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Quickstart: Deploy an Azure Kubernetes Service cluster using the Azure CLI

  • Article
  • 6 minutes to read

Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) is a managed Kubernetes service that lets you quickly deploy and manage clusters. In this quickstart, you will:

  • Deploy an AKS cluster using the Azure CLI.
  • Run a sample multi-container application with a web front-end and a Redis instance in the cluster.

Screenshot of browsing to Azure Vote sample application.

This quickstart assumes a basic understanding of Kubernetes concepts. For more information, see Kubernetes core concepts for Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS).

If you don't have an Azure subscription, create an Azure free account before you begin.

To learn more about creating a Windows Server node pool, see Create an AKS cluster that supports Windows Server containers.

Prerequisites

  • This article requires version 2.0.64 or later of the Azure CLI. If using Azure Cloud Shell, the latest version is already installed.

  • The identity you are using to create your cluster has the appropriate minimum permissions. For more details on access and identity for AKS, see Access and identity options for Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS).

  • If you have multiple Azure subscriptions, select the appropriate subscription ID in which the resources should be billed using the az account command.

  • Verify Microsoft.OperationsManagement and Microsoft.OperationalInsights providers are registered on your subscription. These are Azure resource providers required to support Container insights. To check the registration status, run the following commands:

    az provider show -n Microsoft.OperationsManagement -o table
az provider show -n Microsoft.OperationalInsights -o table

    If they are not registered, register Microsoft.OperationsManagement and Microsoft.OperationalInsights using the following commands:

    az provider register --namespace Microsoft.OperationsManagement
az provider register --namespace Microsoft.OperationalInsights

Note

Run the commands with administrative privileges if you plan to run the commands in this quickstart locally instead of in Azure Cloud Shell.

Create a resource group

An Azure resource group is a logical group in which Azure resources are deployed and managed. When you create a resource group, you are prompted to specify a location. This location is:

  • The storage location of your resource group metadata.
  • Where your resources will run in Azure if you don't specify another region during resource creation.

The following example creates a resource group named myResourceGroup in the eastus location.

Create a resource group using the az group create command.

az group create --name myResourceGroup --location eastus

The following output example resembles successful creation of the resource group:

{
  "id": "/subscriptions/<guid>/resourceGroups/myResourceGroup",
  "location": "eastus",
  "managedBy": null,
  "name": "myResourceGroup",
  "properties": {
    "provisioningState": "Succeeded"
  },
  "tags": null
}

Create AKS cluster

Create an AKS cluster using the az aks create command with the --enable-addons monitoring and --enable-msi-auth-for-monitoring parameter to enable Azure Monitor Container insights with managed identity authentication (preview). The following example creates a cluster named myAKSCluster with one node and enables a system-assigned managed identity:

az aks create -g myResourceGroup -n myAKSCluster --enable-managed-identity --node-count 1 --enable-addons monitoring --enable-msi-auth-for-monitoring  --generate-ssh-keys

After a few minutes, the command completes and returns JSON-formatted information about the cluster.

Note

When you create an AKS cluster, a second resource group is automatically created to store the AKS resources. For more information, see Why are two resource groups created with AKS?

Connect to the cluster

To manage a Kubernetes cluster, use the Kubernetes command-line client, kubectl. kubectl is already installed if you use Azure Cloud Shell.

  1. Install kubectl locally using the az aks install-cli command:

    az aks install-cli

  2. Configure kubectl to connect to your Kubernetes cluster using the az aks get-credentials command. The following command:

    • Downloads credentials and configures the Kubernetes CLI to use them.
    • Uses ~/.kube/config, the default location for the Kubernetes configuration file. Specify a different location for your Kubernetes configuration file using --file argument.
    az aks get-credentials --resource-group myResourceGroup --name myAKSCluster

  3. Verify the connection to your cluster using the kubectl get command. This command returns a list of the cluster nodes.

    kubectl get nodes

    The following output example shows the single node created in the previous steps. Make sure the node status is Ready:

    NAME                       STATUS   ROLES   AGE     VERSION
aks-nodepool1-31718369-0   Ready    agent   6m44s   v1.12.8

Deploy the application

A Kubernetes manifest file defines a cluster's desired state, such as which container images to run.

