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The Continuing Saga of Running Kubernetes on RPi 3 B+ Cluster

So when I said I had Kubernetes running on a four node Raspberry Pi 3 B+ cluster,  I didn’t realize how complex a task it would turn out to be!

I had been following the instructions by Alex Ellis, but it turns out the latest version of Docker and Kubernetes doesn’t run well on the RPi 3 B+. I had to downgrade them to previous versions.

Then there were issues with the network stack. I tried Weave as recommended by Alex, but that didn’t work, so I switched to Flannel. I was then able to get the markdown to HTML converter example running. However, when I went to try setting up a dashboard I couldn’t get that to run because of issues with Flannel. Maybe I’ll try Calico next?

As for the hardware, I’ve added three more Pi’s to make a seven node cluster (one master and six workers).

picture of my k8s cluster
The completed seven node Kubernetes cluster.

I’ll have to spend some more time searching google and reading  the K8s documentation to figure this one out.

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New Project: Kubernetes Cluster

I’ve started on a new project: To learn more about containers. Specifically, Docker and Kubernetes.

To do so I’ve built a small Kubernetes Cluster using four Raspberry Pi 3 B+s (see below).  Eventually, I would like to expand it to seven Raspberry Pis.

I’ve been following the instructions  created by Alex Ellis.

So far I have the cluster up and running. Now it’s time to do some more reading!

-Neil

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Sunday Geek Project: NTP Servers – Update

All of my NTP servers are finally up and running! (For real!)

I had been having issues with the Sparkfun Trimble GPS Module and I finally contacted Sparkfun. They responded quickly and knew exactly what the issue was.

Turns out, the width of the pulse on the Pulse-per-second output of the Trimble is too short for the Raspberry Pi 2 to detect.

Sparkfun provided step by step instructions on how to download Trimble’s GPS Configuration software, connect the module to my computer, and reprogram the pulse width. Thank you Sparkfun!

So now I can finally be collecting statistics on all five modules. I’d like to get a least a week of data before beginning comparisons.

Stay tuned for more!

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Sunday Geek Project: Raspberry Pi NTP Server Recipe

To setup each Raspberry Pi 2 as a Stratum 1 NTP server I’m following the recipe created by David Taylor. While the recipe is very thorough and complete, I ran into an issue disabling the login prompt on the Raspberry Pi’s serial port under Debian Jessie. No matter what I did the login prompt would always be re-enabled after the Pi rebooted. This resulted in GPSD not starting correctly. Read on to find out how to resolve the issue. Continue reading “Sunday Geek Project: Raspberry Pi NTP Server Recipe”

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Sunday Geek Project: Building Stratum 1 Network Time Protocol Servers

So today is the day after my youngest son’s high school graduation party. Needing a break, I decided to work on my project to compare different GPS modules’ time keeping ability. So I built three Network Time Protocol (NTP) servers using Raspberry Pi’s and different GPS modules:

NTPServers

As I move from the prototyping stage to the testing phase, I hope to document the process, equipment, and results here.

Stay tuned!