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Carlos Mendible
Carlos Mendible

Posted on • Originally published at carlos.mendible.com on

Deploy AKS + Kubecost with Terraform

#azure #kuberntes #kubecost #terraform

This morning I saw this tweet from Mr Brendan Burns:

AKS Cost Monitoring and Governance With Kubecost https://t.co/OStwIBsuPp

— brendandburns (@brendandburns) April 30, 2021

And I’m sure that once you also read through it, you’ll learn that you have to take several steps in order to achieve AKS Cost Monitoring and Governance With Kubecost.

I’m going to try and save you some time, providing you with a basic terraform configuration to help you get up and running in a breeze.

If you want to learn more about Kubecost in the context of AKS and Azure please read the Cost Governance section of the AKS enterprise-scale platform security governance and compliance guidelines.

Deploy AKS and Kubecost with Terraform

1. Create a provider.tf file with the following contents: 

terraform {
  required_version = "> 0.14"
  required_providers {
    azurerm = {
      version = "= 2.57.0"
    }
    azuread = {
      version = "= 1.4.0"
    }
    kubernetes = {
      version = "= 2.1.0"
    }
    helm = {
      version = "= 2.1.2"
    }
  }
}

provider "azurerm" {
  features {}
}

# Configuring the kubernetes provider
# AKS resource name is aks: azurerm_kubernetes_cluster.aks
provider "kubernetes" {
  host                   = azurerm_kubernetes_cluster.aks.kube_config.0.host
  client_certificate     = base64decode(azurerm_kubernetes_cluster.aks.kube_config.0.client_certificate)
  client_key             = base64decode(azurerm_kubernetes_cluster.aks.kube_config.0.client_key)
  cluster_ca_certificate = base64decode(azurerm_kubernetes_cluster.aks.kube_config.0.cluster_ca_certificate)
}

# Configuring the helm provider
# AKS resource name is aks: azurerm_kubernetes_cluster.aks
provider "helm" {
  kubernetes {
    host                   = azurerm_kubernetes_cluster.aks.kube_config.0.host
    client_certificate     = base64decode(azurerm_kubernetes_cluster.aks.kube_config.0.client_certificate)
    client_key             = base64decode(azurerm_kubernetes_cluster.aks.kube_config.0.client_key)
    cluster_ca_certificate = base64decode(azurerm_kubernetes_cluster.aks.kube_config.0.cluster_ca_certificate)
  }
}
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Note that you’ll be using azurerm to deploy Azure services, azuread to create a Service Principal information and the kubernetes and helm provider to install Kubecost.

2. Create a variables.tf file with the following contents: 

# Location of the services
variable "location" {
  default = "west europe"
}

# Resource Group Name
variable "resource_group" {
  default = "aks-kubecost"
}

# Name of the AKS cluster
variable "aks_name" {
  default = "aksmsftkubecost"
}

# Name of the Servic Principal used by Kubecost
variable "kubecost_sp_name" {
  default = "kubecost"
}
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Note: Replace the the default values with your desired location and names.

3. Create a main.tf file with the following contents: 

# Create Resource Group
resource "azurerm_resource_group" "rg" {
  name     = var.resource_group
  location = var.location
}

# Create VNET for AKS
resource "azurerm_virtual_network" "vnet" {
  name                = "private-network"
  address_space       = ["10.0.0.0/8"]
  location            = azurerm_resource_group.rg.location
  resource_group_name = azurerm_resource_group.rg.name
}

# Create the Subnet for AKS.
resource "azurerm_subnet" "aks" {
  name                 = "aks"
  resource_group_name  = azurerm_resource_group.rg.name
  virtual_network_name = azurerm_virtual_network.vnet.name
  address_prefixes     = ["10.240.0.0/16"]
}

# Create the AKS cluster.
# Cause this is a test node_count is set to 1 
resource "azurerm_kubernetes_cluster" "aks" {
  name                = var.aks_name
  location            = azurerm_resource_group.rg.location
  resource_group_name = azurerm_resource_group.rg.name
  dns_prefix          = var.aks_name

  default_node_pool {
    name            = "default"
    node_count      = 1
    vm_size         = "Standard_D2s_v3"
    os_disk_size_gb = 30
    os_disk_type    = "Ephemeral"
    vnet_subnet_id  = azurerm_subnet.aks.id
  }

