NKE Workshop - Hands-On Materials

Workshop materials for new Kubernetes and NKE (Nine Kubernetes Engine) users.

Prerequisites

• NKE cluster running with kubectl access configured
• ArgoCD deployed
• Container registry available
• ingress-nginx controller deployed
• Loki + Grafana for observability

Repository Structure

.
├── kubectl-demo.sh          # kubectl commands to run during the demo
├── demo-app/                # Example Python app
│   ├── app.py               # Flask app (reads ConfigMap, writes to PVC)
│   ├── Dockerfile
│   └── requirements.txt
├── helm/workshop-app/       # Helm chart for the demo app
│   ├── Chart.yaml
│   ├── values.yaml
│   └── templates/
│       ├── configmap.yaml   # App config mounted as /config/app.json
│       ├── pvc.yaml         # Persistent storage for notes
│       ├── deployment.yaml  # App deployment with probes & env vars
│       ├── service.yaml     # ClusterIP service
│       ├── ingress.yaml     # nginx Ingress
│       └── serviceaccount.yaml
└── argocd/
    └── workshop-app.yaml    # ArgoCD Application CR

Workshop Flow

Part 1: kubectl Basics

Walk through kubectl-demo.sh section by section. Covers:

1. Cluster info and node inspection
2. Namespaces
3. Pods — run, inspect, logs, exec
4. Deployments — create, scale, rolling update, rollback
5. Services — ClusterIP, LoadBalancer
6. ConfigMaps and Secrets
7. PersistentVolumeClaims
8. Ingress
9. Labels and selectors
10. Debugging and troubleshooting
11. Working with YAML manifests
12. Observability with Loki/Grafana

Part 2: Deploy the Demo App via ArgoCD

Build and push the image

cd demo-app
docker build -t registry.example.com/workshop/demo-app:latest .
docker push registry.example.com/workshop/demo-app:latest

Deploy with ArgoCD

Option A — apply the ArgoCD Application directly:

kubectl apply -f argocd/workshop-app.yaml

Option B — install with Helm manually (for demonstration):

helm install workshop-app helm/workshop-app \
  --namespace workshop \
  --create-namespace \
  --set image.repository=registry.example.com/workshop/demo-app \
  --set ingress.host=workshop.example.com

Verify

kubectl get pods -n workshop
kubectl get ingress -n workshop
curl http://workshop.example.com

Part 3: Live Demos

Things to show with the running app:

• ConfigMap change: edit values.yaml config, push, watch ArgoCD sync
• Scaling: change replicaCount, observe pod info changing per request
• PVC persistence: add notes, delete the pod, see notes survive
• Logs: view in Grafana/Loki with {namespace="workshop"}
• Rolling update: change the image tag, watch zero-downtime rollout

Customization

Edit helm/workshop-app/values.yaml to change:

Value	Description	Default
image.repository	Container image	registry.example.com/workshop/demo-app
ingress.host	Hostname for the app	workshop.example.com
config.title	Page title	NKE Workshop
config.theme_color	UI accent color	#1a73e8
config.message	Welcome message	Welcome to the NKE Kubernetes Workshop!
persistence.size	PVC size	1Gi