Kubernetes Cookbook

Overview

• Study notes from two books:
  • Kubernetes Cookbook by Sébastien Goasguen & Michael Hausenblas (O’Reilly, 2018): ~70 recipes in Problem → Solution → Discussion form.
  • Kubernetes Best Practices by Brendan Burns, Eddie Villalba, Dave Strebel & Lachlan Evenson (O’Reilly, 2019): distilled into one checklist note, Best Practices.
• Everything is modernised to Kubernetes 1.31+. The Cookbook was written for Kubernetes ~1.7–1.10, so plenty has changed. Look for the Changed since the book callouts.
• Each recipe is condensed into Problem / Solution / Discussion / Gotchas, with its source recipe number.
• These notes build on my existing Kubernetes notes rather than repeat them:
  • Kubernetes: what K8s is, ephemeral Pods, unique Pod IPs
  • Pods · Deployments (ReplicaSets, thrashing, CrashLoopBackOff) · Services (the 4 types) · Ingress · ConfigMap
  • Kubectl: everyday commands, port-forward, proxy

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Biggest Changes Since 2018 (cheat sheet)

Then (book)	Now
kubectl run creates a Deployment	kubectl run = one Pod. Use kubectl create deployment
extensions/v1beta1, apps/v1beta1/2	apps/v1 (with a required selector)
Ingress extensions/v1beta1, serviceName	networking.k8s.io/v1, pathType, ingressClassName, + Gateway API
CronJob batch/v2alpha1	batch/v1 (+ timeZone)
HPA autoscaling/v1 + Heapster	autoscaling/v2 + metrics-server
PodSecurityPolicy	Pod Security Admission (namespace labels)
Helm 2 + Tiller	Helm 3, no Tiller, OCI charts
hand-rolled overlays	Kustomize built into kubectl (apply -k)
client-side apply	kubectl apply --server-side
Docker Engine as node runtime	containerd / CRI-O (dockershim removed 1.24)
SA token Secrets auto-created	Short-lived projected tokens, kubectl create token
CRD v1beta1 (no validation, defaults or subresources)	apiextensions.k8s.io/v1 with schema, CEL rules, conversion
exec with curl to debug	kubectl debug with ephemeral containers
Katacoda, minikube + VirtualBox, ACS, kubicorn, kubeless	Killercoda, kind / minikube (Docker) / k3d, AKS, Cluster API, Knative

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Study Order

1. Getting Started & Local Clusters: get a kind or minikube cluster running.
2. Learning kubectl: get comfortable with get/describe/explain/apply/delete.
3. API, Namespaces & Labels: how manifests and metadata work.
4. Creating & Modifying Workloads: Deployments, rollouts, Jobs, CronJobs, DaemonSets, StatefulSets.
5. Services & Ingress: networking and exposure.
6. Volumes & Configuration: ConfigMaps, Secrets, PVCs.
7. Monitoring & Logging: probes, logs, metrics.
8. Scaling: HPA, VPA, node autoscaling.
9. Security: ServiceAccounts, RBAC, Pod Security, NetworkPolicy, Secrets in Git.
10. Managing Manifests: Helm, Kustomize, server-side apply, GitOps.
11. Maintenance & Troubleshooting: debugging, drain, etcd.
12. Extending Kubernetes: CRDs, operators, admission policies.
13. Best Practices: the production checklist that ties it all together.

