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Try out KubeBlocks in 5 minutes on laptop

This guide walks you through the quickest way to get started with KubeBlocks, demonstrating how to create a demo environment (Playground) with one command.

Before you start

Meet the following requirements for a smooth user experience:

Minimum system requirements:
- CPU: 4 cores, use sysctl hw.physicalcpu command to check CPU;
- RAM: 4 GB, use top -d command to check memory.
Make sure the following tools are installed on your laptop:
- Docker: v20.10.5 (runc ≥ v1.0.0-rc93) or above;
- kubectl: it is used to interact with Kubernetes clusters;
- kbcli: it is used for the interaction between Playground and KubeBlocks.

Initialize Playground

Steps:

Install Playground.
```
kbcli playground init
```
This command:
1. Creates a Kubernetes cluster in the container with K3d.
2. Deploys KubeBlocks in the K3d cluster.
3. Creates a standalone MySQL cluster.
note
- If you previously ran kbcli playground init and it failed, running it again may cause errors. Please run the kbcli playground destroy command first to clean up the environment, then run kbcli playground init again.
- If you run Playground on Windows and the error below occurs, it is caused by the safety strategy of Windows 11 and the kbcli.exe you operate might be tampered with by a third party (or when you built the kbcli binary file through source on Windows).
error: failed to set up k3d cluster: failed to create k3d cluster kb-playground: Failed Cluster Start: Failed to start server k3d-kb-playground-server-0: Node k3d-kb-playground-server-0 failed to get ready: error waiting for log line `k3s is up and running` from node 'k3d-kb-playground-server-0': stopped returning log lines
You can follow the steps to solve this problem.
1. Uninstall or delete the current kbcli.exe.
2. Download the latest kbcli by winget or visit the GitHub release page of KubeBlocks to download kbcli again.

Check the MySQL cluster repeatedly until the status becomes Running.
```
kbcli cluster list
```
Result:
You just created a cluster named mycluster in the default namespace. You can find the user guide under the installation success tip. View this guide again by running kbcli playground init -h.

Try KubeBlocks with Playground

You can explore KubeBlocks, by referring to Describe a MySQL cluster, Access a MySQL cluster, Observe a MySQL cluster, and High availability. Go through the following instructions to try basic features of KubeBlocks.

Describe a MySQL cluster

Steps:

View the database cluster list.
```
kbcli cluster list
```
View the details of a specified database cluster, such as STATUS, Endpoints, Topology, Images, and Events.
```
kbcli cluster describe mycluster
```

Access a MySQL cluster

Option 1. Connect database from container network.

Wait until the status of this cluster is Running, then run kbcli cluster connect to access a specified database cluster. For example,

kbcli cluster connect mycluster

Option 2. Connect database from host network.

Steps:

Get Credentials.

kbcli cluster connect --show-example --show-password --client=cli mycluster

Run port-forward.

kubectl port-forward service/mycluster-mysql 3306:3306
>
Forwarding from 127.0.0.1:3306 -> 3306
Forwarding from [::1]:3306 -> 3306

Open another terminal tab to connect the database cluster.

mysql -h 127.0.0.1 -P 3306 -u root -paiImelyt
>
...
Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the current input statement.

mysql> show databases;
>
+--------------------+
| Database           |
+--------------------+
| information_schema |
| mydb               |
| mysql              |
| performance_schema |
| sys                |
+--------------------+
5 rows in set (0.02 sec)

Observe a MySQL cluster

KubeBlocks supports complete observability capabilities. This section demonstrates the monitoring function of KubeBlocks.

Steps:

Open the grafana dashboard.
```
kbcli dashboard open kubeblocks-grafana
```
Result:
A monitoring page on Grafana website is loaded automatically after the command is executed.
Click the Dashboard icon on the left bar and monitoring panels show on the page.
Click General -> MySQL to monitor the status of the MySQL cluster.

High availability of MySQL

This guide shows a simple failure simulation to show you the failure recovery capability of MySQL.

Delete the Standalone MySQL cluster

Delete the Standalone MySQL cluster before trying out high availability.

kbcli cluster delete mycluster

Create a Raft MySQL cluster

You can use kbcli to create a Raft MySQL cluster. The following is an example of creating a Raft MySQL cluster with default configurations.

kbcli cluster create --cluster-definition='apecloud-mysql' --set replicas=3

Simulate leader pod failure recovery

In this example, delete the leader pod to simulate a failure.

