Deploying kubernetees dashboard

Kubernetes offers a convenient graphical user interface with their web dashboard which can be used to create, monitor, and manage a cluster

Deploy the latest Kubernetes dashboard

Once we set up your Kubernetes cluster or if we already had one running, we can get started.

The first thing to know about the web UI is that it can only be accessed using the localhost address on the machine it runs on. This means we need to have an SSH tunnel to the server. For most OS, you can create an SSH tunnel using this command. Replace the  and  with the relevant details to your Kubernetes cluster

ssh -L localhost:8001:127.0.0.1:8001 @

After logging in, we can deploy the dashboard itself with the following single command

#kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kubernetes/dashboard/v2.0.0/aio/deploy/recommended.yaml

If our cluster is working correctly, you should see an output confirming the creation of a bunch of Kubernetes components like in the example below

namespace/kubernetes-dashboard created

serviceaccount/kubernetes-dashboard created

service/kubernetes-dashboard created

secret/kubernetes-dashboard-certs created

secret/kubernetes-dashboard-csrf created

secret/kubernetes-dashboard-key-holder created

configmap/kubernetes-dashboard-settings created

role.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/kubernetes-dashboard created

clusterrole.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/kubernetes-dashboard created

rolebinding.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/kubernetes-dashboard created

clusterrolebinding.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/kubernetes-dashboard created

deployment.apps/kubernetes-dashboard created

service/dashboard-metrics-scraper created

deployment.apps/dashboard-metrics-scraper created

Afterward, we should have two new pods running on your cluster

# kubectl get pods -A

kubernetes-dashboard   dashboard-metrics-scraper-74db988864-ld4pw           1/1     Running   0          107m

kubernetes-dashboard   kubernetes-dashboard-7bbb9b5fc6-gjrn6                1/1     Running   0          107m

we can then continue ahead with creating the required user account

Creating Admin User

The Kubernetes dashboard supports a few ways to manage access control. In this example, we’ll be creating an admin user account with full privileges to modify the cluster and using tokens

Start by making a new directory for the dashboard configuration files

$ mkdir ~/dashboard && cd ~/dashboard

Create the following configuration and save it as dashboard-admin.yaml file

# vi dashboard-admin.yaml

apiVersion: v1

kind: ServiceAccount

meta 254, 254);">After then we can see an output of a long string of seemingly random characters like in the example below.

eyJhbGciOiJSUzI1NiIsImtpZCI6Ilk2eEd2QjJMVkhIRWNfN2xTMlA5N2RNVlR5N0o1REFET0dpdkRmel90aWMifQ.eyJpc3MiOiJrdWJlcm5ldGVzL3NlcnZpY2VhY2NvdW50Iiwia3ViZXJuZXRlcy5pby9zZXJ2aWNlYWNjb3VudC9uYW1lc3BhY2UiOiJrdWJlcm5ldGVzLWRhc2hib2FyZCIsImt1YmVybmV0ZXMuaW8vc2VydmljZWFjY291bnQvc2VjcmV0Lm5hbWUiOiJhZG1pbi11c2VyLXRva2VuLXEyZGJzIiwia3ViZXJuZXRlcy5pby9zZXJ2aWNlYWNjb3VudC9zZXJ2aWNlLWFjY291bnQu3VudC51aWQiOiI1ODI5OTUxMS1hN2ZlLTQzZTQtODk3MC0yMjllOTM1YmExNDkiLCJzdWIiOiJzeMMx4GnSV1hxQv01zX1nxXMZdKO7tU2OCu0TbJpPhJ9NhEidttOw5ENRosx7EqiffD3zdLDptS22FgnDqRDW8OIpVZH2oQbR153EyP_l7ct9_kQVv1vFCL3fAmdrUwY5p1-YMC41OUYORy1JPo5wkpXrWOytnsfWUbZBF475Wd3Gq3WdBHMTY4w3FarlJsvk76WgalnCtec4AVsEGxM0hS0LgQcGug7iGbmfcY7odZDaz5lmxAflpE5S4m-AwsTvT42ENh_bq8PS7FsMd8mK9nELyQu_a-yocYUggju_m-BxLjgc2cLh5WzVbTH_ztW7COlKWvSVbhudjwcl6w

The token is created each time the dashboard is deployed and is required to log into the dashboard. Note that the token will change if the dashboard is stopped and redeployed

Creating Read-Only user

 If we wish to provide access to your Kubernetes dashboard, for example, for demonstrative purposes, we can create a read-only view for the cluster

Similarly to the admin account, save the following configuration in dashboard-read-only.yaml

# vi dashboard-read-only.yaml

apiVersion: v1

kind: ServiceAccount

meta 0, 0); font-family: "source sans pro", sans-serif; font-size: 16px; letter-spacing: 0.57px; background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254);">We’ve now deployed the dashboard and created user accounts for it. Next, we can get started managing the Kubernetes cluster

creating a proxy service on the localhost. Run the next command on your Kubernetes cluster

# kubectl proxy

Starting to serve on 127.0.0.1:8001

we need to access via the URL in bellow

$ http://localhost:8001/api/v1/namespaces/kubernetes-dashboard/services/https:kubernetes-dashboard:/proxy/

the dashboard login window

Select the token authentication method and copy your admin token into the field below. Then click the Sign in button.

we will  be greeted by the overview of your Kubernetes cluster.

signed in as an admin, we can deploy new pods and services quickly and easily by clicking the plus icon at the top right corner of the dashboard

Then either copy in any configuration file you wish, select the file directly from your machine or create a new configuration from a form

Relevant Blogs:

Multi container pod 

Config map 

Daemonset in kubernetes 

What is AIOps