If you are using a released version of Kubernetes, you should refer to the docs that go with that version.

Following this example, you will create a functional Apache Spark cluster using Kubernetes and Docker.

You will setup a Spark master service and a set of Spark workers using Spark's standalone mode.

For the impatient expert, jump straight to the tl;dr section.

The Docker images are heavily based on https://github.com/mattf/docker-spark. And are curated in https://github.com/kubernetes/application-images/tree/master/spark

This example assumes

• You have a Kubernetes cluster installed and running.
• That you have installed the kubectl command line tool somewhere in your path.
• That a spark-master service which spins up will be automatically discoverable by your kube DNS impl, as 'spark-master'

For details, you can look at the Dockerfiles in the Sources section.

$ kubectl create -f examples/spark/namespace-spark-cluster.yaml

Now list all namespaces:

$ kubectl get namespaces
NAME          LABELS             STATUS
default       <none>             Active
spark-cluster name=spark-cluster Active

For kubectl client to work with namespace, we define one context and use it:

$ kubectl config set-context spark --namespace=spark-cluster --cluster=${CLUSTER_NAME} --user=${USER_NAME}
$ kubectl config use-context spark

You can view your cluster name and user name in kubernetes config at ~/.kube/config.

The Master service is the master service for a Spark cluster.

Use the examples/spark/spark-master-controller.yaml file to create a replication controller running the Spark Master service.

$ kubectl create -f examples/spark/spark-master-controller.yaml
replicationcontroller "spark-master-controller" created

Then, use the examples/spark/spark-master-service.yaml file to create a logical service endpoint that Spark workers can use to access the Master pod.

$ kubectl create -f examples/spark/spark-master-service.yaml
service "spark-master" created

You can then create a service for the Spark Master WebUI:

$ kubectl create -f examples/spark/spark-webui.yaml
service "spark-webui" created

$ kubectl get pods
NAME                            READY     STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
spark-master-controller-5u0q5   1/1       Running   0          8m

Check logs to see the status of the master. (Use the pod retrieved from the previous output.)

$ kubectl logs spark-master-controller-5u0q5
starting org.apache.spark.deploy.master.Master, logging to /opt/spark-1.5.1-bin-hadoop2.6/sbin/../logs/spark--org.apache.spark.deploy.master.Master-1-spark-master-controller-g0oao.out
Spark Command: /usr/lib/jvm/java-8-openjdk-amd64/jre/bin/java -cp /opt/spark-1.5.1-bin-hadoop2.6/sbin/../conf/:/opt/spark-1.5.1-bin-hadoop2.6/lib/spark-assembly-1.5.1-hadoop2.6.0.jar:/opt/spark-1.5.1-bin-hadoop2.6/lib/datanucleus-rdbms-3.2.9.jar:/opt/spark-1.5.1-bin-hadoop2.6/lib/datanucleus-core-3.2.10.jar:/opt/spark-1.5.1-bin-hadoop2.6/lib/datanucleus-api-jdo-3.2.6.jar -Xms1g -Xmx1g org.apache.spark.deploy.master.Master --ip spark-master --port 7077 --webui-port 8080
========================================
15/10/27 21:25:05 INFO Master: Registered signal handlers for [TERM, HUP, INT]
15/10/27 21:25:05 INFO SecurityManager: Changing view acls to: root
15/10/27 21:25:05 INFO SecurityManager: Changing modify acls to: root
15/10/27 21:25:05 INFO SecurityManager: SecurityManager: authentication disabled; ui acls disabled; users with view permissions: Set(root); users with modify permissions: Set(root)
15/10/27 21:25:06 INFO Slf4jLogger: Slf4jLogger started
15/10/27 21:25:06 INFO Remoting: Starting remoting
15/10/27 21:25:06 INFO Remoting: Remoting started; listening on addresses :[akka.tcp://sparkMaster@spark-master:7077]
15/10/27 21:25:06 INFO Utils: Successfully started service 'sparkMaster' on port 7077.
15/10/27 21:25:07 INFO Master: Starting Spark master at spark://spark-master:7077
15/10/27 21:25:07 INFO Master: Running Spark version 1.5.1
15/10/27 21:25:07 INFO Utils: Successfully started service 'MasterUI' on port 8080.
15/10/27 21:25:07 INFO MasterWebUI: Started MasterWebUI at http://spark-master:8080
15/10/27 21:25:07 INFO Utils: Successfully started service on port 6066.
15/10/27 21:25:07 INFO StandaloneRestServer: Started REST server for submitting applications on port 6066
15/10/27 21:25:07 INFO Master: I have been elected leader! New state: ALIVE

After you know the master is running, you can use the cluster proxy to connect to the Spark WebUI:

kubectl proxy --port=8001

At which point the UI will be available at http://localhost:8001/api/v1/proxy/namespaces/spark-cluster/services/spark-webui/.

The Spark workers do the heavy lifting in a Spark cluster. They provide execution resources and data cache capabilities for your program.

