This post was written by a guest contributor, Rishi Johari, Product Manager at Oracle.

You can now use a plugin from the Container Engine for Kubernetes cluster details page of the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Console to easily connect to your Kubernetes cluster by using Cloud Shell. When you use Cloud Shell, you don’t need to install any tools locally to access your Kubernetes cluster!

In addition to the command line interface (CLI), Cloud Shell provides the following commonly used Kubernetes tools:

  • A preinstalled version of kubectl, a command line tool for controlling Kubernetes clusters
  • A preinstalled version of Helm, a package manager used to deploy applications to Kubernetes clusters

This post walks you through the process of using Cloud Shell to access your Container Engine for Kubernetes (OKE) cluster and deploy an Nginx application.

Prerequisites

Access a Cluster Using Cloud Shell

  1. In the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Console, navigate to your clusters by selecting Developer Services, and then Container Clusters (OKE).

  2. Select your cluster, and then click Access Cluster.

  3. Select Cloud Shell Access.

  4. Click Launch Cloud Shell.

  5. Copy the command that begins oci ce cluster.

  6. Paste the copied command into Cloud Shell.

  7. Verify that you can connect to your cluster with kubectl using Cloud Shell by running the kubectl get nodes command.

Screenshot that shows the Console user interface and the Cloud Shell window, and illustrates the preceding steps to access clusters in Cloud Shell.

Deploy an Nginx Application Using Helm

On the same cluster, deploy an Nginx Helm chart by using Cloud Shell.

  1. Add an Nginx Helm repository:

    $ helm repo add bitnami https://charts.bitnami.com/bitnami
$ helm repo update

  2. Deploy it by using the Helm 3.x client:

    $ helm install my-release bitnami/nginx

    Screenshot that shows the details and status for the Helm client in Cloud Shell.

  3. Check the new Nginx pod:

    $ kubectl get pods,svc

    Alt text: Screenshot that shows the details and status of the newly deployed Nginx pod in Cloud Shell.

  4. Open a web browser to verify the Nginx page using the load balancer public IP info gathered in the previous step

Clean Up

In Cloud Shell, run the following commands to uninstall the Helm chart and verify that it was removed:

$ helm uninstall my-release
$ kubectl get pods,svc

Screenshot that shows the notification for the uninstallation of the Helm pod in Cloud Shell.

Try Cloud Shell Today

Follow these steps yourself. If you don’t already have an Oracle Cloud account, sign up for a free trial today.