Kubernetes Basics for Infrastructure Engineers

In this lab, you will connect to a Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.6 (RHEL) virtual machine to install and configure a Kubernetes environment. The modules will guide you from core concepts, such as running applications in pods and managing them with deployments and services, to more advanced topics like resource requests and limits, as well as persistent storage with volumes and claims. The lab culminates in deploying and managing complex, multi-container applications, including a Python web application connected to a MongoDB database and a full TIG monitoring stack, all orchestrated on Kubernetes.

Upon completion of this lab, you will be able to:

Install and configure a Kubernetes environment on a Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) server.

Deploy, view, manage, and interact with applications running in pods using the kubectl CLI.

Control application resources by applying CPU and memory requests and limits.

Persist application data independently of pod lifecycles using Kubernetes persistent volumes and claims.

Deploy multi-service applications, such as a Python web app with a database, using Kubernetes objects (Deployments, Services, ConfigMaps, and Secrets).

Deploy a complete TIG (Telegraf, InfluxDB, Grafana) monitoring stack as a Kubernetes workload.

Software: Kubernetes (kubeadm, kubelet, kubectl), containerd, Calico CNI, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.6 (RHEL), PuTTY, NGINX, Python, MongoDB, Telegraf, InfluxDB, Grafana.

Virtual Hardware: The lab environment consists of an RHEL virtual machine (one control-plane node) and a Windows virtual machine (Jumpbox), interconnected on an internal network.