How to get started with Managed Service for Kubernetes®: Create your first cluster for Kubernetes

With Kubernetes, you can efficiently manage and scale your containerized ML/AI applications and ensure they are portable and fault-tolerant. To get started, create a Managed Service for Kubernetes cluster and its child node group in the eu-north1 region. Then, connect to the cluster.

Prerequisites

Web console
CLI

Install and configure the Nebius AI Cloud CLI. You will use the CLI to get the cluster credentials for connecting with kubectl.

Install kubectl, the Kubernetes command-line interface:

curl -LO "https://dl.k8s.io/release/$(curl -L -s https://dl.k8s.io/release/stable.txt)/bin/linux/amd64/kubectl"
sudo install -o root -g root -m 0755 kubectl /usr/local/bin/kubectl

curl -LO "https://dl.k8s.io/release/$(curl -L -s https://dl.k8s.io/release/stable.txt)/bin/darwin/arm64/kubectl"
chmod +x ./kubectl
sudo mv ./kubectl /usr/local/bin/kubectl
sudo chown root: /usr/local/bin/kubectl

Install and configure the Nebius AI Cloud CLI.
Install jq to extract IDs from JSON data returned by the Nebius AI Cloud CLI:
sudo apt-get install jq
brew install jq

Install kubectl, the Kubernetes command-line interface:

curl -LO "https://dl.k8s.io/release/$(curl -L -s https://dl.k8s.io/release/stable.txt)/bin/linux/amd64/kubectl"
sudo install -o root -g root -m 0755 kubectl /usr/local/bin/kubectl

curl -LO "https://dl.k8s.io/release/$(curl -L -s https://dl.k8s.io/release/stable.txt)/bin/darwin/arm64/kubectl"
chmod +x ./kubectl
sudo mv ./kubectl /usr/local/bin/kubectl
sudo chown root: /usr/local/bin/kubectl

Steps

Create a cluster and a node group

Web console
CLI

In the sidebar, go to Compute → Kubernetes.
Click Create cluster. The creation flow is a step-by-step wizard. The sidebar shows your progress through the configuration sections. To move between sections, click Back and Next.
On the Cluster step, enter the cluster name and review the settings:
- Select the network and subnet.
- Keep the recommended Kubernetes version 1.34. For supported versions, see Kubernetes® versions in Managed Service for Kubernetes.
- Keep the public endpoint enabled. As a result, the cluster is available from the internet, and you can connect to it from any machine.
On the Node groups step, add a node group to the cluster:
1. Click Add node group.
2. On the General step, enter the node group name. Under Size, set the Number of nodes to 2. Keep the rest of the settings unchanged.
3. On the Compute resources step, select Without GPU. Select the Non-GPU Intel Ice Lake platform and the preset with 2 CPUs and 8 of RAM. Then, select an operating system for the nodes, for example, Ubuntu 24.04 LTS.
4. On the Storage step, under Node storage, select the SSD disk type and set the size to 128 GiB.
5. On the Additional step, keep the default settings.
6. Click Add node group.
Go to the Review step, check the cluster configuration and click Create.
After the cluster is created, copy the cluster ID from its page and save the ID to an environment variable. You will need it to connect to the cluster:
export CLUSTER_ID=<cluster_ID>

Your cluster’s control plane and nodes use private IP addresses from the default subnet. Get its ID:

export SUBNET_ID=$(nebius vpc subnet list \
  --format json \
  | jq -r '.items[0].metadata.id')

Create a cluster with a public endpoint allocated to its control plane, and get the cluster ID:

export CLUSTER_ID=$(nebius mk8s cluster create \
  --name quickstart-mk8s-cluster \
  --control-plane-subnet-id $SUBNET_ID \
  --control-plane-endpoints-public-endpoint=true \
  --format json | jq -r '.metadata.id')

The cluster’s control plane runs Kubernetes version 1.34, which is the default version for Managed Kubernetes clusters.

Create a node group and add it to the cluster:

nebius mk8s node-group create \
  --name quickstart-mk8s-nodes \
  --parent-id $CLUSTER_ID \
  --fixed-node-count 2 \
  --template-resources-platform "cpu-e2" \
  --template-resources-preset "2vcpu-8gb" \
  --template-boot-disk-type network_ssd \
  --template-boot-disk-size-bytes 137438953472 \
  --template-network-interfaces "[{\"subnet_id\": \"$SUBNET_ID\"}]"

The command creates a group of 2 nodes. Each node is a non-GPU (--template-resources-platform "cpu-e2") virtual machine that has 2 vCPUs, 8 of RAM, and a 128 GiB Network SSD boot disk.

Connect to the cluster

Create a kubeconfig file containing the cluster details for kubectl:

nebius mk8s cluster get-credentials \
  --id $CLUSTER_ID --external

Check that the cluster is accessible. For example:
- Get addresses of the control plane and cluster services:
  kubectl cluster-info
- Get the list of Pods:
  kubectl get pods -A

Virtual machines

Slurm and Soperator in Nebius AI Cloud

Managed Service for Kubernetes®

How to get started with Managed Service for Kubernetes®: Create your first cluster for Kubernetes

Prerequisites

Steps

Create a cluster and a node group

Connect to the cluster

What’s next

​Prerequisites

​Steps

​Create a cluster and a node group

​Connect to the cluster

​What’s next

Prerequisites

Steps

Create a cluster and a node group

Connect to the cluster

What’s next