Skip to main content
Redhat Developers  Logo
  • Products

    Featured

    • Red Hat Enterprise Linux
      Red Hat Enterprise Linux Icon
    • Red Hat OpenShift AI
      Red Hat OpenShift AI
    • Red Hat Enterprise Linux AI
      Linux icon inside of a brain
    • Image mode for Red Hat Enterprise Linux
      RHEL image mode
    • Red Hat OpenShift
      Openshift icon
    • Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform
      Ansible icon
    • Red Hat Developer Hub
      Developer Hub
    • View All Red Hat Products
    • Linux

      • Red Hat Enterprise Linux
      • Image mode for Red Hat Enterprise Linux
      • Red Hat Universal Base Images (UBI)
    • Java runtimes & frameworks

      • JBoss Enterprise Application Platform
      • Red Hat build of OpenJDK
    • Kubernetes

      • Red Hat OpenShift
      • Microsoft Azure Red Hat OpenShift
      • Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization
      • Red Hat OpenShift Lightspeed
    • Integration & App Connectivity

      • Red Hat Build of Apache Camel
      • Red Hat Service Interconnect
      • Red Hat Connectivity Link
    • AI/ML

      • Red Hat OpenShift AI
      • Red Hat Enterprise Linux AI
    • Automation

      • Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform
      • Red Hat Ansible Lightspeed
    • Developer tools

      • Red Hat Trusted Software Supply Chain
      • Podman Desktop
      • Red Hat OpenShift Dev Spaces
    • Developer Sandbox

      Developer Sandbox
      Try Red Hat products and technologies without setup or configuration fees for 30 days with this shared Openshift and Kubernetes cluster.
    • Try at no cost
  • Technologies

    Featured

    • AI/ML
      AI/ML Icon
    • Linux
      Linux Icon
    • Kubernetes
      Cloud icon
    • Automation
      Automation Icon showing arrows moving in a circle around a gear
    • View All Technologies
    • Programming Languages & Frameworks

      • Java
      • Python
      • JavaScript
    • System Design & Architecture

      • Red Hat architecture and design patterns
      • Microservices
      • Event-Driven Architecture
      • Databases
    • Developer Productivity

      • Developer productivity
      • Developer Tools
      • GitOps
    • Secure Development & Architectures

      • Security
      • Secure coding
    • Platform Engineering

      • DevOps
      • DevSecOps
      • Ansible automation for applications and services
    • Automated Data Processing

      • AI/ML
      • Data Science
      • Apache Kafka on Kubernetes
      • View All Technologies
    • Start exploring in the Developer Sandbox for free

      sandbox graphic
      Try Red Hat's products and technologies without setup or configuration.
    • Try at no cost
  • Learn

    Featured

    • Kubernetes & Cloud Native
      Openshift icon
    • Linux
      Rhel icon
    • Automation
      Ansible cloud icon
    • Java
      Java icon
    • AI/ML
      AI/ML Icon
    • View All Learning Resources

    E-Books

    • GitOps Cookbook
    • Podman in Action
    • Kubernetes Operators
    • The Path to GitOps
    • View All E-books

    Cheat Sheets

    • Linux Commands
    • Bash Commands
    • Git
    • systemd Commands
    • View All Cheat Sheets

    Documentation

    • API Catalog
    • Product Documentation
    • Legacy Documentation
    • Red Hat Learning

      Learning image
      Boost your technical skills to expert-level with the help of interactive lessons offered by various Red Hat Learning programs.
    • Explore Red Hat Learning
  • Developer Sandbox

    Developer Sandbox

    • Access Red Hat’s products and technologies without setup or configuration, and start developing quicker than ever before with our new, no-cost sandbox environments.
    • Explore Developer Sandbox

    Featured Developer Sandbox activities

    • Get started with your Developer Sandbox
    • OpenShift virtualization and application modernization using the Developer Sandbox
    • Explore all Developer Sandbox activities

    Ready to start developing apps?

    • Try at no cost
  • Blog
  • Events
  • Videos

How to prevent computer overload with remote kind clusters

January 16, 2023
Tomer Figenblat
Related topics:
Developer ToolsKubernetes
Related products:
Red Hat OpenShift

Share:

Kubernetes can require a lot of resources, which can overload a developer's laptop. This article shows you how to use a set of tools—including kind, kubeconfig, and Podman or Docker—to spread your files around remote systems in support of your local development work.

Why I researched tools to prevent computer overload

Lately, I've been working a lot with Open Cluster Management, a community-driven project focused on multicluster and multi-cloud scenarios for Kubenetes applications.

The Open Cluster Management topology is hub-spoke based, calling for one hub cluster and at least one spoke cluster. That means that, throughout my work, I needed at least two clusters running simultaneously.

The quickest way to get two clusters up and running for development purposes is to use kind, a Kubernetes management tool. With kind, you can easily spin up Kubernetes clusters running in containers on your local computer.

One of my tasks included working with Prometheus, so I needed multiple clusters running the Prometheus operator plus the required operators for running Open Cluster Management, including the Application Lifecycle Manager addon. The load on my local computer was, eventually, too much for it to handle, and it eventually stopped cooperating with me.

To work around this bottleneck, I decided to spread my kind clusters to multiple computers around the office, import their kubeconfig files to my local computer, and continue to work as if the clusters were local.

