Kubernetes Work on Windows¶

This is a small guide for working with Kubernetes / Openshift / OKD on Windows.

It's not about installing the upper on Windows. The primary focus here is a DevOps / GitOps view managing one or many clusters from a Windows PC.

One of the main advantages is, that your typically not able to install everything on this Windows PC, because it's managed by your organisation / customer, ...
(if you can manage it by your own it's easier to install a Linux Desktop or use WSL2 on it!)

OK, let's begin. We want to work and comfortable edit environment on Windows.

Toolset¶

OK, what do we need:

• Editor
• Terminal Emulator
• Shell (unixoide Shell)
• ssh
• kubectl
• openshift CLI
• helm
• kubeseal (from Sealed Secrets)

GUI Programs¶

You need three Programs which install with GUI Installers (you can install all 3 without Admin privileges):

• Visual Studio Code https://code.visualstudio.com/
• Git Installer https://git-scm.com/downloads
• ConEmu as Terminal Emulation https://conemu.github.io/

Install all 3 with the default options for your environment.

Commandline programs¶

Add a directory bin to your homedirectory (for example c:\Users\myusername\bin). Add this to your Path:

• Windows Taskbar (right click) -> select "System"
• In the Settings window under "Related Settings" click "Advanced system settings"
• In the "Advanced" tab click "Environment variables"
• You have now to lists: "variables for myuser" & "system variables"
• double click "Path" in "variables for myuser" and add the path from above

Cool, ...

Now we install the following Windows binaries (.EXE) files in this directory:

• oc -> the OpenShift / OKD Command line (https://github.com/okd-project/okd/releases/ use the newest openshift-client-windows package from here, unpack it and kick the oc.exe to the bin dir)
• kubectl -> the Kubernetes Command line (https://dl.k8s.io/release/v1.26.0/bin/windows/amd64/kubectl.exe)
• helm -> the package manager for Kubernetes (https://github.com/helm/helm/releases)
• kubeseal -> generate Sealed Secrets for Kubernetes and OpenShift (https://github.com/bitnami-labs/sealed-secrets/releases)

Customizings¶

Recommended Visual Studio Coder extensions¶

• Openshift Extension Pack (by Red Hat)
• Remote Development (by Microsoft)
• Git Extension Pack (by Don Jayamanne)

Shell environment¶

We use the git supplied bash and utilities for our unixoid environment (or linuxoid if you prefer it this way).

• Visual Studio Code: The terminal uses Powershell normally. You can switch to bash by:
  • Open "Terminal -> New Terminal"
  • click on the down-arrow on the right side of the Terminal
  • Click "Choose standard profile"
  • Click on "Git Bash"
• ConEmu: We want to use Bash as default terminal shell.
  • Goto "Settings" (the menu comes in the menu button on the top right cornert (under the Windows close button))
  • In Settings: "Startup -> Specified named task: {Bash::Git bash}
  • Save settings

At last wie want to show the actual kubernetes config in the command prompt (we use the famous kube-ps1 project for this):

• open a bash Window (either in VS-Code or ConEmu)

• download the kube-ps1.sh script from the kube-ps1 GitHub repo and place it in your bin directory:
  curl -Lo ~/bin/kube-ps1.sh https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jonmosco/kube-ps1/master/kube-ps1.sh

• create an appropriate .bash_profile in your home directory with this:

  cat << EOF > ~/.bash_profile
  source ~/bin/kube-ps1.sh
  
  function get_cluster_short() {
    echo "$1" | sed 's&.*/api-\([^-]*\)-.*:6443/\(.*\)&\1/\2&'
  }
  KUBE_PS1_CLUSTER_FUNCTION=get_cluster_short
  
  # PS1='[\u@\h \W $(kube_ps1)]\$ '
  PS1='$(kube_ps1) \w \$ '
  
  mkdir -p ~/lib/bash-completion
  for comp in ~/lib/bash-completion/*.sh
  do
    . $comp
  done
  
  alias k=kubectl
  alias more=less
  EOF
  

• add the completion rules for commands:

  kubectl completion bash > ~/lib/bash-completion/kubectl.sh
  oc completion bash > ~/lib/bash-completion/oc.sh
  helm completion bash > ~/lib/bash-completion/helm.sh