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Cloud Shell Configuration

If you are running the labs using the IBM Cloud Shell, we need to complete a couple of setup steps before we proceed. This section is broken up into the following steps:

  1. Access the Cloud Shell
  2. Configure Kubectl
  3. Install Helm Version 3

1. Access the Cloud Shell

If you do not already have it open, go ahead and open the Cloud shell.

Terminal Button

Note: Ensure the cloud shell is using the same account where your cluster is provisioned. Ensure that the account name shown in the top right of the screen, next to Current account is the correct one.

2. Configure Kubectl

If you have not setup your kubectl to access your cluster, you can do so in the Cloud Shell.

  • Run the ibmcloud ks clusters command to verify the terminal and setup for access to the cluster
ibmcloud ks clusters
  • Configure the kubectl cli available within the terminal for access to your cluster. If you previously stored your cluster name to an environment variable, use that (ie. $CLUSTER_NAME), otherwise copy and paste your cluster name from the previous commands output to the $CLUSTER_NAME portion below.
ibmcloud ks cluster config --cluster $CLUSTER_NAME
  • Verify access to the Kubernetes API by getting the namespaces.
kubectl get namespace
  • You should see output similar to the following, if so, then your're ready to continue.
NAME              STATUS   AGE
default           Active   125m
ibm-cert-store    Active   121m
ibm-system        Active   124m
kube-node-lease   Active   125m
kube-public       Active   125m
kube-system       Active   125m

Note: You can also validate that your kubectl is configured by looking at its context. 

kubectl config current-context

3. Alias Helm Version 3

The Cloud Shell comes with both Helm 2 and Helm 3 versions. To make sure we use the Helm Version 3 variant, we will create an alias.

  • Run the following commands to install Helm Version 3:
alias helm=helm3
  • Check the helm version by running the following command:
helm version --short

The result is that you should have Helm Version 3 installed.

$ helm version --short
v3.2.1+gfe51cd1