Deploying Kubernetes using K3s

The final tool we are going to take a look at is K3s from Rancher. Like MicroK8s, K3s is a lightweight Kubernetes distribution designed for edge and IoT devices. This again makes it perfect for local development too as K3s is also a certified Kubernetes distribution – as is Docker, Kind, and MicroK8s.

Important note

You may be wondering why on earth it is called K3s. There is some logic behind it. As Rancher's main design aim for K3s was to produce something with half of the memory footprint of a typical Kubernetes distribution, they decided that as Kubernetes is a 10-letter word but is stylized as K8s, then their distribution would be half the size – 5 letters – and would, therefore, be stylized as K3s. However, there is no long-form for K3s and nor is there an official pronunciation.

Finally, K3s supports multi-node clusters, so we are going to look at building a three-node cluster. The commands we'll be using...