📍 k3s default behaviour is that all nodes are able to run workloads, including control nodes. Worker nodes are therefore optional.
📍 If you have 3 or more nodes it is strongly recommended to make 3 of them control nodes for a highly available control plane.
📍 Ideally you will run the cluster on bare metal machines. If you intend to run your cluster on Proxmox VE, my thoughts and recommendations about that are documented here.
| Role | Cores | Memory | System Disk |
|---|---|---|---|
| Control | 4 (6*) | 8GB (24GB*) | 100GB (500GB*) SSD/NVMe |
| Worker | 4 (6*) | 8GB (24GB*) | 100GB (500GB*) SSD/NVMe |
| * recommended |
Download the latest stable release of Debian from here, then follow this guide to get it installed. Deviations from the guide:
txt Choose "Guided - use entire disk" Choose "All files in one partition" Delete Swap partition Uncheck all Debian desktop environment options
[Post install] Remove CD/DVD as apt source
sh su - sed -i '/deb cdrom/d' /etc/apt/sources.list apt update exit
[Post install] Enable sudo for your non-root user
sh su - apt update apt install -y sudo usermod -aG sudo ${username} echo "${username} ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL" | tee /etc/sudoers.d/${username} exit newgrp sudo sudo apt update
[Post install] Add SSH keys (or use ssh-copy-id on the client that is connecting)
📍 First make sure your ssh keys are up-to-date and added to your github account as instructed.
sh mkdir -m 700 ~/.ssh sudo apt install -y curl curl https://github.com/${github_username}.keys > ~/.ssh/authorized_keys chmod 600 ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
📍 If you choose to use a Raspberry Pi 4 for the cluster, it is recommended to have an 8GB model. Most important is to boot from an external SSD/NVMe rather than an SD card. This is supported natively, however if you have an early model you may need to update the bootloader first.
📍 Be sure to check the power requirements if using a PoE Hat and a SSD/NVMe dongle.
Download the latest stable release of Debian from here. Do not use Raspbian or DietPi or any other flavor Linux OS.
Flash the image onto an SSD/NVMe drive.
Re-mount the drive to your workstation and then do the following (per the official documentation):
txt Open 'sysconf.txt' in a text editor and save it upon updating the information below - Change 'root_authorized_key' to your desired public SSH key - Change 'root_pw' to your desired root password - Change 'hostname' to your desired hostname
Connect SSD/NVMe drive to the Raspberry Pi 4 and power it on.
[Post install] SSH into the device with the root user and then create a normal user account with adduser ${username}
[Post install] Follow steps 3 and 4 from Debian for AMD64.
[Post install] Install python3 which is needed by Ansible.
sh sudo apt install -y python3
Once you have installed Debian on your nodes, there are 6 stages to getting a Flux-managed cluster up and running.