simple-nginx.md

Running your first containers in Kubernetes

Ok, you've run one of the getting started guides and you have successfully turned up a Kubernetes cluster. Now what? This guide will help you get oriented to Kubernetes and running your first containers on the cluster.

Running a container (simple version)

Assume that ${KUBERNETES_HOME} points to the directory where you installed the kubernetes directory.

Once you have your cluster created you can use ${KUBERNETES_HOME/kubernetes/cluster/kubectl.sh to access the kubernetes api.

The kubectl.sh line below spins up two containers running Nginx running on port 80:

kubectl run-container my-nginx --image=nginx --replicas=2 --port=80

Once the pods are created, you can list them to see what is up and running:

kubectl get pods

To stop the two replicated containers:

kubectl stop rc my-nginx

Exposing your pods to the internet.

On some platforms (for example Google Compute Engine) the kubectl command can integrate with your cloud provider to add a public IP address for the pods, to do this run:

kubectl expose rc nginx --port=80 --create-external-load-balancer

This should print the service that has been created, and map an external IP address to the service.

Next: Configuration files

Most people will eventually want to use declarative configuration files for creating/modifying their applications. A simplified introduction is given in a different document.