Steps:

Make sure the newly created cluster is Running.
```
kbcli cluster list
```

Find the leader pod name in Topology. In this example, the leader pod's name is maple05-mysql-1.

kbcli cluster describe maple05
>
Name: maple05         Created Time: Jan 27,2023 17:33 UTC+0800
NAMESPACE        CLUSTER-DEFINITION        VERSION                STATUS         TERMINATION-POLICY
default          apecloud-mysql            ac-mysql-8.0.30        Running        WipeOut

Endpoints:
COMPONENT        MODE             INTERNAL                EXTERNAL
mysql            ReadWrite        10.43.29.51:3306        <none>

Topology:
COMPONENT        INSTANCE               ROLE            STATUS         AZ            NODE                                                 CREATED-TIME
mysql            maple05-mysql-1        leader          Running        <none>        k3d-kubeblocks-playground-server-0/172.20.0.3        Jan 30,2023 17:33 UTC+0800
mysql            maple05-mysql-2        follower        Running        <none>        k3d-kubeblocks-playground-server-0/172.20.0.3        Jan 30,2023 17:33 UTC+0800
mysql            maple05-mysql-0        follower        Running        <none>        k3d-kubeblocks-playground-server-0/172.20.0.3        Jan 30,2023 17:33 UTC+0800

Resources Allocation:
COMPONENT        DEDICATED        CPU(REQUEST/LIMIT)        MEMORY(REQUEST/LIMIT)        STORAGE-SIZE        STORAGE-CLASS
mysql            false            <none>                    <none>                       <none>              <none>

Images:
COMPONENT        TYPE         IMAGE
mysql            mysql        docker.io/apecloud/wesql-server:8.0.30-5.alpha2.20230105.gd6b8719

Events(last 5 warnings, see more:kbcli cluster list-events -n default mycluster):
TIME        TYPE        REASON        OBJECT        MESSAGE

Delete the leader pod.

kubectl delete pod maple05-mysql-1
>
pod "maple05-mysql-1" deleted

Connect to the Raft MySQL cluster. It can be accessed within seconds.

kbcli cluster connect maple05
>
Connect to instance maple05-mysql-2: out of maple05-mysql-2(leader), maple05-mysql-1(follower), maple05-mysql-0(follower)
Welcome to the MySQL monitor.  Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MySQL connection id is 33
Server version: 8.0.30 WeSQL Server - GPL, Release 5, Revision d6b8719

Copyright (c) 2000, 2022, Oracle and/or its affiliates.

Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation and/or its
affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective
owners.

Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the current input statement.

mysql>

Demonstrate availability failure by NON-STOP NYAN CAT (for fun)

The above example uses kbcli cluster connect to test availability, in which the changes are not obvious to see.

NON-STOP NYAN CAT is a demo application to observe how the database cluster exceptions affect actual businesses. Animations and real-time key information display provided by NON-STOP NYAN CAT can directly show the availability influences of database services.

Steps:

Install the NYAN CAT demo application.

kbcli addon enable nyancat

Expected output

addon.extensions.kubeblocks.io/nyancat enabled

Check the NYAN CAT addon status and when its status is Enabled, this application is ready.
```
kbcli addon list | grep nyancat 
```
Open the web page.
```
kbcli dashboard open kubeblocks-nyancat
```
Open another terminal tab and delete the leader pod. Then view the influences on the Raft MySQL cluster through the NYAN CAT page.
```
kubectl delete pod maple05-mysql-1
```
Uninstall the NYAN CAT demo application after your trial.
```
kbcli addon disable nyancat
```

Destroy Playground

Destroying Playground cleans up resources and data:

Delete all KubeBlocks database clusters.
Uninstall KubeBlocks.
Delete the Kubernetes cluster created by K3d.

Destroy Playground.

kbcli playground destroy

Try out KubeBlocks in 5 minutes on laptop

Before you start​

Initialize Playground​

Try KubeBlocks with Playground​

Describe a MySQL cluster​

Access a MySQL cluster​

Observe a MySQL cluster​

High availability of MySQL​

Delete the Standalone MySQL cluster​

Create a Raft MySQL cluster​

Simulate leader pod failure recovery​

Demonstrate availability failure by NON-STOP NYAN CAT (for fun)​

Destroy Playground​

Before you start

Initialize Playground

Try KubeBlocks with Playground

Describe a MySQL cluster

Access a MySQL cluster

Observe a MySQL cluster

High availability of MySQL

Delete the Standalone MySQL cluster

Create a Raft MySQL cluster

Simulate leader pod failure recovery

Demonstrate availability failure by NON-STOP NYAN CAT (for fun)

Destroy Playground