Quickstart: Deploy an Azure Kubernetes Service cluster using the Azure CLI
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.
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
Use the Bash environment in Azure Cloud Shell. For more information, see Quickstart for Bash in Azure Cloud Shell.
If you prefer to run CLI reference commands locally, install the Azure CLI. If you're running on Windows or macOS, consider running Azure CLI in a Docker container. For more information, see How to run the Azure CLI in a Docker container.
If you're using a local installation, sign in to the Azure CLI by using the az login command. To finish the authentication process, follow the steps displayed in your terminal. For other sign-in options, see Sign in with the Azure CLI.
When you're prompted, install the Azure CLI extension on first use. For more information about extensions, see Use extensions with the Azure CLI.
Run az version to find the version and dependent libraries that are installed. To upgrade to the latest version, run az upgrade.
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.
Install
kubectl
locally using the az aks install-cli command:az aks install-cli
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
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.
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
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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.
- If you use the Azure Cloud Shell, this file can be created using
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.
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.
This quickstart is for introductory purposes. For guidance on a creating full solutions with AKS for production, see AKS solution guidance.
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