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Converting an old MacBook into an always-on personal Kubernetes cluster

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Re: Converting an old MacBook into an always-on personal Kubernetes cluster

#121

Post by jariel »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #101
jariel wrote: post #61

Why would one want a 'personal kube cluster'?

You're on Hacker News. Playing with fun new technology is 100% a valid "usecase" here:)

Yes, of course! Which is why it's a rhetorical question.

Many technologies, I can see how people would want to hack on.

But Kube, to me, is going way down the rabbit hole - a tech to support another tech, to support another tech, to support another tech, to do maybe something at scale, which few will ever do.

I feel as the Kubes is one of those almost entirely arbitrary forms of complexity that pulls our nerdy attention into the netherworld.

I feel lately that tech people are creating a fully on dystopia of total complexity: more than any one individual can grasp in a lifetime, and a situation in which it's nary impossible to know even which direction someone should head to be a 'pragmatic contributor' who also has 'some semblance of a life' without woefully falling behind.

It's one thing to have enthusiasts, it's another to have a situation wherein only kids coding since 18 and running their own 'kube clusters' and 10-layer stacks at home have the chops to do what's necessary.

Re: Converting an old MacBook into an always-on personal Kubernetes cluster

#122

Post by odensc »

ukd1 wrote: post #92
odensc wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FYI, if you're looking to deploy a hobbyist/side-project Kubernetes cluster I'd highly recommend k3s [1] - it's a lightweight certified distribution, and is ridiculously easy to set up. I haven't needed to do any maintenance besides the periodic update. It also works fine for production in my experience, I have a mildly popular website running on a 4GB VPS with it and haven't had any issues related to k3s itself. [1]…

Similar, and probably slightly easier from my experience, plus supports things like clustering and easily managing service, is microk8s[1] from canonical. [1]: https://microk8s.org

Interesting, I'll have to look more into that and the differences to k3s. But k3s does support clustering BTW.

Re: Converting an old MacBook into an always-on personal Kubernetes cluster

#123

Post by teejmya »

Terretta wrote: post #104
spalas wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi -- Author here. Thanks for the word of warning. I'll take a look at removing the battery to avoid any issues.

I wouldn't change your setup based on anecdata. For instance, my MacBooks tend to be in use 5 - 10 years because they get handed down, and I essentially only run MacBooks while they're plugged in (e.g., off power less than one day a week), and have never had that happen. I certainly see battery capacities drop after 3 years or more, and simply buy a new battery. OWC "MacSales" batteries: https://eshop.macsales.com/sh…

I'm glad you haven't had this issue before, but I'm willing to bet that the (admittedly not often) time you spend unplugged has prevented it.

I've run several laptops as you describe without issue, however I've also run two macbooks at two different times plugged in 24/7 as "servers" and both had this issue within 3 years. The first of these two shattered the glass trackpad which was a safety issue in itself. Apple agreed and fixed it for free even though the warranty had expired!

This happened to one of my Dell laptops last week since it had been docked for a year and already had a worn battery. So that's why it was fresh on my mind when I commented. Luckily I caught it because the plastic case bent upwards...

Re: Converting an old MacBook into an always-on personal Kubernetes cluster

#124

Post by teejmya »

spalas wrote: post #97
teejmya wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this is inevitable if you're going to run this plugged in over a significant amount of time. Should remove the battery. I found no mention of this in the article, which I think is dangerous. Unfortunately I didn't find any way to contact the author on his site (except an unused comment plugin).

Hi -- Author here. Thanks for the word of warning. I'll take a look at removing the battery to avoid any issues.

Thanks Sid!

Re: Converting an old MacBook into an always-on personal Kubernetes cluster

#125

Post by LockAndLol »

odensc wrote: post #62
wpietri wrote: post #45

For what it's worth, I built one like this on an old Linux laptop. I then moved my home lighting controller onto it as a test. Some months later my house lights stopped working, and I had to spend a few hours applying snippets semi-randomly from Stack Overflow. It could be the problem was due to expired Kubernetes certificates, or it could be something else. Either way, my conclusion was that Kubernetes is really mea…

FYI, if you're looking to deploy a hobbyist/side-project Kubernetes cluster I'd highly recommend k3s [1] - it's a lightweight certified distribution, and is ridiculously easy to set up. I haven't needed to do any maintenance besides the periodic update. It also works fine for production in my experience, I have a mildly popular website running on a 4GB VPS with it and haven't had any issues related to k3s itself. [1]…

Thank you very much. I was really not looking forward to running docker in a VM. It seems too much like a case of inception.

> Bro, I heard you like virtualization, so we use virtualization inside virtualization to virtualize while we virtualize!

Hard pass. I hope this can be a nice alternative to managing docker-compose.

Re: Converting an old MacBook into an always-on personal Kubernetes cluster

#126

Post by boon »

rmdashrfstar wrote: post #29
mosselman wrote: post #23

You could sell the MacBook and build a decent raspberrypi cluster with the money you make on it.

A big problem is local storage provisioner for kubernetes is still not GA. I want to use an SSD attached to one master, and use that as storage for the other RPIs. Doing this is still undocumented/the Wild West.

Another frustration with the RPi cluster is the arm requirement. If you're only building/running your own stuff, that's fine, but finding containers and helm charts that support arm can be frustratingly difficult.

This is speaking from experience. I love my k3s RPi cluster, it's fantastic once you get things working. I just had to augment with some x86 nodes in order to _also_ run some software that just wouldn't run anywhere else.

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