name: "node02"
    ip: "192.168.56.12"
    memory: 1536
    cpus: 1
    role: "worker"

Customisation

You can change node count, resources, and IPs here. See the Configuration guide for all options.

Step 3 — Start the Cluster

vagrant up

This command:

  1. Downloads the Ubuntu 22.04 Vagrant box (first time only)
  2. Creates VirtualBox VMs for each node
  3. Installs containerd, kubeadm, kubelet, and kubectl on all nodes
  4. Initialises the Kubernetes control plane with kubeadm
  5. Deploys Calico CNI
  6. Joins worker nodes to the cluster

First Run

The first run downloads ~1 GB of packages and images. It typically takes 10–20 minutes depending on your internet speed. Subsequent starts are much faster.

Step 4 — Access the Cluster

SSH into the control plane node:

vagrant ssh controlplane

Step 5 — Verify

Check that all nodes are ready:

kubectl get nodes

Expected output:

NAME           STATUS   ROLES           AGE   VERSION
controlplane   Ready    control-plane   5m    v1.32.x
node01         Ready    <none>          3m    v1.32.x
node02         Ready    <none>          2m    v1.32.x

Check system pods:

kubectl get pods -n kube-system

All pods should show Running status.

Step 6 — Deploy a Test Workload (Optional)

Run the included test script to deploy a sample Apache web server:

sudo bash /vagrant/scripts/05-test.sh

This deploys an httpd service and prints the URLs where you can access it from your host browser.

What's Next?