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All Recipes

Note	Recipe	One-liner
Getting Started & Local Clusters	1.1	Try K8s in a browser sandbox (Killercoda)
Getting Started & Local Clusters	1.2	Install kubectl (brew / dl.k8s.io), keep within ±1 minor
Getting Started & Local Clusters	1.3 / 1.4	minikube start, addons, docker-env, image load
Getting Started & Local Clusters	1.5	First app: create deployment + expose
Getting Started & Local Clusters	1.6	GUI: minikube dashboard → Headlamp / k9s
Getting Started & Local Clusters	2.1 / 2.2	kubeadm init/join + containerd + a CNI
Getting Started & Local Clusters	2.3 – 2.6	Release binaries, static Pods, kubelet under systemd
Getting Started & Local Clusters	2.7 / 2.8	Managed clusters: GKE, AKS (was ACS), EKS
Learning kubectl	3.1	get, short names, -A, api-resources
Learning kubectl	3.2	delete by name/label/file, cascades, finalizers
Learning kubectl	3.3	-w, watch, rollout status, kubectl wait
Learning kubectl	3.4	edit, set, patch, scale, and why edits drift
Learning kubectl	3.5	kubectl explain for field docs
Creating & Modifying Workloads	4.1	Deployment from the CLI
Creating & Modifying Workloads	4.2	apply -f file/dir/URL
Creating & Modifying Workloads	4.3	A Pod manifest from scratch
Creating & Modifying Workloads	4.4	A Deployment manifest (apps/v1)
Creating & Modifying Workloads	4.5	Rolling update, history, undo, restart
Services & Ingress	5.1	Expose a Deployment with a Service
Services & Ingress	5.2	Verify Service DNS
Services & Ingress	5.3	Change Service type (NodePort, LoadBalancer)
Services & Ingress	5.4	Install an Ingress controller
Services & Ingress	5.5	Ingress networking.k8s.io/v1 (+ Gateway API extra)
API, Namespaces & Labels	6.1	Discover API groups and versions
API, Namespaces & Labels	6.2	Anatomy of a manifest
API, Namespaces & Labels	6.3	Namespaces against name collisions
API, Namespaces & Labels	6.4	ResourceQuota + LimitRange
API, Namespaces & Labels	6.5 / 6.6	Labels and selectors
API, Namespaces & Labels	6.7	Annotations and change-cause
Creating & Modifying Workloads	7.1	Job (with TTL cleanup)
Creating & Modifying Workloads	7.2	CronJob batch/v1
Creating & Modifying Workloads	7.3	DaemonSet per node
Creating & Modifying Workloads	7.4	StatefulSet + headless Service
Creating & Modifying Workloads	7.5	Init containers (+ native sidecars)
Volumes & Configuration	8.1	Share files via emptyDir
Volumes & Configuration	8.2	Secrets (and why base64 ≠ encryption)
Volumes & Configuration	8.3	ConfigMaps as env vars or files
Volumes & Configuration	8.4	Static PV + PVC
Volumes & Configuration	8.5 / 8.6	Dynamic provisioning with StorageClasses
Scaling	9.1	kubectl scale
Scaling	9.2 / 9.3	Node autoscaling (Cluster Autoscaler, Karpenter)
Scaling	9.4	HPA autoscaling/v2 (+ VPA extra)
Security	10.1	ServiceAccounts and bound tokens
Security	10.2	kubectl auth can-i, inspect roles
Security	10.3	Role + RoleBinding (least privilege)
Security	10.4	securityContext + Pod Security Admission (+ NetworkPolicy extra)
Monitoring & Logging	11.1	kubectl logs (incl. --previous)
Monitoring & Logging	11.2 – 11.4	Liveness, readiness, startup probes
Monitoring & Logging	11.5	metrics-server + kubectl top (was Heapster)
Monitoring & Logging	11.6	Prometheus via kube-prometheus-stack
Monitoring & Logging	11.7	Central logging (Fluent Bit → Loki/OpenSearch)
Maintenance & Troubleshooting	12.1	kubectl autocompletion
Services & Ingress	12.2	Relabel a Pod out of a Service
Services & Ingress	12.3	Reach a ClusterIP Service (port-forward, proxy)
Maintenance & Troubleshooting	12.4	Parse status with jsonpath and kubectl wait
Maintenance & Troubleshooting	12.5	Debug Pods (statuses table, kubectl debug)
Maintenance & Troubleshooting	12.6	cluster-info dump snapshot
Maintenance & Troubleshooting	12.7	Add worker nodes (kubelet, containerd, kube-proxy)
Maintenance & Troubleshooting	12.8	cordon/drain/uncordon + PDBs
Maintenance & Troubleshooting	12.9	etcd v3 snapshots
Extending Kubernetes	13.1 / 13.2	Build K8s from source (make WHAT=)
Extending Kubernetes	13.3	Python client
Extending Kubernetes	13.4	CRDs apiextensions.k8s.io/v1 (+ operators, admission extras)
Managing Manifests	14.1	Install Helm 3 (no Tiller)
Managing Manifests	14.2	Install charts, upgrade, rollback
Managing Manifests	14.3	Create and package your own chart
Managing Manifests	14.4	Compose → K8s with kompose (+ Kustomize, SSA, GitOps extras)
Extending Kubernetes	14.5	Clusters as code (kubicorn → Cluster API/eksctl)
Security	14.6	Encrypted Secrets in Git (Sealed Secrets, ESO, SOPS)
Extending Kubernetes	14.7	Functions (kubeless → Knative/OpenFaaS/KEDA)
Best Practices	BP Ch. 1–17	The production checklist

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Summary

• 12 topic notes + 1 Best Practices checklist, covering every Cookbook recipe (1.1–14.7) with modern APIs and tools.
• Start with local clusters and kubectl, then workloads → networking → config → observability → scaling → security → packaging → ops → extending.
• Rule of thumb throughout: declarative YAML in Git, current API versions, least privilege, and probes + resources on everything.