Quickstart: Deploy an Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) cluster using Azure CLI

Article
05/04/2023

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

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.

Before you begin

This quickstart assumes a basic understanding of Kubernetes concepts. For more information, see Kubernetes core concepts for Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS).
You need an Azure account with an active subscription. If you don't have one, create an account for free.
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 Azure CLI version 2.0.64 or later. If you're using Azure Cloud Shell, the latest version is already installed.
Make sure the identity you use 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 you have the Microsoft.OperationsManagement and Microsoft.OperationalInsights providers registered on your subscription. These Azure resource providers are required to support Container insights. Check the registration status using the following commands:
```
az provider show -n Microsoft.OperationsManagement -o table
az provider show -n Microsoft.OperationalInsights -o table
```
If they're not registered, register them using the following commands:
```
az provider register --namespace Microsoft.OperationsManagement
az provider register --namespace Microsoft.OperationalInsights
```

Note

If you plan to run the commands locally instead of in Azure Cloud Shell, make sure you run the commands with administrative privileges.

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're prompted to specify a location. This location is the storage location of your resource group metadata and where your resources 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 an AKS cluster

The following example creates a cluster named myAKSCluster with one node and enables a system-assigned managed identity.

Create an AKS cluster using the az aks create command with the --enable-addons monitoring and --enable-msi-auth-for-monitoring parameters to enable Azure Monitor Container insights with managed identity authentication (preview).
```
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 a new cluster, AKS automatically creates a second resource group 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.

This command executes the following operations:
- 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 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.

It also creates two Kubernetes Services:

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.

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.

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 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
```
Open a web browser to the external IP address of your service to see the Azure Vote app in action.

Delete the cluster

If you don't plan on going through the following tutorials, clean up unnecessary resources to avoid Azure charges.

Remove the resource group, container service, and all related resources using the az group delete command.
```
az group delete --name myResourceGroup --yes --no-wait
```
Note

The AKS cluster was created with a system-assigned managed identity, which is the default identity option used in this quickstart. The platform manages this identity so you don't need to manually remove it.

Next steps

In this quickstart, you deployed a Kubernetes cluster and 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 creating full solutions with AKS for production, see AKS solution guidance.