Cluster API visualizer is an Open Source project from Jonathan Tong. The Cluster API visualizer is deployed into a management cluster and provides a great visual overview over workload clusters. This makes Cluster API significantly more accessible and it's a lot easier to understand dependencies between Cluster API objects.
Deploy the Cluster API visualizer via:
helm install capi-visualizer ./yamls/visualizer/chart/cluster-api-visualizer -n observability --create-namespace --values ./yamls/visualizer/values.yaml
Ensure the visualizer is up and running:
kubectl -n observability get pod
Output:
NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE
capi-visualizer-5fd569b7c6-g7xx5 1/1 Running 0 49s
Open a port-forward to the UI:
kubectl port-forward -n observability svc/capi-visualizer 18081:8081
Access the UI via your browser under http://localhost:18081.
If the dashboard is slow to load - it could be quicker to go directly to the cluster view for docker-cluster-one
Explore your workload cluster(s)!
Note:
- The visualizer can be used during the next sections to get a better understanding of Cluster API and the changes we make to a Cluster.
- The visualizer UI loads some CSS files from the internet, so if you're entirely offline and the files are not cached already, it won't work.
Now we're ready to explore more of the power of Cluster API, let's first explore cluster topology!