The mission in this Lab is to create genuine hands-on experience for technology learners using the learner-friendly NUC PCs.

Mission:

• Auto install Ubuntu servers
• Install and use Ansible to manage our servers
• Install and run a FAH protein folding cluster
• Install a Kubernetes cluster

Materials:

• Wireless router providing DHCP and internet access
• NUCs
  • 4 minimum for the Kubernetes portion; 5 recommended, or more are recommended for testing Kubernetes resiliency
  • wifi cards to make it easier to run large stacks of NUCs
  • D34010WYK was used to Lab testing as they are readily available; I used 8GB RAM and 32GB or greater mSATA SSDs
• USB sticks
  • 3 USB sticks, 8GB or more each
  • Using a pair of sticks for booting and one more for firmware upgrades

More projects:

• Trying running different workloads on your Stack of NUCs
• If you are interested in testing Kubernetes, there are some good tutorials on running Kubernetes all on one NUC using LXD to virtualize all the nodes.

References:

• NUC cluster building: cloud-init https://jimangel.io/posts/automate-ubuntu-22-04-lts-bare-metal/
• Then ansible https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-automate-initial-server-setup-of-multiple-ubuntu-22-04-servers-using-ansible/
• https://github.com/brettplarson/nuctestlab
• https://github.com/brettplarson/nuctestlab

Before starting the Lab, you might review Preparing NUCs for Labs. The will help you prepare all the NUCs for use.

NUC 1 - install Ubuntu desktop on the first build

• install Ubuntu and packages on NUC 1
• create the modified ISO for USB installation of remaining NUCs
• create the CIDATA USB stick
• create the firmware upgrade USB stick
• create SSH management keys

NUC 2 - install Ubuntu on Ansible control node

• automatic install of Ubuntu
• configure as Ansible control node

NUC 3 - Build remaining NUCs starting with NUC 3

• automatic install of Ubuntu
• configure as Ansible node
• repeat for as many nodes as desired

Discover and Add to Inventory - Discover the worker nodes you built and add them to Ansible's inventory.

Ansible - Update - update Ubuntu packages on all the NUCs in the stack

Ansible - CMOS - use Ansible to check the CMOS battery and update the hardware clock on the RTC (real time click) chip

FAH Installation - install Folding at Home on our Stack of NUCs and donate CPU time towards a good cause.

FAH Removal - it's time to remove Folding at Home so we can continue to the next demonstration.

Install Kubernetes - we will install Kubernetes using Ansible.

Demonstrate App on k8s - demonstrate running a web app on the Kubernetes cluster.

Let's get started with building our first NUC, NUC 1!