I'm looking to set up a home lab to learn Kubernetes and would appreciate any advice! I have a decent Linux background, and I'm starting off with an Intel NUC (12th gen, i5) that I intend to use as the main K8s control node. Additionally, I have three HP EliteDesk 800 Gen 5 mini PCs (also with i5 CPUs) that I plan to use as worker nodes.
I'm also considering building another cluster for practicing fault tolerance in case one cluster goes down. However, I'm a bit lost on what operating systems I should use for both the control node and the worker nodes.
I've seen suggestions for Proxmox, Talos, and Ubuntu, but it's overwhelming to figure out the best setup to start with. I want to ensure I'm investing my time wisely and not stuck with a suboptimal configuration. Any detailed guidance or additional questions I should consider would be greatly appreciated!
4 Answers
You might want to check out K3s for your home lab; it's quite simple to get started with. I actually asked for help setting up my K8s lab, and K3s was recommended as a good option, especially if you want to keep things consolidated in one VM. It's complex enough without needing to handle multiple physical machines.
If you want an easier setup, Talos is great because it's a full OS designed specifically for Kubernetes. You can run it on bare metal, but if you're interested in using virtual machines, Proxmox is the way to go. You could install Proxmox first and then run Talos in a VM. It's a bit more work at first, but once it's up, it'll be easier to manage. If you're focusing solely on Kubernetes, doing a bare metal install with Talos might simplify things for you.
Going with bare metal is definitely the way to go—I've set up a similar environment using three HP Elite Desks with a manager node and two worker nodes, all running Ubuntu Server. It's straightforward and you can easily manage it all. If you're interested, I have scripts that can help automate the installation of both the manager and worker nodes.
I installed microk8s on two Ubuntu desktops and connected them. It's a solid setup, and I even bought a domain to manage traffic using Cloudflare Tunnel for redirection to my K8s cluster. Just a heads up, if you're planning to have multiple controllers, you might run into issues like split-brain scenarios if one node goes down.
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