Deploying kube-dns in a Kubernetes Cluster

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Deploying kube-dns in a Kubernetes Cluster

Pods can communicate with each other and with services via their IP addresses, once networking has been set up in a Kubernetes cluster. But it is easier to locate other pods and services by hostname, since IP addresses can change. In order to do this, the cluster requires a DNS service. In this learning activity, you will learn how to deploy *kube-dns* to a cluster in order to provide DNS service to pods.

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Lab Info

Level

Intermediate

Last updated

Sep 04, 2025

Duration

1h 0m

Challenge

Deploy kube-dns to the cluster.
You can deploy kube-dns to the cluster like so:
```
kubectl create -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ACloudGuru-Resources/kthw-lab-scripts/master/kube-dns.yaml
```
Verify that the kube-dns pod starts up correctly:
```
kubectl get pods -l k8s-app=kube-dns -n kube-system
```
You should get output showing the kube-dns pod. It should look something like this:
```
NAME                        READY     STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
kube-dns-598d7bf7d4-spbmj   3/3       Running   0          36s
```
Make sure that 3/3 containers are ready and that the pod has a status of Running. It may take a moment for the pod to be fully up and running, so if READY is not 3/3 at first, check again after a few moments.
Challenge

Test the DNS by creating a service, and perform a DNS lookup for service from another pod using the service name
Test the DNS by creating a service, and access the service from another pod using the service name.

Create a simple service like so:
```
kubectl run nginx --image=nginx
```
```
kubectl expose deployment nginx --port 80
```
Get a list of services:
```
kubectl get svc
```
You should see the nginx service listed.

Spin up a busybox pod for testing and get the pod name:
```
kubectl run busybox --image=busybox:1.28 --command -- sleep 3600
```
```
POD_NAME=$(kubectl get pods -l run=busybox -o jsonpath="{.items[0].metadata.name}")
```
Perform a DNS lookup of the nginx service from within the busybox pod to verify that DNS is working:
```
kubectl exec $POD_NAME -- nslookup nginx
```
You should get output that looks like this:
```
Server:    10.32.0.10
Address 1: 10.32.0.10 kube-dns.kube-system.svc.cluster.local

Name:      nginx
Address 1: 10.32.0.248 nginx.default.svc.cluster.local
```

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