Each of the remote computers needed to install kind as well as a container engine. To manage the containers I used Podman, but Docker should do just as well.

For access to remote clusters, SSH is usually preferable, but any manner of getting access to them should suffice. After spinning up a kind cluster and exporting the relevant kubeconfig file, you will no longer need access to the remote clusters, with the exception of the designated port 6443 for access to the Kubernetes API server.

How to set up kind remote clusters

The remote computer's IP address I use in the following examples is 192.168.1.102.

Assuming you have SSH, connect to the remote computer as follows:

$ ssh 192.168.1.102

Create a custom kind cluster using the following command. Note the networking property, which is required to make your cluster's API server listen on the right address so you can reach it from your local computer on the same network:

$ kind create cluster --config=- << EOF
kind: Cluster
apiVersion: kind.x-k8s.io/v1alpha4
name: remote-cluster1
nodes:
- role: control-plane
networking:
  apiServerAddress: "192.168.1.102"
  apiServerPort: 6443
EOF

Now, still on the remote computer, use kind to export the cluster configuration into a file of your choice; the following command names the file remote_kube_config:

$ kind get kubeconfig --name remote-cluster1 > ~/remote_kube_config

Now go back to your local computer and copy your current configuration into a file that I'll call local_kube_config. This file can also serve as a backup:

$ cp ~/.kube/config ~/local_kube_config

Then run the following command to copy the remote configuration to your local computer over SSH:

$ scp 192.168.1.102:~/remote_kube_config ~

Now merge the two configuration files. Note that if you have many remote clusters, you can include multiple configuration files in the following command:

$ KUBECONFIG="${HOME}/local_kube_config:${HOME}/remote_kube_config" kubectl config view --flatten > ~/.kube/config

Verify access to your remote kind cluster from your local computer:

$ kubectl get nodes --context kind-remote-cluster1

NAME                            STATUS   ROLES           AGE   VERSION
remote-cluster1-control-plane   Ready    control-plane   19m   v1.25.3

The output shows that you have access to the cluster.

Bonus: Loading images to remote clusters

When you need to load images from your local storage to a local kind cluster, you can take advantage of the following useful command:

$ kind load docker-image <image-registry>/<image-owner>/<image-name>:<image-tag> --name local-cluster

But when working with remote clusters, this process gets tricky. In the previous section, you made kubectl aware of your remote cluster by merging its kubeconfig configuration, but your local instance of kind has no idea who remote-cluster1 is.

Images can be loaded only to local kind clusters. This means that to load a file onto a remote computer, you need to get your image into your remote computer's storage and load it from there.

To do that, first archive your image:

$ podman save <image-registry>/<image-owner>/<image-name>:<image-tag> -o archive-file-name

Then copy the archive to your remote computer:

$ scp archive-file-name 192.168.1.102:~

Connect using SSH to the remote computer:

$ ssh 192.168.1.102

And load the archive as an image to your kind cluster:

$ kind load image-archive archive-file-name --name remote-cluster1

Tools that simplify Kubernetes

For more information on tools that simplify work with Kubernetes, visit Red Hat's Developer Tools page. Please check out my next article, How to distribute workloads using Open Cluster Management. Feel free to comment below if you have questions. We welcome your feedback. Have a great day, and keep up the good work!

Last updated: September 19, 2023

Related Posts

  • Installing Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management (ACM) for Kubernetes

  • What's your favorite Kubernetes feature? Hear from the experts

  • OpenShift for Developers: Set Up a Full Cluster in Under 30 Minutes

Recent Posts

  • Build container images in CI/CD with Tekton and Buildpacks

  • How to deploy OpenShift AI & Service Mesh 3 on one cluster

  • JVM tuning for Red Hat Data Grid on Red Hat OpenShift 4

  • Exploring Llama Stack with Python: Tool calling and agents

  • Enhance data security in OpenShift Data Foundation

What’s up next?

Learn and experiment with Kubernetes using the no-cost Developer Sandbox for Red Hat OpenShift! This step-by-step tutorial walks developers through how to use Kubernetes to create an application. We strive to make developers' work easier by making Kubernetes development simple, fast, and fun.

Start the activity
Red Hat Developers logo LinkedIn YouTube Twitter Facebook

Products

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux
  • Red Hat OpenShift
  • Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

Build

  • Developer Sandbox
  • Developer Tools
  • Interactive Tutorials
  • API Catalog

Quicklinks

  • Learning Resources
  • E-books
  • Cheat Sheets
  • Blog
  • Events
  • Newsletter

Communicate

  • About us
  • Contact sales
  • Find a partner
  • Report a website issue
  • Site Status Dashboard
  • Report a security problem

RED HAT DEVELOPER

Build here. Go anywhere.

We serve the builders. The problem solvers who create careers with code.

Join us if you’re a developer, software engineer, web designer, front-end designer, UX designer, computer scientist, architect, tester, product manager, project manager or team lead.

Sign me up

Red Hat legal and privacy links

  • About Red Hat
  • Jobs
  • Events
  • Locations
  • Contact Red Hat
  • Red Hat Blog
  • Inclusion at Red Hat
  • Cool Stuff Store
  • Red Hat Summit
© 2025 Red Hat

Red Hat legal and privacy links

  • Privacy statement
  • Terms of use
  • All policies and guidelines
  • Digital accessibility

Report a website issue