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Connect to an AKS on bare metal Cluster (preview)

Important

Azure Kubernetes Service on bare metal is currently in preview. See the Supplemental Terms of Use for Microsoft Azure Previews for legal terms that apply to Azure features that are in beta, preview, or otherwise not yet released into general availability. Azure Kubernetes Service on bare metal previews are partially covered by customer support on a best-effort basis.

This article shows you how to connect to your AKS on bare metal cluster to run kubectl commands. After you deploy your cluster, use the Azure Arc proxy to route kubectl commands from your local machine to the Kubernetes cluster running on your device.

Prerequisites

  • An AKS on bare metal cluster in a Succeeded state.

  • Azure CLI installed on your local machine and signed in.

  • The connectedk8s extension installed.

    az extension add --name connectedk8s

  • kubectl installed. Open a terminal and run the following command, then close and reopen your terminal:

    az aks install-cli

  • Your user account must be a member of the Microsoft Entra ID admin group you specified during cluster deployment. This membership is required to view and manage workloads on the cluster.

Connect by using Azure Arc proxy

The Azure Arc proxy lets you connect to your cluster from anywhere without direct network access to the bare metal host.

Step 1: Sign in to Azure

Open a terminal window and sign in to Azure, and then select the subscription that contains your deployed cluster:

az login

Step 2: Start the proxy

Run the following command and keep this terminal window open:

az connectedk8s proxy --name <cluster-name> --resource-group <resource-group>

You see output similar to:

Proxy is listening on port 47011
Merged "<cluster-name>" as current context in C:\Users\<you>\.kube\config
Start sending kubectl requests on '<cluster-name>' context using kubeconfig at C:\Users\<you>\.kube\config
Press Ctrl+C to close proxy.

Important

Keep this terminal window open. The proxy must stay running while you use kubectl.

Step 3: Run kubectl in a new terminal

Open a second terminal window and run:

kubectl get nodes

Expected output:

NAME               STATUS   ROLES           AGE   VERSION
<cluster-name>     Ready    control-plane   1d    v1.34.2

Troubleshooting

Issue Fix
context deadline exceeded The proxy isn't running. Restart az connectedk8s proxy in the first terminal.
kubectl: command not found Run az aks install-cli, then close and reopen your terminal.
MSI token audience error Don't use Azure Cloud Shell. Run az connectedk8s proxy from your local machine.
unrecognized arguments Use double dashes: --name and --resource-group (not single dash).

Next steps

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