Quick Start Guide

The quickest way to install and start experimenting with Educates is to install it on your local machine using a Kubernetes cluster created using Kind. To make this process easier, Educates provides a command line tool called educates you can use to create a cluster and deploy Educates, as well as deploy and manage workshops under Educates.

This local Educates environment is also the recommended setup for working on your own workshop content, as it provides you with a local image registry which can be used to hold both custom workshop base images and your published workshops. Together this provides a quick local workflow for iterating on changes to your workshop content, without needing to publish anything to third party sites.

A detailed description on how to install Educates into any Kubernetes cluster is included later in the documentation.

Host system requirements

To deploy Educates on your local machine using the Educates command line tool the following are required:

You need to be running macOS or Linux. If using Windows you will need WSL (Windows subsystem for Linux). The Educates command line tool has primarily been tested on macOS.
You need to have a working docker environment. The Educates command line tool has primarily been tested with Docker Desktop on macOS.
You need to have sufficient memory and disk resources allocated to the docker environment to run Kubernetes, Educates etc.
You cannot be running an existing Kubernetes cluster created using Kind.
You cannot be using port 80 (HTTP) and 443 (HTTPS) on the local machine as these will be required by the Kubernetes ingress controller.
You need to have port 53 (DNS) available on the local machine when using macOS if you want to enable a local DNS resolver.
You need to have port 5001 available on the local machine as this will be used for a local image registry.

If you are using Docker Desktop, you need to have the following enabled:

Use kernel networking for UDP (Settings->Resources->Network).
Allow the default Docker socket to be used (Settings->Advanced).
Allow privileged port mapping (Settings->Advanced).

Downloading the CLI

To download the Educates CLI visit the releases page at:

https://github.com/vmware-tanzu-labs/educates-training-platform/releases

Find the most recent released version and download the educates CLI program for your platform.

educates-linux-amd64 - Linux (amd64)
educates-linux-arm64 - Linux (arm64)
educates-darwin-amd64 - macOS (amd64)
educates-darwin-arm64 - macOS (arm64)

Rename the downloaded program to educates, make it executable (chmod +x educates), and place it somewhere in your application search path.

To download the latest version using curl and mark it executable, you can use the appropriate command for your operating system and architecture below.

Linux (amd64)

curl -o educates -sL https://github.com/vmware-tanzu-labs/educates-training-platform/releases/latest/download/educates-linux-amd64 && chmod +x educates

Linux (arm64)

curl -o educates -sL https://github.com/vmware-tanzu-labs/educates-training-platform/releases/latest/download/educates-linux-arm64 && chmod +x educates

macOS (amd64)

curl -o educates -sL https://github.com/vmware-tanzu-labs/educates-training-platform/releases/latest/download/educates-darwin-amd64 && chmod +x educates

macOS (arm64)

curl -o educates -sL https://github.com/vmware-tanzu-labs/educates-training-platform/releases/latest/download/educates-darwin-arm64 && chmod +x educates

If you are running macOS with Apple silicon (arm64), the Intel 64 (amd64) binary will still work and be run under Rosetta emulation, however, by using it you will be able to use both amd64 and arm64 images in the Kubernetes cluster. If you use the Apple silicon (arm64) binary you will only be able to use amd64 images in the Kubernetes cluster. Neither of the macOS binaries are signed so you will need to tell macOS to trust it before you can run it.

The educates CLI can also be downloaded from the vmware-tanzu-labs/educates-training-platform GitHub repository packaged as an OCI image using the command:

imgpkg pull -i ghcr.io/vmware-tanzu-labs/educates-client-programs:X.Y.Z -o educates-client-programs

Replace X.Y.Z with the version of Educates you want to use. Use the appropriate binary found in the educates-client-programs sub directory which is created.

The imgpkg command if you do not have it can be downloaded as part of the Carvel toolset.

Note that the imgpkg command pulls down an OCI image artefact from GitHub container registry. That image is public, if however you get an authentication failure make sure you haven’t previously logged into GitHub container registry with a GitHub personal access token which has since expired as that will cause a failure even though the image is public.

