Use Terraform to create a VPC and a Kubernetes Cluster on IBM Cloud

This is an example to create a Kubernetes Cluster on IBM Cloud in a VPC.

The example is based on following resources:

• IBM Cloud VPC Gen 2 cluster example
• Terraform Registry
• Networking for the VPC and Kubernetes Clusters

Simplified Architecture diagram

It creates/configures on IBM Cloud:

• 1 x VPC

  • 3 x Security Groups

    • 1 x Default
    • 2 x Related to the Kubernetes Cluster (created by the Kubernetes Service creation)

  • 1 x Access control list

  • 1 x Routing table

  • 1 x Virtual Private Endpoint Gateway (created by the Kubernetes Service creation)

  • 1 x Public load balancer (created by the Kubernetes Service creation)

• 1 Kubernetes Cluster

  • Including 3 fully IBM managed master nodes
  • Configured 2 Worker nodes (managed by IBM) (see responsibilities)
  • Enabled Block Storage for VPC
  • Enabled service endpoint for public and private communication

Terraform variables

Name	Description	Type	Default Value
flavor	Default worker node flaver. Use 'ibmcloud ks flavors --zone us-south-1' to verify the availability.	String	bx2.4x16
worker_count	Default worker node count is set to 2.	Integer	2
resource_group	IBM Cloud resource group name.	String	default
vpc_name	The Virtual Private Cloud name.	String	operator-sample
region	IBM Cloud region for the Kubernetes Cluster and the VPC	String	us-south
kube_version	The tested Kubernetes Cluster version for the example is 1.23.8.	String	1.23.8
cluster_name	Kubernetes Cluster Name running in VPC Gen2.	String	operator-sample-ks-cluster
kubernetes_pricing	Kubernetes Cluster pricing.	String	tiered-pricing

Prerequisites

To use an example bash automation following tools need to be installed on the local computer

• IBM Cloud CLI
• Plugin VPC infrastructure
• Plugin Container-service
• Terraform

Example setup

The setup contains steps to use terraform locally with a bash automation, but you can also use Schematics on IBM Cloud for the setup. Here is a blog post which does cover an example usage of Schematics link.

Step 1: Clone the repo

git clone https://github.com/thomassuedbroecker/terraform-vpc-kubernetes.git
cd terraform-vpc-kubernetes

Step 2: Verify the configuration of the variables.tf file

nano variables.tf

Step 3: Create a variables.env file

cat variables_template.env > variables.env

Step 4: Add an IBM Cloud access key to your local variables.env file

nano variables.env

Content of the file:

export IC_API_KEY=YOUR_IBM_CLOUD_ACCESS_KEY
export TF_LOG=debug
export REGION="us-south"
export GROUP="default"

Step 5: Execute the bash automation

The creation can take up to 2 hours, depending on the which region you are using.

create_vpc_kubernetes_cluster_with_terraform.sh