Introduction Hey there! Welcome to this Kubernetes tutorial! Ever dreamed of running a real multi-node Kubernetes (K8s) cluster on your laptop instead of settling for Minikube’s diet version? A proper real multi-node Kubernetes environment requires virtual machines, and until last year, VMware Fusion was a paid product—an obstacle for many. I know there are alternatives, like KVM, Oracle VirtualBox, and even Minikube’s so-called multi-node mode ----but let’s be real: I’ve got a beast of a MacBook Pro, so why not flex its muscles and spin up a legit multi-node cluster? 🚀 But great news! On November 11, 2024, VMware announced that Fusion and Workstation are now free for all users! The moment I stumbled upon this announcement, I was thrilled. Time to roll up my sleeves, fire up some VMs, and make this cluster a reality. Kick off my Kubernetes tutorial! Let’s dive in! 🚀 Project Overview My Goal In this series of Kubernetes tutorial, I want to set up a full Kubernetes cluster on my MacBook Pro using VMware Fusion, creating multiple VMs to simulate real-world deployment and practice my DevOps and IaC (Infrastructure as Code) skills. Planned Setup Create a VM as Base VM (Rocky Linux 9) Configure networking Update system packages Disable firewalld Enable SSH passwordless login from local Mac to the base VM Set up zsh, tmux, vim and common aliases Install Miniforge for Python environment management Install and configure Ansible Set up a Local Server Node (localserver) Clone from the above base VM image Create an Ansible script to customize the base VM image withe new…