Frequently asked questions

I have started k3x but I see no icon in the system tray.

Some linux distribution do not include the "indicators" library that you need for showing icons in the system tray.

• elementary OS: follow these instructions for restoring the old indicators.

Do I need to install k3d? Can I use my own k3d binary?

No, you don't need to install k3d, and you cannot use your own k3d binary at the moment.

k3d includes a copy of k3d in the Flatpak. This makes things easier for people with no previous experience with Kubernetes that just want to start a Kubernetes cluster. This also reduces the possibility of incompatibilities between the k3d in the host and k3x. Maybe in the future I will investigate how to use an external k3d binary...

I just want fresh clusters all the time. Can I have a pool of clusters?

1. Create a "New cluster..." with your preferred settings. The cluster will be created and it will become the active one. Lets's call this cluster-1.
2. Then create a new cluster with "New cluster with last settings". This will be cluster-2. After a while you will see some notification saying that cluster-2 has been created and it is the active one.
3. Here comes the trick: to recycle clusters. Press <Ctrl><Shift><Super>K. This will perform the following actions:
   • a non-active cluster will be selected as the new active cluster. In this case, cluster-1 will become the active cluster.
   • your current cluster, cluster-2 will be destroyed in the background.
   • a new cluster, cluster-3, will be created in the background.

Note well that cluster-1 is available immediately as an active, fresh cluster, so you don't have to wait for using it and deploying your application there. Next time you recycle clusters, cluster-3 will become the new active cluster. and so on...

I cannot create clusters. How could I debug this?

• Check that you can run simple Docker command like docker run hello-world. It should run with no sudo.
• Check that the Docker URL in the Preferences is correct. For example, if the URL is unix:///var/run/docker.sock, the following command should work and show you some information about the Docker server:

  DOCKER_HOST='unix:///var/run/docker.sock' docker info
  

Can I use a remote Docker server?

Yes, you can, but things are a bit more complicated. Assuming your remote Docker server is running at remote.server:

• your Docker server must be accessible from the machine where k3x is running. This can be with a simple TCP socket (using a Docker server address like tcp://remote.server:2375) or with a SSH connection (like ssh://user@remote.server). You can verify the connectivity by running a simple DOCKER_HOST=<docker-address-address> docker info.

• using a local registry that is not local makes things more difficult. For example, when using a registry like registry.localhost:5000, the DNS name registry.localhost is locally resolvable in your machine, either because many modern distros resolve all the .localhost machines to 127.0.0.1, or because you added a line in /etc/hosts). But when the local registry is not really "local", then you must make it resolvable. You must then either add a line in /etc/hosts or add an entry in your DNS server for pointing to remote.server, and the registry port must be open in remote.server. If the registry port is 5000, you could verify connectivity with curl http://remote.server:5000/v2/_catalog.