Creating diagrams from the Kubernetes API Using Python, Diagrams and JupyterLab Frederico Muñoz    

Why? Using text-based formats for documentation makes a lot of things easier, namely the way it aligns with the rest of the toolset used. Ability to use all the functionalities of SCM systems: merges, forks, pull requests, history, reversion, etc. Easy to automate the production and final output, from PDF documents to HTML pages, all from the same source. Integration of scripts and code For the last point Jupyter notebooks are a common choice (especially for Python); here I demonstrate the use of the official Kubernetes library to produce this prensentation and some very simple diagrams of a Kubernetes cluster with a simple application deployed (using ) Above all using this approach allows the creation of up-to-date documentation since the sections that are supposed to reflect what exists are automatically updated: this in turn reduces issues from out-of-date documentation that is always playing catch-up with changes. minikube 

Setting things up This is straight form the documentation; to work kubectl should be working correctly in the desired context, e.g. kubectl config view should work. official Kubernetes client for Python In [344]: from kubernetes import client, config config.load_kube_config() v1 = client.CoreV1Api() display(v1) 

Nodes Let's start by creating a dataframe with some basic information on the nodes. In [345]: import collections import pandas as pd nodes = v1.list_node(watch=False) node_list = [] for i in nodes.items: node_dict = collections.OrderedDict() node_dict["Name"]= i.metadata.name node_dict["OS"]= i.status.node_info.operating_system node_dict["OS image"]= i.status.node_info.os_image node_dict["Runtime"]= i.status.node_info.container_runtime_version node_list.append(node_dict) nodes_df = pd.DataFrame(node_list) display(nodes_df) Name OS OS image Runtime 0 multinode linux Buildroot 2020.02.10 docker://20.10.4 1 multinode-m02 linux Buildroot 2020.02.10 docker://20.10.4 

We set up some global attributes to be used later; these specify Graphviz attributes that determine how the graphs looks. In [346]: graph_attr = { "layout": "fdp", } cluster_attr = { "fontsize": "12", "style": "filled", "fillcolor": "grey97" } node_attr = { "fontsize": "8" } 

We also do all the imports right away to make the code shorter in later blocks. In [347]: from diagrams import Cluster, Diagram from diagrams.k8s.clusterconfig import HPA from diagrams.k8s.compute import Deployment, Pod, ReplicaSet from diagrams.k8s.infra import Node, Master from diagrams.k8s.network import Ingress, Service from diagrams.k8s.group import Namespace from diagrams.k8s.podconfig import Secret 

About Diagrams is the library we will use to produce the diagrams; from the home page: It uses to build the graphs so that needs to be installed as well. Diagrams Diagrams lets you draw the cloud system architecture in Python code. It was born for prototyping a new system architecture without any design tools. You can also describe or visualize the existing system architecture as well. Diagram as Code allows you to track the architecture diagram changes in any version control system. Graphviz 

Show the nodes Using the dataframe and Diagrams we can build this simple cluster diagram by iteractig through the nodes: In [357]: with Diagram(show=False, direction="LR",graph_attr=graph_attr, node_attr=n ode_attr) as diag: with Cluster("k8s cluster", graph_attr=cluster_attr): for idx,node in nodes_df.iterrows(): Node(node["Name"]) #>> Service("svc") diag Out[357]: 

Namespaces The cluster has the following namespaces (or "projects") - again, we process the dict to build a dataframe. In [358]: ns = v1.list_namespace(watch=False) ns_list = [] for i in ns.items: ns_dict = collections.OrderedDict() ns_dict["Name"]= i.metadata.name ns_dict["UID"]= i.metadata.uid ns_list.append(ns_dict) ns_df = pd.DataFrame(ns_list) display(ns_df) Name UID 0 default 0086019d-bc33-4b04-a4e3-4f63f3472621 1 kube-node-lease 6d7de7e1-02ab-4d70-9e4a- 0b9237890f73 2 kube-public 4dd3461e-726c-4595-a3dc- d2bbc0748851 3 kube-system db61c947-b684-4efc-8c45- 9a9ed915852d 

We can show the namespaces using a similar approach. In [359]: with Diagram(show=False,graph_attr=graph_attr,node_attr=node_attr) as diag : with Cluster("k8s cluster", graph_attr=cluster_attr): for idx,namespace in ns_df.iterrows(): Namespace(namespace["Name"]) diag Out[359]: 

Pods The approach is the same; not that we are building Pandas dataframes because this is useful for other purposes (namely for the production of a PDF via LaTeX), but directly using the dict is possible and would actually be simpler. I'm using a simplistic approach for the label/selector pairing, so I simply add an "App" column that contains the label. 

