Spin Up a Free Kubernetes Cluster in Seconds with the Interactive Tutorial

Create a K8s Cluster

Since its first release in 2014, Kubernetes has rapidly become the most popular container‑orchestration engine, backed by companies such as Red Hat, VMware, and Canonical.

Because the learning curve can be steep, the official site offers a ready‑to‑use minimal system that you can launch directly from a web browser.

Kubernetes.io Interactive Tutorial

Visit https://kubernetes.io/docs/tutorials/kubernetes-basics/ to start the tutorial, which covers creating a cluster, deploying an app, accessing it, scaling, and updating.

Create the Cluster

In the tutorial menu click

1. Create a Cluster → Interactive Tutorial - Creating a Cluster

. The environment is prepared and you will see the “Kubernetes Bootcamp Terminal”.

After the environment is ready, verify the version and start minikube:

$ kubectl get svc
NAME        TYPE        CLUSTER-IP   EXTERNAL-IP   PORT(S)   AGE
kubernetes  ClusterIP   10.96.0.1    <none>        443/TCP   22s
$ kubectl get node
NAME       STATUS   ROLES                 AGE   VERSION
minikube   Ready    control-plane,master  27s   v1.20.2

Check cluster information:

$ kubectl cluster-info
Kubernetes control plane is running at https://172.17.0.32:8443
KubeDNS is running at https://172.17.0.32:8443/api/v1/namespaces/kube-system/services/kube-dns:dns/proxy

Deploy an Application

Create a sample deployment using a public Docker image:

$ kubectl create deployment kubernetes-bootcamp --image=gcr.io/google-samples/kubernetes-bootcamp:v1
deployment.apps/kubernetes-bootcamp created

In Kubernetes, a deployment manages a set of Pod s, which are groups of one or more containers that share an IP address and network namespace.

List the pods created by the deployment:

$ kubectl get pods
NAME                                 READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
kubernetes-bootcamp-57978f5f5d-rfpww   1/1     Running   0          2m10s

Access the Application with kubectl proxy

Run kubectl proxy to create a local proxy that forwards traffic into the cluster:

$ kubectl proxy
Starting to serve on 127.0.0.1:8001

Now you can query the API, for example:

$ curl http://localhost:8001/version
{ "major":"1", "minor":"20", "gitVersion":"v1.20.2", ... }

Scale the Application

By default the deployment runs a single replica. Increase it to three:

$ kubectl scale deployment/kubernetes-bootcamp --replicas=3
deployment.apps/kubernetes-bootcamp scaled

Verify the replica count and the pods:

$ kubectl get deployment
NAME                READY   UP-TO-DATE   AVAILABLE   AGE
kubernetes-bootcamp   3/3     3            3           105s
$ kubectl get pods
NAME                                 READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
kubernetes-bootcamp-fb5c67579-kc6xc   1/1     Running   0          29s
kubernetes-bootcamp-fb5c67579-p2vnv   1/1     Running   0          29s
kubernetes-bootcamp-fb5c67579-w7jw9   1/1     Running   0          118s

Scaling down is equally simple:

$ kubectl scale deployments/kubernetes-bootcamp --replicas=2

Rolling Update

Upgrade the deployment to a new image version (v2):

$ kubectl set image deployments/kubernetes-bootcamp kubernetes-bootcamp=jocatalin/kubernetes-bootcamp:v2
deployment.apps/kubernetes-bootcamp image updated

Observe the rolling update as old pods are terminated and new pods start:

$ kubectl get pods
... (output shows v1 pods being replaced by v2 pods) ...

To roll back to the previous version, run:

$ kubectl rollout undo deployments/kubernetes-bootcamp
deployment.apps/kubernetes-bootcamp rolled back

This interactive tutorial lets Kubernetes newcomers experience core concepts—cluster creation, deployment, scaling, and updates—without installing any software locally.