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Running K3s on Raspberry Pi

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Introduction
Preparing Your Raspberry Pi Cluster
Installing K3s
Using Your K3s Cluster
Real-World Deployments
Advanced Topics
Final Project
Summary

Dashboard and Monitoring

Learn how to deploy the Kubernetes Dashboard, access metrics, and monitor your K3s cluster using lightweight tools.

By Kevin McAleer,    2 Minutes

Page last updated May 24, 2025

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A running K3s cluster is great — but to manage it effectively, you’ll want visibility into its health and performance.

This lesson covers how to deploy the Kubernetes Dashboard, add basic metrics monitoring, and explore other lightweight observability tools that work well on Raspberry Pi.

🧭 Option 1: Kubernetes Dashboard

🔹 Step 1: Deploy the Dashboard

Apply the official YAML:

kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kubernetes/dashboard/v2.7.0/aio/deploy/recommended.yaml

This deploys:

  • The Dashboard UI
  • Metrics scrapers
  • Required roles

🔹 Step 2: Create Admin User

Create a file dashboard-admin.yaml:

apiVersion: v1
kind: ServiceAccount
metadata:
  name: admin-user
  namespace: kubernetes-dashboard
---
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: ClusterRoleBinding
metadata:
  name: admin-user
roleRef:
  apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io
  kind: ClusterRole
  name: cluster-admin
subjects:
- kind: ServiceAccount
  name: admin-user
  namespace: kubernetes-dashboard

Apply it:

kubectl apply -f dashboard-admin.yaml

🔹 Step 3: Access the Dashboard

Start the proxy:

kubectl proxy

Then open:

http://localhost:8001/api/v1/namespaces/kubernetes-dashboard/services/https:kubernetes-dashboard:/proxy/

To get your token:

kubectl -n kubernetes-dashboard create token admin-user

Paste the token into the login screen.

📊 Option 2: Metrics Server (Optional for K3s)

K3s includes a built-in lightweight metrics server, but if not available:

kubectl apply -f https://github.com/kubernetes-sigs/metrics-server/releases/latest/download/components.yaml

Check node metrics:

kubectl top nodes
kubectl top pods

🧩 Other Lightweight Monitoring Tools

Tool Description
KubeView Visualize pods, nodes, and namespaces
k9s Terminal UI for Kubernetes
Grafana + Prometheus Full monitoring stack (heavier)
Lens Powerful GUI app for remote clusters

🧠 Tip: For Raspberry Pi, prioritize tools with low memory footprint.

🧪 Verifying Everything Works

  • Open Dashboard and view cluster state
  • Check kubectl top nodes for metrics
  • View logs and usage graphs for a running pod

✅ Summary

You now know how to:

  • Deploy and access the Kubernetes Dashboard
  • Use admin tokens for secure access
  • Monitor basic metrics from your cluster
  • Explore other lightweight tools for deeper insights

Next up: Storage and Volumes

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