In order to gain experience with a Kubernetes cluster or to be able to experiment with it, a functioning cluster is required. Since most conceptual challenges do not require a high performance test cluster, it is also sufficient to build a smaller and therefore more cost-effective one. For this reason I decided to set up a Raspberry Pi Kubernetes Cluster for testing purposes.

Shopping List

• 4x Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+
• 4x microSD Card (I’m using SanDisk Ultra 64GB)
• Power supply unit for the Raspberry Pi devices. You can also use any other 5V power source which provides enough current.
• 4 Micro USB cables for connecting the power suppy unit
• 4 Layer Acrylic Cluster Case

If the Raspberry Pis are not to be connected via WLAN but cable, the corresponding network components are also required:

• 5 Port Switch
• 4 short ethernet cables

Set up

The website of Hypriot has a very good tutorial how to set up a Kubernetes cluster with Raspberry Pi boards: https://blog.hypriot.com/post/setup-kubernetes-raspberry-pi-cluster/. If you need some configuration examples (executable on a Raspberry Pi Kubernetes Cluster) please check out my GitHub repository with configuration examples: https://github.com/MatthiasLohr/kubernetes-rpi-examples.