Deploy MinIO Operator on Azure Kubernetes Service

Overview

Azure Kubernetes Engine (AKS) is a highly available, secure, and fully managed Kubernetes service from Microsoft Azure. The MinIO Kubernetes Operator supports deploying MinIO Tenants onto AKS infrastructure using the MinIO Operator Console or kustomize for YAML-defined deployments.

Through the AKS Marketplace

MinIO maintains an AKS Marketplace listing through which you can register your AKS cluster with MinIO SUBNET. Any MinIO tenant you deploy through Marketplace-connected clusters can take advantage of SUBNET registration, including 24/7 access to MinIO engineers.

Using Kubernetes Kustomize

MinIO provides Kustomize templates for deploying the MinIO Operator onto Kubernetes infrastructure. You can use Kustomize to install the Operator onto EKS infrastructure.

MinIO Operator installations and Tenants deployed through this path require manual subscription with MinIO SUBNET for licensing and support.

Using Kubernetes Helm

MinIO provides a Helm chart for deploying the MinIO Operator onto Kubernetes infrastructure. See Deploy Operator With Helm for instructions.

MinIO Operator installations and Tenants deployed through this path require manual subscription with MinIO SUBNET for licensing and support.

This page documents deploying the MinIO Operator through the CLI using Kustomize.

This page documents deploying the MinIO Operator through the CLI using Kustomize. For instructions on deploying the MinIO Operator through the AKS Marketplace, see Deploy MinIO through AKS

This documentation assumes familiarity with all referenced Kubernetes and Azure Kubernetes Service concepts, utilities, and procedures. While this documentation may provide guidance for configuring or deploying Kubernetes-related or Azure Kubernetes Service-related resources on a best-effort basis, it is not a replacement for the official Kubernetes Documentation.

Prerequisites

AKS Cluster with Azure Virtual Machines

This procedure assumes an existing AKS cluster with at least four Azure virtual machines (VM). The Azure VMs should have matching machine types and configurations to ensure predictable performance with MinIO.

MinIO provides hardware guidelines for selecting the appropriate EC2 instance class and size. MinIO strongly recommends selecting VM instances with support for Premium SSDs and at least 25Gbps Network bandwidth as a baseline for performance.

For more complete information on Azure Virtual Machine types and Storage resources, see Sizes for virtual machines in Azure and Azure managed disk types

`kubectl` Access to the AKS Cluster

Ensure your host machine has a kubectl installation compatible with the target AKS cluster. For guidance on connecting kubectl to AKS, see Install kubectl and configure cluster access.

Procedure

The following steps deploy Operator using Kustomize and a kustomization.yaml file from the MinIO Operator GitHub repository. To install Operator using a Helm chart, see Deploy Operator with Helm.

The following procedure uses kubectl -k to install the Operator from the MinIO Operator GitHub repository. kubectl -k and kubectl --kustomize are aliases that perform the same command.

Important

If you use Kustomize to install the Operator, you must use Kustomize to manage or upgrade that installation. Do not use kubectl krew, a Helm chart, or similar methods to manage or upgrade a MinIO Operator installation deployed with Kustomize.

You can, however, use Kustomize to upgrade a previous version of Operator (5.0.14 or earlier) installed with the MinIO Kubernetes Plugin.

1. Install the latest version of Operator

kubectl apply -k "github.com/minio/operator?ref=v6.0.4"

The output resembles the following:

namespace/minio-operator created
customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/miniojobs.job.min.io created
customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/policybindings.sts.min.io created
customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/tenants.minio.min.io created
serviceaccount/console-sa created
serviceaccount/minio-operator created
clusterrole.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/console-sa-role created
clusterrole.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/minio-operator-role created
clusterrolebinding.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/console-sa-binding created
clusterrolebinding.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/minio-operator-binding created
configmap/console-env created
secret/console-sa-secret created
service/console created
service/operator created
service/sts created
deployment.apps/console created
deployment.apps/minio-operator created

2. Verify the Operator pods are running

kubectl get pods -n minio-operator

The output resembles the following:

NAME                              READY   STATUS              RESTARTS   AGE
console-56c7d8bd89-485qh          1/1     Running   0          2m42s
minio-operator-6c758b8c45-nkhlx   1/1     Running   0          2m42s
minio-operator-6c758b8c45-dgd8n   1/1     Running   0          2m42s

In this example, the minio-operator pod is MinIO Operator and the console pod is the Operator Console.

