How to use Kubernetes with vMesh

This guide details the process of deploying Kubernetes (K8s) clusters on vMesh private networks, providing low latencies, improved security and network isolation for your containerized applications.

Prerequisites

• Multiple Linux VPS Cloud instances with at least Ubuntu 22.04 installed
• Administrative (root) access to each VPS
• vMesh private network connectivity between VPS instances (see How to configure your vMesh private network on Linux)

We will replicate the following network topology as an illustrative example:

Step 1: Configure the private network interfaces

Edit the /etc/network/interfaces file on each VPS:

auto eth1
iface eth1 inet static
address 10.10.0.2
netmask 255.255.255.0

auto eth1
iface eth1 inet static
address 10.10.0.3
netmask 255.255.255.0

auto eth1
iface eth1 inet static
address 10.10.0.4
netmask 255.255.255.0

Step 2: Apply the configuration and verify connectivity

Restart the networking service on each node:

sudo systemctl restart networking.service

Then test connectivity between all nodes:

ping 10.10.0.3
ping 10.10.0.4

Step 3: Install the Kubernetes packages

Update package lists and install prerequisites:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y apt-transport-https ca-certificates curl software-properties-common

Add the Kubernetes apt repository:

curl -s https://packages.cloud.google.com/apt/doc/apt-key.gpg | sudo apt-key add -
echo "deb https://apt.kubernetes.io/ kubernetes-xenial main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/kubernetes.list

Update package lists again and install the Kubernetes components:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y kubelet kubeadm kubectl
sudo apt-mark hold kubelet kubeadm kubectl

Step 4: Configure the container runtime

Install containerd and create its default configuration:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y containerd
sudo mkdir -p /etc/containerd
containerd config default | sudo tee /etc/containerd/config.toml

Update the configuration to use the systemd cgroup driver, then restart:

sudo sed -i 's/SystemdCgroup = false/SystemdCgroup = true/g' /etc/containerd/config.toml
sudo systemctl restart containerd
sudo systemctl enable containerd

Step 5: Initialize the Kubernetes cluster

On the control plane node (VPS Cloud 1), disable swap:

sudo swapoff -a
sudo sed -i '/ swap / s/^\(.*\)$/#\1/g' /etc/fstab

Initialize the cluster with the private network CIDR:

sudo kubeadm init --pod-network-cidr=10.10.0.0/24 --apiserver-advertise-address=10.10.0.2

Set up kubectl for the current user:

mkdir -p $HOME/.kube
sudo cp -i /etc/kubernetes/admin.conf $HOME/.kube/config
sudo chown $(id -u):$(id -g) $HOME/.kube/config

Step 6: Install and configure Calico CNI

Download and apply the Calico manifest:

curl https://docs.projectcalico.org/manifests/calico.yaml -O
kubectl apply -f calico.yaml

Configure Calico to use the private network CIDR:

kubectl set env daemonset/calico-node -n kube-system IP_AUTODETECTION_METHOD=cidr=10.10.0.0/24

Troubleshooting

Network issues

• Verify interface configuration with ip addr show
• Check routing tables with ip route
• Test connectivity with ping and traceroute

Kubernetes issues

• Check pod status: kubectl get pods -A
• View logs: kubectl logs <pod-name> -n <namespace>
• Check node status: kubectl describe node <node-name>

What you’ve built

Your cluster is live. Three VPS now act as one platform: the control plane and every node speak over a private network the public internet cannot reach, pods get low-latency traffic between nodes, and the API server advertises only its mesh address. Adding capacity is a matter of joining another VPS to the mesh and running kubeadm join. From here, deploy your first workload with kubectl and let the scheduler do the rest.