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Connect to the cluster

You’ll do this once. After that, kubectl just works.

The cluster isn’t on the public internet — you reach it over Tailscale, a private mesh network.

  1. Install Tailscale on your machine and sign in.

  2. Accept the invite to the tailnet that you were sent.

  3. Confirm you can see the cluster:

    Terminal window
    tailscale status # you should be connected
    ping 100.73.243.2 # the cluster API server

You need two things: kubectl (the Kubernetes CLI) and kubelogin (the plugin that handles the Google login).

macOS (Homebrew):

Terminal window
brew install kubectl int128/kubelogin/kubelogin

Windows (Scoop) or download the binaries:

Terminal window
scoop install kubectl
# kubelogin: download from https://github.com/int128/kubelogin/releases,
# rename the binary to kubectl-oidc_login.exe, and put it on your PATH.

Linux:

Terminal window
# kubectl: https://kubernetes.io/docs/tasks/tools/
# kubelogin via krew:
kubectl krew install oidc-login

You were sent a kubeconfig file named something like dubcluster-<you>.yaml. Save it:

Terminal window
mkdir -p ~/.kube
mv ~/Downloads/dubcluster-<you>.yaml ~/.kube/dubcluster.yaml

Run any kubectl command against the file. The first time, your browser opens for a Google login — use the Google account you were onboarded with.

Terminal window
kubectl --kubeconfig ~/.kube/dubcluster.yaml get pods

Success looks like:

No resources found in tenant-<you> namespace.

That empty result is correct — your namespace is empty because you haven’t deployed anything yet. You’re connected.

Next: Deploy an app.