You can modify your Operator deployment by applying kubectl patches. You can find examples for common configurations in the Operator GitHub repository.

3. (Optional) Configure access to the Operator Console service

The Operator Console service does not automatically bind or expose itself for external access on the Kubernetes cluster. You must instead configure a network control plane component, such as a load balancer or ingress, to grant that external access.

For testing purposes or short-term access, expose the Operator Console service through a NodePort using the following patch:

kubectl patch service -n minio-operator console -p '
{
      "spec": {
         "ports": [
            {
                  "name": "http",
                  "port": 9090,
                  "protocol": "TCP",
                  "targetPort": 9090,
                  "nodePort": 30090
            },
            {
                  "name": "https",
                  "port": 9443,
                  "protocol": "TCP",
                  "targetPort": 9443,
                  "nodePort": 30433
            }
         ],
         "type": "NodePort"
      }
}'

The patch command should output service/console patched. You can now access the service through ports 30433 (HTTPS) or 30090 (HTTP) on any of your Kubernetes worker nodes.

4. Verify the Operator installation

Check the contents of the specified namespace (minio-operator) to ensure all pods and services have started successfully.

kubectl get all -n minio-operator

The response should resemble the following:

NAME                                  READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
pod/console-56c7d8bd89-485qh          1/1     Running   0          5m20s
pod/minio-operator-6c758b8c45-nkhlx   1/1     Running   0          5m20s
pod/minio-operator-6c758b8c45-dgd8n   1/1     Running   0          5m20s

NAME               TYPE        CLUSTER-IP      EXTERNAL-IP   PORT(S)                         AGE
service/operator   ClusterIP   10.43.135.241   <none>        4221/TCP                        5m20s
service/sts        ClusterIP   10.43.117.251   <none>        4223/TCP                        5m20s
service/console    NodePort    10.43.235.38    <none>        9090:30090/TCP,9443:30433/TCP   5m20s

NAME                             READY   UP-TO-DATE   AVAILABLE   AGE
deployment.apps/console          1/1     1            1           5m20s
deployment.apps/minio-operator   2/2     2            2           5m20s

NAME                                        DESIRED   CURRENT   READY   AGE
replicaset.apps/console-56c7d8bd89          1         1         1       5m20s
replicaset.apps/minio-operator-6c758b8c45   2         2         2       5m20s

5. Retrieve the Operator Console JWT for login

kubectl apply -f - <<EOF
apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
   name: console-sa-secret
   namespace: minio-operator
   annotations:
      kubernetes.io/service-account.name: console-sa
type: kubernetes.io/service-account-token
EOF
SA_TOKEN=$(kubectl -n minio-operator  get secret console-sa-secret -o jsonpath="{.data.token}" | base64 --decode)
echo $SA_TOKEN

The output of this command is the JSON Web Token (JWT) login credential for Operator Console.

6. Log into the MinIO Operator Console

NodePort

If you configured the service for access through a NodePort, specify the hostname of any worker node in the cluster with that port as HOSTNAME:NODEPORT to access the Console.

For example, a deployment configured with a NodePort of 30090 and the following InternalIP addresses can be accessed at http://172.18.0.5:30090.

kubectl get nodes -o custom-columns=IP:.status.addresses[:]
IP
map[address:172.18.0.5 type:InternalIP],map[address:k3d-MINIO-agent-3 type:Hostname]
map[address:172.18.0.6 type:InternalIP],map[address:k3d-MINIO-agent-2 type:Hostname]
map[address:172.18.0.2 type:InternalIP],map[address:k3d-MINIO-server-0 type:Hostname]
map[address:172.18.0.4 type:InternalIP],map[address:k3d-MINIO-agent-1 type:Hostname]
map[address:172.18.0.3 type:InternalIP],map[address:k3d-MINIO-agent-0 type:Hostname]

Ingress or Load Balancer

If you configured the svc/console service for access through ingress or a cluster load balancer, you can access the Console using the configured hostname and port.

Port Forwarding

You can use kubectl port forward to temporary forward ports for the Console:

kubectl port-forward svc/console -n minio-operator 9090:9090

You can then use http://localhost:9090 to access the MinIO Operator Console.

Once you access the Console, use the Console JWT to log in. You can now deploy and manage MinIO Tenants using the Operator Console.