smol_k8s_lab 2.0.0a0

Bootstrap simple projects on Kubernetes with kind, k3d, and k3s. this is an alpha release

smol k8s lab 🧸 ^{_{Now with more :squid:}}

A tool to run slimmer k8s distros on metal, with batteries included. Deploys Argo CD by default, so you can mange your entire local testing lab from the very beginning using files in open source git repos, and with the help of a very handy dashboard.

Also helpful for benchmarking various k8s distros! 💙

Installation

smol-k8s-lab requires Python 3.11. If you've already got it and brew installed, you should be able to:

# install the CLI
pip3.11 install smol-k8s-lab

# Check the help menu before proceeding
smol-k8s-lab --help

Usage

Initialization

After you've followed the installation instructions, if you're new to smol-k8s-lab, initialize a new config file. To do that, just run:

# we'll walk you through any configuration needed before saving the config and deploying it for you
smol-k8s-lab

Upgrading to v1.x

If you've installed smol-k8s-lab prior to v1.0.0, please backup your old configuration, and then remove the ~/.config/smol-k8s-lab/config.yaml (or $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/smol-k8s-lab/config.yaml) file entirely, then run the following:

# this upgrades smol-k8s-lab
pip3.11 install --upgrade smol-k8s-lab

# this initializes a new configuration
smol-k8s-lab

v2.0.0a is available for testing but docs and screenshots are still under development. ETA is about 2 weeks for those to be complete and the official 2.0.0 to be launched, which will support a full TUI and a range of new options in the config file.

Creating a new config without running smol-k8s-lab

This is helpful if you just want to take a look at the default configuration before installing any Kubernetes distros. This will also allow you to disable any default applications you'd like ahead of time.

# create the needed directory if you haven't already, NOTE: this can also be in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/smol-k8s-lab/config.yaml
mkdir -p ~/.config/smol-k8s-lab

# download the default config file
curl -o config.yaml https://raw.githubusercontent.com/small-hack/smol-k8s-lab/main/smol_k8s_lab/config/default_config.yaml

# move the config file to the config directory (can also be $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/smol-k8s-lab/config.yaml)
mv config.yaml ~/.config/smol-k8s-lab/config.yaml

You can now use your text editor of choice to view and edit the default config before running smol-k8s-lab :)

Configuration

You can checkout the default config file here. We've also got a Quickstart guide for you to jump right in :)

Adding custom Applications

You can create any application you already have an Argo CD application repo for, by following a simple application YAML schema in ~/.config/smol-k8s-lab/config.yaml like this:

apps:
  # name of application to create in Argo CD
  cert_manager:
    # if set to false, we ignore this app
    enabled: true
    argo:
      # secret keys to pass to Argo CD Application Set Generator
      secret_keys:
        # Used for letsencrypt-staging, to generate certs. If set to "" and cert-manager.enabled is true
        # smol-k8s-lab will prompt for this value and save it back to this file for you.
        email: ""
      # If set to "", we'll instead use the repo, path, ref, namespace, and project_source_repos
      # else we'll skip installing this app b/c its part of another app of apps with this name.
      part_of_app_of_apps: ""
      # git repo to install the Argo CD app from
      repo: "https://github.com/small-hack/argocd-apps"
      # path in the argo repo to point to. Trailing slash very important!
      path: "ingress/cert-manager/"
      # either the branch or tag to point at in the argo repo above
      ref: "main"
      # namespace to install the k8s app in
      namespace: "ingress"
      # source repos for cert-manager CD App Project (in addition to cert-manager.argo.repo)
      project_source_repos:
        - https://charts.jetstack.io

Note: the above application, cert-manager, is already included as a default application in smol-k8s-lab :)

Under the hood

Note: this project is not officially affiliated with any of the below tooling or applications.

Supported k8s distributions

We always install the latest version of Kubernetes that is available from the distro's startup script.

Distro	Description
k3s	The certified Kubernetes distribution built for IoT & Edge computing
k3d	ALPHA - TESTING PHASE k3s in docker 🐳
KinD	kind is a tool for running local Kubernetes clusters using Docker container “nodes”. kind was primarily designed for testing Kubernetes itself, but may be used for local development or CI.

We tend to test first on k3s first, then the other distros. k3d support coming soon.

Default Installed Applications

Version is the helm chart version, or manifest version.

Application	Description	Initialization Supported
metallb	Loadbalancer and IP Address pool manager for metal	Yes
ingress-nginx	The ingress controller allows access to the cluster remotely, needed for web traffic	No
cert-manager	For SSL/TLS certificates	Yes
Argo CD	Gitops - Continuous Deployment	Yes
Argo CD Appset Secret Plugin	Gitops - Continuous Deployment	Yes
ESO	external-secrets-operator integrates external secret management systems like Bitwarden or GitLab	No
Bitwarden ESO Provider	Bitwarden external-secrets-operator provider	Yes
Zitadel	An identity provider and OIDC provider to provide SSO	Yes
Vouch	Vouch proxy allows you to secure web pages that lack authentication e.g. prometheus	Yes
Prometheus Stack	Prometheus monitoring and logging stack using loki/promtail, alert manager, and grafana	Yes

_{Minor Notes}

_{All Default Applications can be disabled through your ~/.config/smol-k8s-lab/config.yaml file, except:}

_{1. ingress-nginx is the currently the only supported ingress-controller. traefik support is being worked on.}

_{2. Argo CD is optional, but if not installed, smol-k8s-lab will only install: MetalLB, nginx-ingress, and cert-manager}

Optionally Installed Applications

Application/Tool	Description	Initialization Supported
Ciliumalpha	Kubernetes netflow visualizer and policy editor	Yes
Kyvernoalpha	Kubernetes native policy management to enforce policies on k8s resources	No
KeyCloakalpha	Self hosted IAM/Oauth2 solution	Yes
kepler	Kepler (Kubernetes Efficient Power Level Exporter) uses eBPF to probe energy-related system stats and exports them as Prometheus metrics.	Yes
k8up	Backups operator using restic to backup to s3 endpoints	Yes
k8tz	Timezone environment variable injector for pods and cronjobs	Yes
Nextcloud	Nextcloud is a self hosted file server	Yes
Mastodon	Mastodon is a self hosted federated social media network	Yes
matrix	Matrix is a self hosted chat platform	Yes
minio	Self hosted S3 Object Store operator	Yes
k9s	Terminal based dashboard for Kubernetes	Yes

Troubleshooting

If you're stuck, checkout the Notes to see if we also got stuck on the same thing at some point :) Under each Kubernetes distro or application, we'll have notes on how to learn more about it, as well as any errors we've already battled.

Status

This is still in later alpha, as we figure out all the apps and distros we want to support, and pin all the versions, but if you'd like to contribute or just found a :bug:, feel free to open an issue (or pull request), and we'll take a look! We'll try to get back to you asap!

Development

smol-k8s-lab is written in Python and built and published using Poetry. You can check out the pyproject.toml for the versions of each library we install below:

• rich (this is what makes all the pretty formatted text)
• PyYAML (to handle the k8s yamls and configs)
• bcrypt (to pass a password to argocd and automatically update your Bitwarden)
• click (handles arguments for the CLI)

We also utilize the Bitwarden cli, for a password manager so you never have to see/know your argocd password.

And more!

Want to get started with argocd? If you've installed it via smol-k8s-lab, then you can jump here. Otherwise, if you want to start from scratch, start here