How to use Microsoft AKS with Juju

This guide will ensure that you’re ready to deploy and manage Kubernetes workloads on Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) with Juju. Juju provides built-in support for AKS. Once you’ve registered your cluster in Juju, you’ll be able to deploy workloads from Charmhub straight away.

Contents:

• Prerequisites
  • Install the Juju client
  • Install the Azure CLI
  • Install the Kubernetes client
• Provision a Kubernetes cluster on Azure
  • Log into Azure using the Azure CLI
  • Create the Kubernetes cluster with the Azure CLI
  • Create a resource group
  • Provision the AKS cluster with the Azure CLI
  • Access the cluster
• Connect Juju to your Kubernetes cluster
  • Register the cluster as a Kubernetes cloud
  • Create a controller
  • Create a model
• Deploy workloads
• Clean up

Prerequisites

Using Juju to drive Kubernetes workloads on AKS requires installing some prerequisite software:

• Juju client
• Azure CLI
• Kubernetes client

Install the Juju client

You will need to install the Juju client. If you’re on Linux, we recommend using snap:

sudo snap install juju --classic

We also provide other installation methods as described on our detailed installation documentation.

Install the Azure CLI

The Azure CLI is a cross-platform command-line utility for interacting with Azure. For installation instructions, please visit the Azure CLI web pages.

Install the Kubernetes client

kubectl is the command-line client for directly interacting with a Kubernetes cluster. The Azure CLI provides a sub-command that will install kubectl for you:

az aks install-cli

Provision a Kubernetes cluster on Azure

This guide will assume that your Azure account has sufficient access to an Azure Subscription to allow the creation of Resource Groups and Azure Kubernetes Service clusters.

Azure resources can be created from the Azure CLI, Azure Portal or using Azure Powershell. This guide will focus on the creation of a cluster using the Azure CLI. For information on how deploy using the Azure Portal see the Azure Documentation or go directly to the portal to create your cluster.

Log into Azure using the Azure CLI

To log in from the command-line, execute:

az login

This will open a browser window (or provide an authentication link) that will allow you to authenticate with Microsoft Azure. Once logged in, confirm you have access to a subscription by running:

az account list -o table

az account show -o table

az account set -s <subscription>

Create the Kubernetes cluster with the Azure CLI

Now that we’ve created a Resource Group in the correct region, we can provision a new Azure Kubernetes Service cluster.

Create a resource group

A “Resource Group” is a link between services and a geographic region for billing and authentication purposes. To create a Resource Group for your project, provide a region and a human-readable name to the az group create command.

az group create -l <region> -n <resource-group>

juju regions azure

az aks get-versions -l <region> -o table

Provision the AKS cluster with the Azure CLI

The az aks create command provisions a cluster. The command below will create a cluster in the specified Resource Group, generating a new SSH keypair for the underlying nodes:

az aks create -g <resource-group> -n <k8s-cluster-name> --generate-ssh-keys

Access the cluster

The Azure CLI is able to configure kubectl on your behalf to access your new AKS cluster:

az aks get-credentials -g <resource-group> -n <k8s-cluster-name>

Verify that you have access by enumerating the nodes in the cluster:

kubectl get nodes

Connect Juju to your Kubernetes cluster

There are three distinct stages to configuring your AKS cluster for management with Juju:

• Register the cluster as a Kubernetes cloud

• Deploy a Juju controller to the cluster

• Create a model to house our applications

Register the cluster as a Kubernetes cloud

In Juju’s vocabulary, a cloud is a space that can host deployed workloads. To register a Kubernetes cluster with Juju, execute the juju add-k8s command. The <cloud> argument is your specified name for the cloud, and will be used by Juju to refer to the cluster.

juju add-k8s --aks --resource-group <resource-group> --cluster-name <k8s-cluster> <cloud>

Create a controller

Juju, as an active agent system, requires a controller to get started. Controllers are created with the juju bootstrap command that takes as arguments a cloud’s name and, optionally, also our intended name for the controller.

juju bootstrap <cloud>

juju bootstrap <cloud> <controller-name>

Create a model

A model is a workspace for inter-related applications. They correspond (roughly) to a Kubernetes namespace. To create one, use juju add-model with a name of your choice:

juju add-model <model-name>

Deploy workloads

You’re now able to deploy workloads into your model. Workloads are provided by charms (and sets of charms called bundles). You can find a list of Kubernetes charms on Charmhub!

Clean up

The following instructions allow you to undo everything we just did!

Remove the Juju controller and any workloads deployed:

juju kill-controller -y -t0 <controller>

Delete the Azure Resource Group (and therefore the cluster)

az group delete -g <resource-group>

Last updated 5 months ago.