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Light Version

The light version of the Low-Ops platform allows you to run Low-Ops on a single Linux machine, making it ideal for testing purposes.

Prerequisites

Required Packages

Ensure the following binaries are installed on the machine with access to the Kubernetes API before starting:

  • kubectl - Version v1.27
  • helm - Version v3.9
  • kind - Version v1.27
  • docker - Version 27.3.1

Kubernetes Cluster

The Low-Ops platform requires a Kubernetes cluster. Currently supported Kubernetes versions are:

  • v1.27
  • v1.28
  • v1.29

System Resources

To run the platform, the system should have at least 16 GB of RAM and an 8-core CPU.

When running the platform on a single machine, the following changes are required:

Update the following files with content:

/etc/security/limits.conf 

*               soft    nofile           1048570
*               hard    nofile           1048576

  • This increases the maximum number of open files (file descriptors) that processes can use
  • Container platforms like Kubernetes and Docker can open many files simultaneously due to running multiple containers, handling logs, and managing network connections
  • The default limits are often too low for production workloads
  • Without these increases, you might see errors like "too many open files" or performance degradation

/etc/sysctl.conf 

fs.inotify.max_user_watches=100000
fs.inotify.max_user_instances=100000
- inotify is a Linux kernel subsystem that provides file system event monitoring - Kubernetes and container workloads use this to watch for configuration changes, file updates, etc. - The default limits are typically too low for Kubernetes clusters - Without these increases, you might see errors like "no space left on device" (despite having disk space) or "too many open files" when Kubernetes tries to watch config files

Platform Foundation

This setup requires a single Linux server with internet access and Docker installed.

Platform Installation

Step 1: Install Kubernetes Cluster

Create a kind-config.yaml configuration file with the following content:

kind: Cluster
apiVersion: kind.x-k8s.io/v1alpha4
nodes:
- role: control-plane
- role: worker
- role: worker
- role: worker
networking:
  apiServerPort: 6443
  apiServerAddress: 0.0.0.0

Create the Kubernetes cluster on the Linux server. Replace dev with your company or project name:

kind create cluster --name dev --config ./kind-config.yaml --image "kindest/node:v1.27.3" -v 1

Retrieve the Kubernetes configuration from the created cluster:

kind get kubeconfig --name=dev > ~/.kube/config

Step 2: Install Proxy (Required Only for Light Platform Installation)

Create an haproxy.cfg file with the following content:

global
    log stdout format raw local0 info

defaults
    log global
    retries 2
    option dontlognull
    timeout connect 10000
    timeout server 600000
    timeout client 600000

frontend http_frontend
    bind *:80 
    default_backend http_backend

frontend https_frontend
    bind *:443 
    default_backend https_backend

backend https_backend
    server nginx-ingress 172.19.255.200:443 check send-proxy

backend http_backend
    server nginx-ingress 172.19.255.200:80 check send-proxy

Start the HAProxy service using the following command:

docker run -d \
    --restart unless-stopped \
    --name haproxy \
    --network=kind \
    -v $(pwd)/haproxy.cfg:/usr/local/etc/haproxy/haproxy.cfg:ro \
    -p 443:443 \
    -p 80:80 \
    haproxytech/haproxy-alpine:2.4

For further steps, please refer to the main installation page.