Below you'll find guides for creating and configuring a Kubernetes cluster with a few prominent providers of hosted, managed Kubernetes clusters, and configuring your Garden project for connecting to your cluster.

Let us know on #garden on Kubernetes Slack if you'd like guides for more providers.

GKE (Google)

Create a project and a cluster

First, follow the steps in GKE's quickstart guide to create a project (if you haven't already) and a Kubernetes cluster.

You can create a cluster either using the gcloud CLI tool, or through the web UI—whichever you find more convenient.

Note: If gcloud throws unexpected permission-related errors during this process, make sure you've been authenticated via gcloud auth login.

Make sure to run

gcloud container clusters get-credentials [your-cluster-name]

to add an entry for your cluster to your local Kubernetes config.

If you run kubectl config get-contexts, the table shown should include a context with a NAME and CLUSTER equal to the cluster name you chose previously.

Select this context if it isn't already selected.

Run kubectl get ns to verify that you're able to connect to your cluster.

Configure your Garden project

Now, configure your Garden project for connecting to your cluster. Add to project-level garden.yml:

kind: Project
name: your-project
  - name: remote  # or any name of your choice
    providers:
      - name: kubernetes
        context: <name-of-your-gke-kubernetes-context>
        defaultHostname: your-project.yourdomain.com     # <- replace this with your intended ingress hostname
        buildMode: cluster-docker                        # <- (optional) enable in-cluster building
        setupIngressController: nginx                    # <- skip this if you want to install your own ingress controller

Run garden --env=remote plugins kubernetes cluster-init, then garden dev --env=remote. Now you should be good to go.

Optional: Configure DNS

First, get the public IP address of the ingress controller you set up in the previous step. If you configured Garden to set up nginx, run: kubectl describe service --namespace=garden-system garden-nginx-ingress-nginx-controller | grep 'LoadBalancer Ingress' and make note of returned IP address.

Then, create a DNS record with your provider of choice, pointing at the IP address you wrote down in the previous step (e.g. an A record pointing your-project.your-domain.com at that IP). We recommend setting up a wildcard record as well (e.g *.your-project.your-domain.com).

Note: Your IAM role may need to have permissions to create clusterRoles and clusterRoleBindings.

AKS (Azure)

In AKS' web UI under Kubernetes Services, choose Create Kubernetes Service.

Fill out the project & cluster details.

Install Azure CLI tools (see https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/cli/azure/?view=azure-cli-latest for platform-specific instructions).

Now run:

az login
az aks get-credentials --resource-group [your resource group] --name [your cluster name]

This will merge an entry for your Azure cluster into your local Kubernetes config.

If you run kubectl config get-contexts, the table shown should include a context with a NAME and CLUSTER equal to the cluster name you chose previously.

Select this context if it isn't already selected.

Run kubectl get ns to verify that you're able to connect to your Azure cluster.

Find the public IP address of the load balancer associated with your cluster under Load Balancers. Point a DNS entry at this IP address using your DNS provider of choice (we'll assume it is your-project.yourdomain.com in the config below).

Then, your project configuration should look something like this (insert the relevant values instead of the placeholders below):

kind: Project
name: your-project
environments:
  - name: azure   # or any name of your choice
    providers:
      - name: kubernetes
        context: <name-of-your-azure-kubernetes-context>
        defaultHostname: your-project.yourdomain.com     # <- replace this with your intended ingress hostname
        buildMode: cluster-docker                        # <- (optional) enable in-cluster building
        setupIngressController: nginx                    # <- skip this if you want to install your own ingress controller
  - name: some-other-environment
    ...

Then, run

garden --env=azure plugins kubernetes cluster-init

and

garden --env=azure deploy

Now you should be good to go.

AWS (EKS)

Cluster creation & configuration guide coming soon!

Once you have an EKS cluster set up, configure your Garden project to connect to it:

kind: Project
name: your-project
environments:
  - name: eks   # or any name of your choice
    providers:
      - name: kubernetes
        context: <name-of-your-eks-kubernetes-context>
        defaultHostname: your-project.yourdomain.com     # <- replace this with your intended ingress hostname
        buildMode: cluster-docker                        # <- (optional) enable in-cluster building
        setupIngressController: nginx                    # <- skip this if you want to install your own ingress controller
  - name: some-other-environment
    ...

Then, run

garden --env=eks plugins kubernetes cluster-init

and

garden --env=eks deploy

Now you should be good to go.

Note: In order to dynamically provision EBS/EFS volumes using persistenvolumeclaim modules, consult the storage classes documentation provided by AWS.

AWS (kops)

​kops is a handy tool for creating Kubernetes clusters on AWS. Follow these instructions to create your cluster.

After creating the cluster, kops will create a new kubectl context and set it as the active context. Note the name of the context and create an environment for the cluster in your project garden.yml:

# garden.yml
kind: Project
name: your-project
environments:
  - name: aws # or any name of your choice
    providers:
      - name: kubernetes
        context: <name-of-your-kops-kubernetes-context>
        defaultHostname: your-project.yourdomain.com     # <- replace this with your intended ingress hostname
        buildMode: cluster-docker                        # <- (optional) enable in-cluster building
        setupIngressController: nginx                    # <- skip this if you want to install your own ingress controller
    ...

Once the cluster is ready (use kops validate cluster to check its status), initialize it with

garden --env=aws plugins kubernetes cluster-init

then try running

garden --env=aws deploy

And that's it!