In this quickstart, you will use a manifest to create all objects needed to run the Azure Vote application. This manifest includes two Kubernetes deployments:

  • The sample Azure Vote Python applications.
  • A Redis instance.

Two Kubernetes Services are also created:

  • An internal service for the Redis instance.
  • An external service to access the Azure Vote application from the internet.

  1. Create a file named azure-vote.yaml and copy in the following manifest.

    • If you use the Azure Cloud Shell, this file can be created using code, vi, or nano as if working on a virtual or physical system.
    apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: azure-vote-back
spec:
  replicas: 1
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: azure-vote-back
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: azure-vote-back
    spec:
      nodeSelector:
        "kubernetes.io/os": linux
      containers:
      - name: azure-vote-back
        image: mcr.microsoft.com/oss/bitnami/redis:6.0.8
        env:
        - name: ALLOW_EMPTY_PASSWORD
          value: "yes"
        resources:
          requests:
            cpu: 100m
            memory: 128Mi
          limits:
            cpu: 250m
            memory: 256Mi
        ports:
        - containerPort: 6379
          name: redis
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: azure-vote-back
spec:
  ports:
  - port: 6379
  selector:
    app: azure-vote-back
---
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: azure-vote-front
spec:
  replicas: 1
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: azure-vote-front
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: azure-vote-front
    spec:
      nodeSelector:
        "kubernetes.io/os": linux
      containers:
      - name: azure-vote-front
        image: mcr.microsoft.com/azuredocs/azure-vote-front:v1
        resources:
          requests:
            cpu: 100m
            memory: 128Mi
          limits:
            cpu: 250m
            memory: 256Mi
        ports:
        - containerPort: 80
        env:
        - name: REDIS
          value: "azure-vote-back"
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: azure-vote-front
spec:
  type: LoadBalancer
  ports:
  - port: 80
  selector:
    app: azure-vote-front

    For a breakdown of YAML manifest files, see Deployments and YAML manifests.

  2. Deploy the application using the kubectl apply command and specify the name of your YAML manifest:

    kubectl apply -f azure-vote.yaml

    The following example resembles output showing the successfully created deployments and services:

    deployment "azure-vote-back" created
service "azure-vote-back" created
deployment "azure-vote-front" created
service "azure-vote-front" created

Test the application

When the application runs, a Kubernetes service exposes the application front-end to the internet. This process can take a few minutes to complete.

Monitor progress using the kubectl get service command with the --watch argument.

kubectl get service azure-vote-front --watch

The EXTERNAL-IP output for the azure-vote-front service will initially show as pending.

NAME               TYPE           CLUSTER-IP   EXTERNAL-IP   PORT(S)        AGE
azure-vote-front   LoadBalancer   10.0.37.27   <pending>     80:30572/TCP   6s

Once the EXTERNAL-IP address changes from pending to an actual public IP address, use CTRL-C to stop the kubectl watch process. The following example output shows a valid public IP address assigned to the service:

azure-vote-front   LoadBalancer   10.0.37.27   52.179.23.131   80:30572/TCP   2m

To see the Azure Vote app in action, open a web browser to the external IP address of your service.

Screenshot of browsing to Azure Vote sample application.

Delete the cluster

To avoid Azure charges, if you don't plan on going through the tutorials that follow, clean up your unnecessary resources. Use the az group delete command to remove the resource group, container service, and all related resources.

az group delete --name myResourceGroup --yes --no-wait

Note

The AKS cluster was created with system-assigned managed identity (default identity option used in this quickstart), the identity is managed by the platform and does not require removal.

Next steps

In this quickstart, you deployed a Kubernetes cluster and then deployed a simple multi-container application to it.

To learn more about AKS, and walk through a complete code to deployment example, continue to the Kubernetes cluster tutorial.

AKS tutorial

This quickstart is for introductory purposes. For guidance on a creating full solutions with AKS for production, see AKS solution guidance.