Install Redpanda Guide for Kubernetes with minikube

Deprecated red

The Cluster and Console resources are deprecated. For details, see the deprecation notice. To migrate to the Redpanda resource, see Migrate from Cluster and Console Custom Resources

This guide helps you set up Redpanda locally for development and testing purposes on macOS, Windows, or Linux. Start here to set up Redpanda quickly to try it out or for CI/CD purposes.

This guide uses minikube to create a local Kubernetes cluster in which Redpanda is deployed. It also verifies that the Kafka API port is exposed to your local network, so that you can interact with Redpanda from your local machine and not just from inside the Kubernetes cluster.

To get up and running, you create a cluster and deploy the Redpanda operator on the cluster. The steps limit the number of nodes to one, because multi-node local clusters are not currently supported. For details on how to access Redpanda outside the Kubernetes network, see Connecting Remotely to Kubernetes.

In these steps, the YAML file you use to install Redpanda sets developerMode: true. If you choose to set developerMode: false, run rpk redpanda tune all directly on the host before you create a Redpanda cluster. This command sets tuning parameters for optimal configuration. For more information, see Set Redpanda production mode. If rpk is not available, verify that fs.aio-max-nr is set to 1048576 or greater. You can set fs.aio-max-nr by running sysctl -w fs.aio-max-nr=1048576.

Prerequisites

Before you install Redpanda, verify that you have the following software installed on the machine where you want to run Redpanda:

  • kubectl - version 1.21 or later

  • Helm - version 3.0.0 or later

  • minikube - version 1.25.1 or later

  • jq - This setup uses jq to set the Redpanda $VERSION environment variable. (If you don’t have jq installed, you can run the same commands by replacing the $VERSION environment variable with the version of Redpanda that you’re using.) Run the one of the following commands to install jq:

    • brew

    • apt

    brew install jq
    sudo apt-get update && \
sudo apt-get install jq

Create a Kubernetes cluster

Start up minikube and Kubernetes:

minikube start

Verify that Kubernetes is running:

minikube status

Install cert-manager

The Redpanda operator requires cert-manager to create certificates for TLS communication. You can install cert-manager with Helm or kubectl.

Before you install cert-manager, verify that the version you’re installing is compatible with your Kubernetes version. The cert-manager Supported Releases documentation lists which Kubernetes versions are supported.

To install cert-manager with Helm:

helm repo add jetstack https://charts.jetstack.io && \
helm repo update && \
helm install \
  cert-manager jetstack/cert-manager \
  --namespace cert-manager \
  --create-namespace \
  --version v1.12.2 \
  --set installCRDs=true

Verify cert-manager installation

Use the verification procedure in the cert-manager documentation to verify that cert-manager is deployed correctly.

Install Redpanda operator with Helm

  1. To use Helm to add the Redpanda chart repository and update it:

    helm repo add vectorized https://charts.vectorized.io/ && \
helm repo update

  2. Set the $VERSION environment variable to the latest operator and Redpanda version:

    export VERSION=$(curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/redpanda-data/redpanda/releases/latest | jq -r .tag_name)

    If you prefer to manually enter the Redpanda version, or if you want to verify the version, the following command returns the installed version:

    curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/redpanda-data/redpanda/releases/latest | grep tag_name

    Find information about the versions of the operator in the list of operator releases.

  3. Install the Redpanda operator CRD with bash or zsh:

    • bash

    • zsh

    kubectl apply \
-k https://github.com/redpanda-data/redpanda/src/go/k8s/config/crd?ref=$VERSION
    noglob kubectl apply \
-k https://github.com/redpanda-data/redpanda/src/go/k8s/config/crd?ref=$VERSION

  4. Install the Redpanda operator on your Kubernetes cluster:

    helm install \
  redpanda-operator \
  vectorized/redpanda-operator \
  --namespace redpanda-system \
  --create-namespace \
  --version $VERSION

Install and connect to a Redpanda cluster

After you set up Redpanda in your Kubernetes cluster, you can use the sample configuration files in GitHub to install a cluster and see Redpanda in action.

This example is an imaginary chat application, panda-chat, but you can replace panda-chat with any string. In this example, panda-chat has five chat rooms.

Complete the following steps to manage a stream of events from panda-chat:

  1. Create a namespace for the cluster:

    kubectl create ns panda-ns

  2. Install a single-node cluster (only single-node clusters are supported for local access clusters):

    kubectl apply \
-n panda-ns \
-f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/redpanda-data/redpanda/dev/src/go/k8s/config/samples/one_node_cluster.yaml

    You can view the resource configuration options, such as storage capacity, network configuration, or TLS configuration in the cluster_types file in GitHub. You can also find additional sample configuration files.

  3. Verify that the cluster was created successfully:

    kubectl exec -it -n panda-ns one-node-cluster-0 -- rpk cluster metadata --brokers='localhost:9092'

Start streaming

Use rpk to run commands. rpk is a CLI tool you can use to work with your Redpanda nodes. See rpk Commands. Here are some sample commands to produce and consume streams:

Create a panda-chat topic with five partitions:

kubectl exec -it -n panda-ns one-node-cluster-0 -- rpk topic create panda-chat -p 5 --brokers='localhost:9092'

Produce messages to the topic:

kubectl exec -it -n panda-ns one-node-cluster-0 -- rpk topic produce panda-chat --brokers='localhost:9092'

Type text into the topic, such as Pandas are fabulous!.

  • Click Enter to separate between messages.

  • Click Ctrl + D to exit the produce command.

Consume (read) the messages in the topic:

kubectl exec -it -n panda-ns one-node-cluster-0 -- rpk topic consume panda-chat --brokers='localhost:9092'

Each message is shown with its metadata, like this:

{
"message": "Pandas are fabulous!\n",
"partition": 0,
"offset": 1,
"timestamp": "2022-02-10T15:52:35.251+02:00"
}

List the topics:

kubectl exec -it -n panda-ns one-node-cluster-0 -- rpk topic list --brokers='localhost:9092'

Delete the cluster

Delete the cluster:

minikube delete

For more information, see the minikube delete documentation.