Get Started with Bitnami Charts using the Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)

IMPORTANT: The Azure and VMware Bitnami teams are working together to bring you Helm charts and containers in the form of Azure Kubernetes applications. This documentation will be removed on December 1st, 2023. To continue using these form factors, navigate to the Bitnami GitHub repositories for Helm charts and containers. Refer to this tutorial to learn how to get started with Bitnami charts using Azure Marketplace Kubernetes applications.

Introduction

Microsoft Azure is a flexible and versatile cloud platform for enterprise use cases, while Kubernetes is quickly becoming the standard way to manage application containers in production environment. Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) brings these two solutions together, allowing users to quickly and easily create fully managed Kubernetes clusters.

This guide walks you, step by step, through the process of provisioning a new Kubernetes cluster on Microsoft Azure using AKS and then deploying an application to the cluster using a Bitnami Helm chart.

Overview

This guide will introduce you to AKS by provisioning a Kubernetes cluster and deploying the Bitnami WordPress Helm chart on it. This will give you a pre-configured WordPress blog that you can start using right away. But WordPress is just an example: there are hundreds of other Bitnami applications to choose from, and they’re all equally easy to set up.

Here are the steps you’ll follow in this tutorial:

• Provision a Kubernetes cluster
• Install and configure Helm
• Configure Helm to use charts with RBAC
• Subscribe to your private registry and container marketplace
• Deploy the WordPress Helm chart
• Access the Kubernetes dashboard
• Log in and start using WordPress

The next sections will walk you through these steps in detail.

Assumptions and prerequisites

This guide assumes that:

• You have a Microsoft Azure account with an active subscription. If you don’t, create a new account for free.
• You have installed az, the Microsoft Azure command-line interface (CLI). In case you haven’t, install it using these instructions.

Step 1: Provision a Kubernetes cluster

: At the end of this step, you will have provisioned a Kubernetes cluster on AKS.

The first step is to provision a new Kubernetes cluster using the Microsoft Azure CLI. Follow these steps:

NOTE: If you already have kubectl and a running Kubernetes cluster on AKS, you can skip the first two steps in this section. However, ensure that you execute the final step in this section to obtain and configure your local environment with the credentials for your cluster using the az aks get-credentials command.

• Log in to Microsoft Azure:

    $ az login
  

  If you have multiple subscriptions, you can optionally set the subscription you wish to use in the SUBSCRIPTION-NAME placeholder.

    $ az account set --subscription "SUBSCRIPTION-NAME"
  

• Create a resource group and cluster. The cluster creation process can take up to 20 minutes.

    $ az group create --name aks-resource-group --location eastus
    $ az aks create --name aks-cluster --resource-group aks-resource-group --node-count 3 --generate-ssh-keys
  

  In this example, the resource group is named aks-resource-group and the cluster is named aks-cluster and is provisioned in the eastus location. If you choose different names or a different location, update the following steps to use the correct information.

• If you don’t already have it, use the command below to install kubectl, the Kubernetes command-line interface:

    $ sudo az aks install-cli
  

• Configure kubectl to use the credentials for the new AKS cluster:

    $ az aks get-credentials --name aks-cluster --resource-group aks-resource-group
  

Step 2: Install and configure Helm

: At the end of this step, you will have configured Helm to work in your AKS cluster.

Next, install and configure Helm for your operating system:

• To install Helm v3.x, run the following commands:

    $ curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kubernetes/helm/master/scripts/get-helm-3 > get_helm.sh
    $ chmod 700 get_helm.sh
    $ ./get_helm.sh
  

  TIP: If you are using OS X you can install it with the brew install command: brew install helm.

Step 3: Subscribe to your private registry and container marketplace

: At the end of this step, you will have created a private Azure Container Registry (ACR) synchronized with the Bitnami container registry.

Once your AKS cluster is up and running, next step is to create a private ACR to make sure that images are pulled from your private registry instead of, for example, from the public Docker Hub. Follow these steps:

• Navigate to the Microsoft Azure Marketplace, select the image you want to deploy and click “Subscribe”.

• You will be redirected to a form. Select the subscription name and enter a name for your private registry. (If you already have an ACR, click the “Use existing” option). Finally, select the Resource group you have set in step1 and enter the Location.

  NOTE: Enable the “Auto-update” checkbox to automate container updates.

  

Once you have a private registry on Azure, you need to connect it to the Bitnami container registry. That way, both will be synchronized and ready to pull the images from the Bitnami Container Catalog.

• First, you need to create a user with read permissions in the Bitnami registry. Execute the following commands:

  NOTE: Remember to replace MY-REGISTRY and MY-USER placeholders with your registry name and Azure username, respectively.

