This article describes HOWTO set up a Kubernetes (k8s) test/dev env on macOS Catalina using k3d monitored by Rancher (recently acquired by SUSE) and is inspired by this amazing video and repo by Thorsten K

The goal of this article is to have a Kubernetes cluster locally to experiment on and get to know kubectl

_Also see: _https://medium.com/@jyeee/kubernetes-on-your-macos-laptop-with-multipass-k3s-and-rancher-2-4-6e9cbf013f58

After getting a little experience with k8s, I can’t think of a better way to achieve the dream of “write once run everywhere” than an app containerized and deployed to k8s! On top of k8s, I’ve found Rancher to be the best interface for deploying apps and operating/maintaining the cluster.

I’m fortunate to work at a great company/customer that gives me access to amazing resources where I can run multiple clusters. For my home projects where I may not have those resources, I wanted to set up a lab on my laptop so I could practice.

Prerequisites

1. macOS Catalina (10.15) w/8 GB of mem (lmk if you can do it with less!)
2. Docker CE Desktop (install docs)
3. homebrew (install docs) which is used to install k3d, kubectl, and helm

Overview

1. Install k3d and k8s tools helm & kubectl
2. Create a k8s cluster and add Rancher to manage it
3. Test/dev k8s via Rancher

#rancher #k8s #macos #k3d #kubernetes