Working with Thalassa Cloud Kubernetes (tcloud)

This guide will help you manage and interact with your Kubernetes clusters using the Thalassa Cloud CLI (tcloud). The CLI provides a comprehensive set of commands for managing clusters, node pools, and accessing your Kubernetes environments.

Prerequisites

• Thalassa Cloud CLI (tcloud) installed
• Access to a Thalassa Cloud account
• Proper authentication configured

Basic Commands

Listing Clusters

To view all your Kubernetes clusters:

tcloud kubernetes list
# or using the shorter alias
tcloud k8s ls

This will display a table with your clusters’ details including:

• Cluster ID
• Name
• VPC
• Kubernetes Version
• Type
• Status
• Age

Connecting to a Cluster

There are two ways to connect to your Kubernetes cluster:

1. Direct connection using cluster ID:

tcloud kubernetes connect <cluster-id>

2. Interactive selection using fzf:

tcloud kubernetes connect

The connection command will:

• Fetch the kubeconfig for your cluster
• Configure your shell with the appropriate context
• Establish a session to interact with the cluster

After this, you are able to use kubectl to interact with your Kubernetes cluster - no further configuration required.

Managing Kubeconfig

The CLI provides commands to retrieve a kubeconfig file. This is an alternative to using tcloud kubernetes connect to configure your shell for interacting with a Kubernetes cluster.

tcloud kubernetes kubeconfig <cluster-id>

This command helps you:

• retrieve a kubeconfig file for the cluster

Store the output in a file and use it to configure your KUBECONFIG env variable, or kubectl context.

Version Management

To manage Kubernetes versions:

tcloud kubernetes versions

This allows you to:

• List available Kubernetes versions
• Check version compatibility
• Plan version upgrades

Best Practices

1. Use fzf for Better Productivity

   • Install fzf for fuzzy finding: brew install fzf
   • This enables interactive selection of clusters and resources

2. Context Management

   • Use the --context flag to switch between different configurations
   • Example: tcloud kubernetes --context production

3. Organization Management

   • Use the --organisation flag to specify the organization
   • Example: tcloud kubernetes --organisation my-org

4. Authentication

   • Use OIDC authentication with --client-id and --client-secret
   • Or use personal access tokens with --token

Common Use Cases

Connecting to Production Cluster

# List clusters
tcloud kubernetes list

# Connect to production cluster
tcloud kubernetes connect k8s-identity-b

Troubleshooting

If you encounter issues:

1. Verify your authentication:

   tcloud kubernetes list

2. Check cluster status:

   tcloud kubernetes list