    $ ACR_LOGIN_SERVER=$(az acr show --name MY-REGISTRY --query loginServer --output tsv)
    $ ACR_REGISTRY_ID=$(az acr show --name MY-REGISTRY --query id --output tsv)
    $ SP_PASSWD=$(az ad sp create-for-rbac --name MY-USER --role Reader --scopes $ACR_REGISTRY_ID --query password --output tsv)
    $ CLIENT_ID=$(az ad sp show --id http://MY-USER --query appId --output tsv)
  

To configure your AKS cluster to use your ACR, you need to indicate Kubernetes from where the Docker images have to be pulled, so it is necessary to specify your custom Docker registry as part of your Kubernetes object configuration. Instead of editing the corresponding yaml files, you can use Kubernetes secrets.

• To create a Kubernetes secret, execute the commands below. Remember to define a value for MY-ACR-AUTH and to replace the EMAIL-ADDRESS placeholder with your email address:

    $ kubectl create secret docker-registry MY-ACR-AUTH \
    --docker-server $ACR_LOGIN_SERVER \
    --docker-username $CLIENT_ID \
    --docker-password $SP_PASSWD \
    --docker-email EMAIL-ADDRESS
  

Step 4: Deploy the WordPress Helm Chart

: At the end of this step, you will have WordPress running in your AKS cluster.

Once Helm is installed and you have created your own ACR, you’re ready to deploy WordPress using the Bitnami WordPress Helm Chart.

• Add the Bitnami chart repository to Helm:

    $ helm repo add bitnami https://charts.bitnami.com/bitnami
  

• Install the WordPress Helm Chart by executing the command below. Replace MY-REGISTRY and the MY-ACR-AUTH placeholders with the values you have defined in step 3:

    $ helm install wordpress bitnami/wordpress
    --set serviceType=LoadBalancer
    --set image.registry="MY-REGISTRY.azurecr.io"
    --set image.pullSecrets={MY-ACR-AUTH}
    --set image.repository=bitnami/wordpress
    --set image.tag=latest
  

  NOTE: Once you are subscribed to an Azure Marketplace Container, the image is copied to your own registry with the name “bitnami/wordpress”. The image currently does not support other different tags except “latest”.

  You should see something like the output below as the chart is installed. Pay special attention to the NOTES section of the output, as it contains important information to access the application.

  

• Check pod status until both WordPress and MariaDB are “running”:

    $ kubectl get pods -w
  

  

• Check services until you see the load balancer’s external IP address:

    $ kubectl get svc -w wordpress-chart-wordpress --namespace default
  

  

• Get the credentials for the application by executing the commands shown in the output of helm install:

  

Browse to the specified URL and you should see WordPress running. Here’s what it should look like:

You will also be able to see your cluster in the Microsoft Azure dashboard, under the “Resource groups” menu item:

Step 5: Access the Kubernetes dashboard

Once your WordPress Helm chart has been installed and it is running in your AKS cluster, you can access the Kubernetes dashboard to manage and monitoring your deployments in a visual way. Follow these steps:

• To access your AKS cluster, navigate to the Microsoft Azure Portal and select the “Kubernetes services” section.

• Click the name of the cluster you want to access. Then, click “View Kubernetes dashboard”.

• In the resulting screen, you will find a set of steps that include the commands you need to execute from a terminal window in your local system:

  

• Once you have executed the commands above, the Kubernetes dashboard IP address will be displayed. Enter that IP address in a web browser to access the cluster dashboard.

Step 6: Log in and start using WordPress

At the end of this step, you will have logged in to WordPress and created a new blog post.

To log in to the WordPress dashboard, follow these steps:

• Browse to the WordPress dashboard, usually at the URL http://SERVER-IP/wp-admin.

• Log in with the administrator credentials from the previous step.

  

You should now arrive at the WordPress dashboard, which allows you to manage posts, pages and comments; customize your blog with themes and plugins; import and export content; manage navigation menus; add or delete new user accounts; and much more.

Create your first post

You can now add a new post using the following steps:

• Select the “Posts -> Add New” menu option to create a new post.

  

• Enter a title and content for the post. You can use the formatting tools at the top of the content area to format your post and add hyperlinks or images.

• Optionally, choose the format and category for your post.

• Publish it immediately using the “Publish” button.

  

And now, when you visit your blog’s front page, you should see your new post.

Congratulations! You now have a working, fully-functional WordPress blog in the cloud.

Keep your WordPress installation up-to-date

You can keep your WordPress installation up-to-date using tools such as VaultPress or the All-in-One WP Migration plugin. Alternatively, for simple upgrades that don’t involve chart changes, you need only to update the container tag/version used in your deployment.

Useful links

To learn more about the topics discussed in this tutorial, use the links below:

• Bitnami
• Bitnami Helm charts
• Production-ready Kubernetes applications by Bitnami
• Microsoft Azure Container Service (AKS)
• Bitnami Azure How-To guides
• Bitnami Azure FAQs
• Bitnami WordPress Stack
• Kubernetes
• Helm