💻 Machine Preparation

System requirements

📍 k3s default behaviour is that all nodes are able to run workloads, including control nodes. Worker nodes are therefore optional.

📍 If you have 3 or more nodes it is strongly recommended to make 3 of them control nodes for a highly available control plane.

📍 Ideally you will run the cluster on bare metal machines.

Role Cores Memory System Disk
Control 4 (6*) 8GB (24GB*) 100GB (500GB*) SSD/NVMe
Worker 4 (6*) 8GB (24GB*) 100GB (500GB*) SSD/NVMe
* recommended

Debian for AMD64

  1. Download the latest stable release of Debian, then follow this guide to get it installed.

    Deviations from the guide:

    Choose "Guided - use entire disk"
Choose "All files in one partition"
Delete Swap partition
Uncheck all Debian desktop environment options

  2. [Post install] Remove CD/DVD as apt source

    su -
sed -i '/deb cdrom/d' /etc/apt/sources.list
apt update
exit

  3. [Post install] Enable sudo for your non-root user

    su -
apt update
apt install -y sudo
usermod -aG sudo ${username}
echo "${username} ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL" | tee /etc/sudoers.d/${username}
exit
newgrp sudo
sudo apt update

  4. [Post install] Add SSH keys (or use ssh-copy-id on the client that is connecting)

    1. Add with ssh-copy-id
    ssh-copy-id -i ~/.ssh/id_ed25519 <user>@<host>
    1. Add with github

    📍 First make sure your ssh keys are up-to-date and added to your github account as instructed.

    mkdir -m 700 ~/.ssh
sudo apt install -y curl
curl https://github.com/${github_username}.keys > ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
chmod 600 ~/.ssh/authorized_keys