The Spark workers need the Master service to be running.

Use the examples/spark/spark-worker-controller.yaml file to create a replication controller that manages the worker pods.

$ kubectl create -f examples/spark/spark-worker-controller.yaml
replicationcontroller "spark-worker-controller" created

If you launched the Spark WebUI, your workers should just appear in the UI when they're ready. (It may take a little bit to pull the images and launch the pods.) You can also interrogate the status in the following way:

$ kubectl get pods
NAME                            READY     STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
spark-master-controller-5u0q5   1/1       Running   0          25m
spark-worker-controller-e8otp   1/1       Running   0          6m
spark-worker-controller-fiivl   1/1       Running   0          6m
spark-worker-controller-ytc7o   1/1       Running   0          6m

$ kubectl logs spark-master-controller-5u0q5
[...]
15/10/26 18:20:14 INFO Master: Registering worker 10.244.1.13:53567 with 2 cores, 6.3 GB RAM
15/10/26 18:20:14 INFO Master: Registering worker 10.244.2.7:46195 with 2 cores, 6.3 GB RAM
15/10/26 18:20:14 INFO Master: Registering worker 10.244.3.8:39926 with 2 cores, 6.3 GB RAM

Assuming you still have the kubectl proxy running from the previous section, you should now see the workers in the UI as well. Note: The UI will have links to worker Web UIs. The worker UI links do not work (the links will attempt to connect to cluster IPs, which Kubernetes won't proxy automatically).

The Zeppelin UI pod can be used to launch jobs into the Spark cluster either via a web notebook frontend or the traditional Spark command line. See Zeppelin and Spark architecture for more details.

$ kubectl create -f examples/spark/zeppelin-controller.yaml
replicationcontroller "zeppelin-controller" created

Zeppelin needs the Master service to be running.

$ kubectl get pods -l component=zeppelin
NAME                        READY     STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
zeppelin-controller-ja09s   1/1       Running   0          53s

Now you have two choices, depending on your predilections. You can do something graphical with the Spark cluster, or you can stay in the CLI.

Use the kubectl exec to connect to the Zeppelin driver and run a pipeline.

$ kubectl exec zeppelin-controller-ja09s -it pyspark
Python 2.7.9 (default, Mar  1 2015, 12:57:24)
[GCC 4.9.2] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
Welcome to
      ____              __
     / __/__  ___ _____/ /__
    _\ \/ _ \/ _ `/ __/  '_/
   /__ / .__/\_,_/_/ /_/\_\   version 1.5.1
      /_/

Using Python version 2.7.9 (default, Mar  1 2015 12:57:24)
SparkContext available as sc, HiveContext available as sqlContext.
>>> sc.textFile("gs://dataflow-samples/shakespeare/*").map(lambda s: len(s.split())).sum()
939193

Congratulations, you just counted all of the words in all of the plays of Shakespeare.

Take the Zeppelin pod from above and port-forward the WebUI port:

$ kubectl port-forward zeppelin-controller-ja09s 8080:8080

This forwards localhost 8080 to container port 8080. You can then find Zeppelin at https://localhost:8080/.

Create a "New Notebook". In there, type:

%pyspark
print sc.textFile("gs://dataflow-samples/shakespeare/*").map(lambda s: len(s.split())).sum()

You now have services and replication controllers for the Spark master, Spark workers and Spark driver. You can take this example to the next step and start using the Apache Spark cluster you just created, see Spark documentation for more information.

kubectl create -f examples/spark

After it's setup:

kubectl get pods # Make sure everything is running
kubectl proxy --port=8001 # Start an application proxy, if you want to see the Spark Master WebUI
kubectl get pods -lcomponent=zeppelin # Get the driver pod to interact with.

At which point the Master UI will be available at http://localhost:8001/api/v1/proxy/namespaces/spark-cluster/services/spark-webui/.

You can either interact with the Spark cluster the traditional spark-shell / spark-subsubmit / pyspark commands by using kubectl exec against the zeppelin-controller pod, or if you want to interact with Zeppelin:

kubectl port-forward zeppelin-controller-abc123 8080:8080 &

Then visit http://localhost:8080/.

• This provides a Spark configuration that is restricted to the cluster network, meaning the Spark master is only available as a cluster service. If you need to submit jobs using external client other than Zeppelin or spark-submit on the zeppelin pod, you will need to provide a way for your clients to get to the examples/spark/spark-master-service.yaml. See Services for more information.

• The Zeppelin pod is large, so it may take a while to pull depending on your network. The size of the Zeppelin pod is something we're working on, see issue #17231.

• Zeppelin may take some time (about a minute) on this pipeline the first time you run it. It seems to take considerable time to load.

• On GKE, kubectl port-forward may not be stable over long periods of time. If you see Zeppelin go into Disconnected state (there will be a red dot on the top right as well), the port-forward probably failed and needs to be restarted. See #12179.