The OCI image containing the educates CLI can also be used in a Dockerfile if needing to embed the educates CLI in a container image:

FROM ghcr.io/vmware-tanzu-labs/educates-client-programs:X.Y.Z AS client-programs

FROM fedora:39

ARG TARGETARCH

COPY --from=client-programs educates-linux-${TARGETARCH} /educates

Default ingress domain

Educates requires a valid fully qualified domain name (FQDN) to use with Kubernetes ingresses which it creates.

By default, the educates CLI when creating a cluster will automatically use a nip.io address which consists of the IP address of your local machine as the ingress domain. For example 192-168-1-1.nip.io.

If a nip.io address is relied upon, some features of Educates may not be able to be used. This is because those features require that you also have access to a wildcard TLS certificate for the ingress domain. Since you don’t control the nip.io domain, there is no way for you to generate the required TLS certificate using a service such as LetsEncrypt. You could however using your own self signed certificate authority (CA) create a wildcard TLS certificate for the nip.io domain but you will need to configure macOS to use the CA, as well as configure Educates to know about the CA.

Also be aware that some home internet routers may block nip.io addresses from working. This is because of what is called DNS rebinding protection. You may have to re-configure your router to disable DNS rebinding protection. Alternatively, you can set up your host DNS resolver to use a public DNS provider such as Google (8.8.8.8) or Cloudflare (1.1.1.1).

For the initial deployment we will rely on a nip.io address. How to use an alternate ingress domain and a TLS certificate will be covered later.

Local Kubernetes cluster

To create a local Kubernetes cluster using Kind and deploy Educates, run the command:

educates create-cluster

This command will perform the following steps:

Create the Kubernetes cluster using Kind.
Enable a security policy engine in the Kubernetes cluster.
Install Contour into the Kubernetes cluster and expose it via ports 80/443 on the local machine.
Deploy an image registry running accessible via port 5001 on the local machine.
Configure the Kubernetes cluster to trust the container image registry.
Deploy Educates to the Kubernetes cluster.

Creation of the Kubernetes cluster, including the deployment of any required services and Educates, can take up to 5 minutes depending on your network speed.

Once the Kubernetes cluster has been created, you should be able to access it immediately using kubectl as the configuration will be added to your local Kube configuration. The name of the Kube config context for the cluster is kind-educates.

Deploying a workshop

The Educates CLI is intended primarily for people who need to create workshop content. Before we get to how you can create your own workshop, let’s start by deploying an existing workshop. In this case we will use an existing workshop which teaches about the fundamentals of using a Kubernetes cluster to deploy an application.

To deploy this workshop run:

educates deploy-workshop -f https://github.com/vmware-tanzu-labs/lab-k8s-fundamentals/releases/latest/download/workshop.yaml

This will load the workshop resource definition into the Kubernetes cluster. If a training portal instance is not already running one will be deployed. A workshop environment for this specific workshop will then be created and registered with the training portal.

Accessing the workshop

To access the workshop you just deployed, run:

educates browse-workshops

This should open your web browser on the URL for the training portal dashboard.

Note that the training portal will have a password and you will need to be logged in, however the educates browse-workshops command will automatically log you in.

If you want to share the URL for accessing the training portal, or enter it manually in the web browser, you can run:

educates list-portals

to get the details.

If the training portal was being accessed by a different user, or you were doing it from a different browser, you will be prompted to enter the training portal password.

To view the password you can run:

educates view-credentials

Enter the password if prompted. You should then be shown the list of workshops registered with the training portal and can start a workshop.

Note that the first time you run a workshop it may be slow to startup as the container image for the workshop environment will need to be pulled down to the local Kubernetes cluster. So be a bit patient if you have a slow internet connection.

When you have completed the workshop and you exit it, the workshop session will be shutdown and you will be returned to the training portal dashboard.

Deleting the workshop

When you no longer require this workshop and wish to delete the workshop environment, run:

educates delete-workshop -f https://github.com/vmware-tanzu-labs/lab-k8s-fundamentals/releases/latest/download/workshop.yaml

This requires you to provide the same URL for the location of the workshop definition you used when you deployed the workshop. If you do not remember the URL, you can view it by running:

educates list-workshops

Instead of using the URL, you can also use the name of the workshop as displayed when listing the workshops. For example:

educates delete-workshop -n educates-cli--lab-k8s-fundamentals-0129afe