Kubernetes Dashboard

Kubernetes Dashboard is a general-purpose, web-based UI for Kubernetes clusters. It allows users to manage applications running in the cluster and troubleshoot them, as well as manage the cluster itself.

Notable parameters

Name	Supported Values	Default Values	Description
k8s-dashboard.namespace		kubernetes-dashboard	The namespace where you want to run the Kubernetes dashboard deployment
k8s-dashboard.clusterRole	Any valid clusterRole from the Kubernetes cluster	`k8s-dashboard-readonly`	The ClusterRole to be attached to the ServiceAccount which defines RBAC to the cluster resources.
			By default, a ClusterRole (k8s-dashboard-readonly) with ReadOnly access to most of the resources is deployed.
k8s-dashboard.certDuration	A Go time.Duration string format in s (seconds), m (minutes), and h (hour) suffixes	`8760h` (365 days)	Validity for the Self-signed certificate, specified in hours.
k8s-dashboard.certRenewal	A Go time.Duration string format in s (seconds), m (minutes), and h (hour) suffixes	`720h` (30 days)	Certificate renew before expiration duration
k8s-dashboard.serviceType	ClusterIP, LoadBalancer	ClusterIP	The ServiceType for dashboard. It is highly recommended to use ClusterIP service type to restrict access to the cluster
k8s-dashboard.skipLogin	True, False	False	Flag to skip authentications in the Dashboard UI. Enabling this might expose a security risk. Use this only for demo purposes.

Accessing the dashboard

ClusterIP service type

When connected to the cluster remotely, run the following command to establish a connection to dashboard deployment on port 8080

kubectl port-forward -n kubernetes-dashboard service/kubernetes-dashboard 8080:443

To access Kubernetes Dashboard, go to the below URL in a browser of your choice https://localhost:8080

In the Dashboard login page, to get the bearer token, run the below command from the Terminal window:

kubectl -n kubernetes-dashboard describe secret $(kubectl -n kubernetes-dashboard get secret | grep kubernetes-dashboard-token | awk '{print $1}')

The output of the above command will look like this, where the token value is in the last line

Name:         kubernetes-dashboard-token-h4lnf
Namespace:    kubernetes-dashboard
Labels:       <none>
Annotations:  kubernetes.io/service-account.name: kubernetes-dashboard
              kubernetes.io/service-account.uid: 00e729f1-6638-4e68-8df5-afa2e2e38095
Type:  kubernetes.io/service-account-token
Data
====
ca.crt:     1029 bytes
namespace:  20 bytes
token:      eyJhbGciOiJSUzI1NiIsImtpZCI6Ilg1bTg3RWM4Y1c3NnhkQ3dXbXNDUXQydVpYQklRUWoxa1BaS0ctVkVTSDQifQ.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.JU4GOJNjGpkHabUyxBt_2rvtXNjpR3w238BF2oMCQUNf_ZkUGSMeAAgIKxbAuk62dtJNDaRh5yAZ9J5KthMcU6k4qVmodUOJdlvigBVNjTDEhPM-sqJus62HMtwjpvm0CX-aP_A_BqHs2yJ3OgXSX0uHmkUO1FMoZSVaRpOvx7f5bPswxd87L3npuZt4p-NJIX32-DGjBnxdANAHcWil3YHIUbDgQIdjDfN6stGU_JByvzfCJpNCWWDinr772W7iZ3uA28F8uGS0ZMd1E5e1moEFBY8BM015Qxg2Y_k7lmv9S8GMkBJyTiJNiqnwLwfsiE1ycE4Tgq_vuQfFToIMNw

LoadBalancer service type

Use the LB service IP & port to connect to the dashboard

Ingress

Follow below steps to configure Ingress on Kubernetes Dashboard

Change serviceType from "LoadBalancer" to "ClusterIP" (line #17)
Ingress (line #23)
- Enable Ingress; Change enabled from false to "true"
- Set Ingress rules like annotations, path, hosts, etc.

With these config changes, you can access Kubernetes Dashboard service on the Ingress Controller LoadBalancer hostname / IP

Troubleshooting

If the Dashboard is not accessible, check the dashboard pod for any errors and ensure the Dashboard service is in the 'Running' state.
When the namespace is customized while deploying Dashboard, make sure to replace the namespace values in the above commands.

References

https://kubernetes.io/docs/tasks/access-application-cluster/web-ui-dashboard/ https://github.com/kubernetes/dashboard/tree/master/docs

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