Wanting to dip my toes into kubernetes for homelab stuff and I have a few questions.

  1. Do I need a specialized OS for it? I’ve been trying to get some TalOS VMs running but I’ve ran into some issues. Would you recommend like a Ubuntu server running kubernetes over something like TalOS?

  2. Could I run this on a Windows server? I’m personally a Linux guy, but a friend who prefers windows server wanted to try it and I thought I’d ask.

  3. Can I migrate Docker services to a Kube cluster? How easy is it?

  4. Any recommendations for learning materials? I’ve clearly struggled with TalOS’s quick start materials as I haven’t been able to get into the tutorial cluster made with docker locally. I keep getting weird errors and reinstalling Talosctl and docker. I’ve diagnosed this as a “skill issue”. My learning budget is like $100 for a udemy class or good interactive guide (Paid for by work apparently. I was learning this for fun, but it may actually be needed knowledge for a project)

  • vortic@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    20 days ago

    Kubernetes has a hell of a learning curve. Once you get your head around it, it can be great but it is a huge lift to learn. For self hosting I’d lean towards docker-compose rather than kubernetes but kubernetes can be nice once you get past the super steep learning curve.

    To answer your questions:

    1. Any Linux flavor will do the job.
    2. No, windows doesn’t really play nice with containers to begin with. Kubernetes is another layer of complexity that will make it tough.
    3. Yep, definitely! This is typically done using helm charts. Helm is basically the package manager for kubernetes. There are many helm charts that you can just install into kubernetes and they’ll work for you. You can also roll your own if you have custom applications. Argocd can also be helpful depending on how deep you want to get.
    4. I’d start by looking into videos on helm charts. That said, you will need a very strong understanding of docker containers and may need a good understanding of networking.

    I would strongly recommend looking into deployment using docker-compose over kubernetes until you understand containers inside and out. While Kubernetes can be nice it akso adds another layer of difficulty. I say this as someone who uses kubernetes daily for work, uses off the shelf helm charts, and writes their own helm charts from scratch.