Kubernetes Dashboard | Kubernetes Admin GUI | Kubernetes Desktop Client

Jun 17, 2019 · 10 min read · kubernetes ·

Last Modified : Dec 8, 2020

Author : Rahul Wagh

Kubernetes comes really handy with its Kubernetes Dashboard| Kubernetes Admin GUI|Kubernetes Desktop Client.

kubernetes dashboard is a general purpose web-based UI for managing the Kubernetes cluster.

With the help of Kubernetes dashboard you can manage applications running in the cluster as well as it can help you to debug as well.

In this article we will focus on setting up Kubernetes Dashboard| Kubernetes Admin GUI|Kubernetes Desktop Client

On Minikube
On Kubernetes Local cluster
On Google Kubernetes Engine using Google Cloud Platform

1. Setting up kubernetes - dashboard.yaml on Minikube

What you will need?

kubectl - Kubernets v1.14.0
minikube - Minikube v1.1.1

Note - For minikube and kubectl installation please refer – Getting started with Kubernets and minikube

Kubernets provides default yaml configurations for the dashboard.

dashboard.yml can be downloaded from here.

Step 1 - Apply dashboard configuration

Please execute following command to apply dashboard configuration

1$ kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kubernetes/dashboard/v1.10.1/src/deploy/recommended/kubernetes-dashboard.yaml

Step 2 - Access kubernetes dashboard on your local workstation

To access the dashboard on your local workstation you need to create a secure channel to your Kubernetes cluster.

You can run the following command

1$ kubectl proxy

Now you can access the dashboard using the URL - http://localhost:8001/api/v1/namespaces/kube-system/services/https:kubernetes-dashboard:/proxy/

You should see following on your browser

Kubernetes Dashboard, Kubernetes Admin GUI, Kubernetes Desktop Client

Note – Kubeconfig Authentication method does not support external identity providers or certificate-based authentication.

Dashboard can only be accessed over HTTPS

Step 3 - Create Service Account : admin-user and namespace : kube-system

Now you need to create a YAML configuration file for adminuser creation.

Create a YAML configuration file - dashboard-adminuser.yaml and put following configuration inside it.

1apiVersion: v1
2kind: ServiceAccount
3metadata:
4  name: admin-user
5  namespace: kube-system

Next you need to apply the adminuser configuration and for that execute the following command.

1$ kubectl apply -f dashboard-adminuser.yaml

Step 4 - Create ClusterRoleBinding for admin-user

In kubernetes ClusterRole admin-Role already exists in the cluster.

We can use it and create only ClusterRoleBinding for our ServiceAccount.

Create one more YAML configuration file with name - adminuser-rolebinding.yaml

 1apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
 2kind: ClusterRoleBinding
 3metadata:
 4  name: admin-user
 5roleRef:
 6  apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io
 7  kind: ClusterRole
 8  name: cluster-admin
 9subjects:
10- kind: ServiceAccount
11  name: admin-user
12  namespace: kube-system

You need to apply the **adminuser-rolebinding.yaml **configuration and for that execute the following command.

1$ kubectl apply -f adminuser-rolebinding.yaml

Step 5 - Create Access/Bearer Token for admin-user

To login into the kubectl dashboard we need to create acceess token using following command.

1$ kubectl -n kube-system describe secret $(kubectl -n kube-system get secret | grep admin-user | awk '{print $1}')

Once you run the above command you should see something like this -

 1kubectl -n kube-system describe secret $(kubectl -n kube-system get secret | grep admin-user | awk '{print $1}')
 2Name:         admin-user-token-z9phm
 3Namespace:    kube-system
 4Labels:       <none>
 5Annotations:  kubernetes.io/service-account.name: admin-user
 6              kubernetes.io/service-account.uid: 6561d4d0-912d-11e9-b6d7-080027df159a
 7
 8Type:  kubernetes.io/service-account-token
 9
10Data
11====
12ca.crt:     1066 bytes
13namespace:  11 bytes
14token:      eyJhbGciOiJSUzI1NiIsImtpZCI6IiJ9.eyJpc3MiOiJrdWJlcm5ldGVzL3NlcnZpY2VhY2NvdW50Iiwia3ViZXJuZXRlcy5pby9zZXJ2aWNlYWNjb3VudC9uYW1lc3BhY2UiOiJrdWJlLXN5c3RlbSIsImt1YmVybmV0ZXMuaW8vc2VydmljZWFjY291bnQvc2VjcmV0Lm5hbWUiOiJhZG1pbi11c2VyLXRva2VuLXo5cGhtIiwia3ViZXJuZXRlcy5pby9zZXJ2aWNlYWNjb3VudC9zZXJ2aWNlLWFjY291bnQubmFtZSI6ImFkbWluLXVzZXIiLCJrdWJlcm5ldGVzLmlvL3NlcnZpY2VhY2NvdW50L3NlcnZpY2UtYWNjb3VudC51aWQiOiI2NTYxZDRkMC05MTJkLTExZTktYjZkNy0wODAwMjdkZjE1OWEiLCJzdWIiOiJzeXN0ZW06c2VydmljZWFjY291bnQ6a3ViZS1zeXN0ZW06YWRtaW4tdXNlciJ9.mOfoPCHvpzR6ZY5n4pnVlSgdCs1DS3HKx95-yU_i_tiO415rSZlFqL2Mtam9HByg1bsPiON4OtbxWhQNGJ-JUWeUAKNxwOoXeg0O7RWhs8Qoh6PG7IbkjibPFS4z7NJ7wTQA0pxk22cfR7ccBLnzCwn5K3JecBOyfb-VLhaFkuLrP9EQYs9htII5QHKobn3u_OGQoRN-zqNgicAeM-0UyuI_dlo1tq__0fI4sJJa-zC0rDkDAQ1anoS4ujwGD7z22Rvnpi7HCKyRt7Wsl7hBt6HFCyxsi7Hglo5cgDRhEG47-vzKvcm9nUNNM7TpDxKPKIGeOPlB-loyq9JwhPOtLw