Installing Redpanda on Kubernetes

This guide helps you get started with Redpanda for development and testing on Kubernetes.

note

This page uses the latest recommended Helm chart for installing Redpanda. For information about installing Redpanda on Kubernetes using the older Redpanda Operator, see Redpanda Operator.

Prerequisites

Verify that you have the following software installed:

• kubectl - version 1.21 or later
• Helm - version 3.0.0 or later
• Go - v1.17 or later (only required for Windows setup)

Create a Kubernetes cluster

kind

Create the kind config file to create a multi-node cluster:

cat <<EOF >kind.yaml
---
apiVersion: kind.x-k8s.io/v1alpha4
kind: Cluster
nodes:
  - role: control-plane
  - role: worker
  - role: worker
  - role: worker
EOF

Create a Kubernetes cluster:

kind create cluster --config kind.yaml

minikube

Create a Kubernetes cluster:

minikube start --nodes 4

Prevent applications from being scheduled with the Kubernetes control plane:

kubectl taint node \
    -l node-role.kubernetes.io/control-plane="" \
    node-role.kubernetes.io/control-plane=:NoSchedule

Amazon EKS

Create an Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) cluster:

eksctl create cluster --name redpanda \
    --nodegroup-name standard-workers \
    --node-type m5.xlarge \
    --nodes 3 \
    --nodes-min 3 \
    --nodes-max 4

Google GKE

Create a Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) cluster:

gcloud container clusters create redpanda --machine-type n1-standard-4 --num-nodes=3

Use Helm to install Redpanda

Install Redpanda using Helm:

helm repo add redpanda https://charts.redpanda.com/
helm repo update
helm install redpanda redpanda/redpanda \
    --namespace redpanda \
    --create-namespace

The installation produces some notes with getting started tips:

NAME: redpanda
LAST DEPLOYED: Wed Sep 14 17:08:43 2022
NAMESPACE: redpanda
STATUS: deployed
REVISION: 1
NOTES:
Congratulations on installing redpanda!

The pods roll out in a few seconds. To check the status, run:

  kubectl -n redpanda rollout status statefulset redpanda --watch

Try some sample commands, like creating a topic called test-topic:

Get the API status:

  kubectl -n redpanda exec -ti redpanda-0 -c redpanda -- rpk --brokers=redpanda-0.redpanda.redpanda.svc.cluster.local.:9093 cluster info

Create a topic:

  kubectl -n redpanda exec -ti redpanda-0 -c redpanda -- rpk --brokers=redpanda-0.redpanda.redpanda.svc.cluster.local.:9093 topic create test-topic

Describe the topic:

  kubectl -n redpanda exec -ti redpanda-0 -c redpanda -- rpk --brokers=redpanda-0.redpanda.redpanda.svc.cluster.local.:9093 topic describe test-topic

Delete the topic:

  kubectl -n redpanda exec -ti redpanda-0 -c redpanda -- rpk --brokers=redpanda-0.redpanda.redpanda.svc.cluster.local.:9093 topic delete test-topic

Wait for the Redpanda cluster to be ready:

kubectl -n redpanda rollout status statefulset redpanda --watch

When it's ready, the output should look similar to the following:

statefulset rolling update complete 3 pods at revision redpanda-8654f645b4...