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Community Roundup: Kubernetes, Operators, Cilium

· 3 min read
austin ce

This week's post is a grab bag of places on the internet that I've found helpful for connecting with communities. There are so many tools out there, how are you supposed to use them all without breaking anything? I haven't figured that out yet — when I'm really stuck, or have an idea to make something better, getting in touch, joining a zoom, etc. with the people who make the tool has been the most effective and rewarding way to unstick.

Let's hop in

A GIF of my dog, Moody, jumping alongside a toad at night in my floodlight-lit gravel driveway. He doesn't hurt it, but is understandably confused.

I've been working recently with Kubernetes, Kubernetes Operators, and Cilium. Here's where they hang out.

Kubernetes​

Kubernetes is massive. It's hard to know where to start.

The kubernetes/community repo has everything you need to understand who's in the community, what they do, and where they hang out. Of course, they're also on Slack at kubernetes.slack.com.

Sometimes even after seeming to find the right repo or special interest group (sig), filing an issue, asking a question on the mailing list, or joining a Slack channel, it can be hard to get a response. Everyone is busy and there is a lot of noise. Most of these subgroups have regular meetings on Zoom, where you can (respectfully!) attend and add your question/issue to the agenda.

For sig-api-machinery, who are responsible for many of the kube-apiserver projects, they have both bug triage meetings that happen a couple of times a week and a bi-weekly meeting, each with an open agenda.

You can find the workings of their group in that community repo, under sig-api-machinery directory.

tldr:​

Kubernetes Operators​

I work mostly in Go these days, especially on building operators with Kubebuilder and the supporting Controller Runtime family of libraries. They are a subproject of the sig/api-machinery group, but large enough to have their own meetings and #kubebuilder channel in Slack.

This is typical of subprojects in Kubernetes, but can make it difficult to find the right place to ask a question. If all else fails, just join a random meeting, own your ignorance, and ask nicely 🙃.

tldr:​

Cilium​

Cilium is a networking and security tool for Kubernetes. It's great, but I'm not a strong networker; ports I can handle, IPAM, Tunnels, not so much.

Slack is a good place to start, but easy to get lost in. There are a few channels that have been helpful for me:

  • #service-mesh, mostly users and developer advocates discussing new features and use cases for service mesh.
  • #development, where the people building cilium hang out. Good for low-level issues.

If all else fails, or just want to learn how their sausage is made, join their weekly developer meeting on Zoom.

They meet every Wednesday from 11 to 11:30am ET:

tldr:​