  # Using Managed Identity
  identity {
    type = "SystemAssigned"
  }

  network_profile {
    network_plugin = "kubenet"
    network_policy = "calico"
  }

  role_based_access_control {
    enabled = true
  }

  addon_profile {
    kube_dashboard {
      enabled = false
    }
  }
}

# Create Application registration for Kubecost
resource "azuread_application" "kubecost" {
  display_name               = var.kubecost_sp_name
  identifier_uris            = ["http://${var.kubecost_sp_name}"]
}

# Create Service principal for kubecost
resource "azuread_service_principal" "kubecost" {
  application_id = azuread_application.kubecost.application_id
}

# Generate password for the Service Principal
resource "random_password" "passwd" {
  length      = 32
  min_upper   = 4
  min_lower   = 2
  min_numeric = 4
   keepers = {
    aks_app_id = azuread_application.kubecost.id
  }
}

# Create kubecost's Service principal password
resource "azuread_service_principal_password" "main" {
  service_principal_id = azuread_service_principal.kubecost.id
  value                = random_password.passwd.result
  end_date             = "2099-01-01T00:00:00Z"
}

# Get current Subscription
data "azurerm_subscription" "current" {
}

# Create kubecost custom role
resource "azurerm_role_definition" "kubecost" {
  name        = "kubecost_rate_card_query"
  scope       = data.azurerm_subscription.current.id
  description = "kubecost Rate Card query role"

  permissions {
    actions     = [
      "Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/vmSizes/read",
      "Microsoft.Resources/subscriptions/locations/read",
      "Microsoft.Resources/providers/read",
      "Microsoft.ContainerService/containerServices/read",
      "Microsoft.Commerce/RateCard/read",
    ]
    not_actions = []
  }

  assignable_scopes = [
    data.azurerm_subscription.current.id
  ]
}

# Assign kubecost's custom role at the subscription level
resource "azurerm_role_assignment" "kubecost" {
  scope                = data.azurerm_subscription.current.id
  role_definition_name = azurerm_role_definition.kubecost.name
  principal_id         = azuread_service_principal.kubecost.object_id
}
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4. Create a kubecost.tf file with the following contents: 

# Create the kubecost namespace
resource "kubernetes_namespace" "kubecost" {
  metadata {
    name = "kubecost"
  }
}

# Install kubecost using the hem chart
resource "helm_release" "kubecost" {
  name       = "kubecost"
  chart      = "cost-analyzer"
  namespace  = "kubecost"
  version    = "1.79.1"
  repository = "https://kubecost.github.io/cost-analyzer/"

  # Set the cluster name
  set {
    name  = "kubecostProductConfigs.clusterName"
    value = var.aks_name
  }

  # Set the currency
  set {
    name  = "kubecostProductConfigs.currencyCode"
    value = "EUR"
  }

  # Set the region
  set {
    name  = "kubecostProductConfigs.azureBillingRegion"
    value = "NL"
  }

  # Generate a secret based on the Azure configuration provided below
  set {
    name  = "kubecostProductConfigs.createServiceKeySecret"
    value = true
  }

  # Azure Subscription ID
  set {
    name  = "kubecostProductConfigs.azureSubscriptionID"
    value = data.azurerm_subscription.current.id
  }

  # Azure Client ID
  set {
    name  = "kubecostProductConfigs.azureClientID"
    value = azuread_application.kubecost.application_id
  }

  # Azure Client Password
  set {
    name  = "kubecostProductConfigs.azureClientPassword"
    value = random_password.passwd.result
  }

  # Azure Tenant ID
  set {
    name  = "kubecostProductConfigs.azureTenantID"
    value = data.azurerm_subscription.current.tenant_id
  }
}
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The configuration in the previous file installs Kubecost in the AKS cluster. If you want to learn more about the available configuration options please check the following file: values.yaml

5. Deploy the solution:

Run the following commands:

terraform init
terraform plan -out tf.plan
terraform apply ./tf.plan
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6. Test and browse Kubecost:

To check the status of the kubecost pods run:

az aks get-credentials -g aks-kubecost -n aksmsftkubecost
kubectl get pods -n kubecost
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Then run:

kubectl port-forward -n kubecost svc/kubecost-cost-analyzer 9090:9090
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and browse to http://localhost:9090 so you can start learning!

Hope it helps! Please find the complete code here

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