In [360]: ret = v1.list_pod_for_all_namespaces(watch=False) pods_list = [] for i in ret.items: pods_dict = collections.OrderedDict() pods_dict["Name"]= i.metadata.name pods_dict["Namespace"]= i.metadata.namespace pods_dict["IP"] = i.status.pod_ip pods_dict["Node"] = i.status.host_ip pods_dict["Start"]= i.status.start_time if "app" in i.metadata.labels: pods_dict["App"] = i.metadata.labels["app"] else: pods_dict["App"] = "" for v in i.spec.volumes: if v.secret is not None: pods_dict["Secret"] = v.secret.secret_name else: pods_dict["Secret"] = "" pods_list.append(pods_dict) pods_df = pd.DataFrame(pods_list) display(pods_df) Name Namespace IP Node Start App Secret 0 web- 79d88c97d6- qjwrb default 10.244.1.2 192.168.99.102 2021-04-15 11:08:42+00:00 web default- token-xcg4s 1 coredns- 74ff55c5b- 22d2c kube-system 10.244.0.2 192.168.99.101 2021-04-15 10:56:28+00:00 coredns- token- mh9wz 2 etcd- multinode kube-system 192.168.99.101 192.168.99.101 2021-04-15 10:55:54+00:00 3 kindnet- h6jqn kube-system 192.168.99.102 192.168.99.102 2021-04-15 10:56:47+00:00 kindnet kindnet- token-9f9xk 4 kindnet- n4h8k kube-system 192.168.99.101 192.168.99.101 2021-04-15 10:56:09+00:00 kindnet kindnet- token-9f9xk 5 kube- apiserver- multinode kube-system 192.168.99.101 192.168.99.101 2021-04-15 10:55:54+00:00 6 kube- controller- manager- multinode kube-system 192.168.99.101 192.168.99.101 2021-04-15 10:55:54+00:00 7 kube-proxy- n8jz5 kube-system 192.168.99.101 192.168.99.101 2021-04-15 10:56:09+00:00 kube-proxy- token-brdgp 8 kube-proxy- zlnwn kube-system 192.168.99.102 192.168.99.102 2021-04-15 10:56:47+00:00 kube-proxy- token-brdgp kube- 2021-04-15 

We also get the Services, including their selector. In [361]: services = v1.list_service_for_all_namespaces(watch=False) srv_list = [] for i in services.items: srv_dict = collections.OrderedDict() srv_dict["Name"]= i.metadata.name srv_dict["Type"]= i.spec.type srv_dict["IP"]= i.spec.cluster_ip if i.spec.selector is not None: if "app" in i.spec.selector: srv_dict["App"] = i.spec.selector["app"] srv_list.append(srv_dict) srv_df = pd.DataFrame(srv_list) display(srv_df) Name Type IP App 0 kubernetes ClusterIP 10.96.0.1 NaN 1 web NodePort 10.99.132.93 web 2 kube-dns ClusterIP 10.96.0.10 NaN 

And now we tie it all up: looking to the default namespace (which is where I deployed the application) the pod, service and secret - with their relatoinships - are built. 

In [362]: with Diagram(show=False, graph_attr=graph_attr, node_attr=node_attr) as di ag: with Cluster("ns: default", graph_attr=cluster_attr): for idx,pod in pods_df[pods_df["Namespace"] == "default"].iterrows (): p = Pod(pod["Name"]) if srv_df[srv_df["App"] == pod["App"]]["Name"].any(): p >> Service(pod["App"]) if pod["Secret"]: Secret(pod["Secret"]) >> p diag Out[362]: 

Final words JupyterLab can export to several different formats, including , and obviously that was used to produce this presentation - on top of the HTML export and the ablity to use it interactively. Since we're in a Jupyter notebook a lot more can be done: using any of the visualisations libraries (like ) we can automatically produce plots and statistics about our cluster: this simple example uses matplotlib and Seaborn to show how many pods are running in each node. AsciiDoc LaTeX Reveal.js Seaborn In [363]: import seaborn as sns sns.set() sns.set_style("whitegrid") pods_df[["Name","Node"]].groupby('Node').count().plot(kind="bar",legend=Fa lse) Out[363]: