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f3s: Kubernetes with FreeBSD - Part 7: k3s and first pod deployments



Published at 2025-10-02T11:27:19+03:00

This is the seventh blog post about the f3s series for my self-hosting demands in a home lab. f3s? The "f" stands for FreeBSD, and the "3s" stands for k3s, the Kubernetes distribution I use on FreeBSD-based physical machines.

2024-11-17 f3s: Kubernetes with FreeBSD - Part 1: Setting the stage
2024-12-03 f3s: Kubernetes with FreeBSD - Part 2: Hardware and base installation
2025-02-01 f3s: Kubernetes with FreeBSD - Part 3: Protecting from power cuts
2025-04-05 f3s: Kubernetes with FreeBSD - Part 4: Rocky Linux Bhyve VMs
2025-05-11 f3s: Kubernetes with FreeBSD - Part 5: WireGuard mesh network
2025-07-14 f3s: Kubernetes with FreeBSD - Part 6: Storage
2025-10-02 f3s: Kubernetes with FreeBSD - Part 7: k3s and first pod deployments (You are currently reading this)

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Table of Contents




Introduction



In this blog post, I am finally going to install k3s (the Kubernetes distribution I use) to the whole setup and deploy the first workloads (helm charts, and a private registry) to it.

https://k3s.io

Updating



Before proceeding, I bring all systems involved up-to-date. On all three Rocky Linux 9 boxes r0, r1, and r2:

dnf update -y
reboot

On the FreeBSD hosts, I upgraded from FreeBSD 14.2 to 14.3-RELEASE, running this on all three hosts f0, f1 and f2:

paul@f0:~ % doas freebsd-update fetch
paul@f0:~ % doas freebsd-update install
paul@f0:~ % doas reboot
.
.
.
paul@f0:~ % doas freebsd-update -r 14.3-RELEASE upgrade
paul@f0:~ % doas freebsd-update install
paul@f0:~ % doas freebsd-update install
paul@f0:~ % doas reboot
.
.
.
paul@f0:~ % doas freebsd-update install
paul@f0:~ % doas pkg update
paul@f0:~ % doas pkg upgrade
paul@f0:~ % doas reboot
.
.
.
paul@f0:~ % uname -a
FreeBSD f0.lan.buetow.org 14.3-RELEASE FreeBSD 14.3-RELEASE
        releng/14.3-n271432-8c9ce319fef7 GENERIC amd64

Installing k3s



Generating K3S_TOKEN and starting the first k3s node



I generated the k3s token on my Fedora laptop with pwgen -n 32 and selected one of the results. Then, on all three r hosts, I ran the following (replace SECRET_TOKEN with the actual secret):

[root@r0 ~]# echo -n SECRET_TOKEN > ~/.k3s_token

The following steps are also documented on the k3s website:

https://docs.k3s.io/datastore/ha-embedded

To bootstrap k3s on the first node, I ran this on r0:

[root@r0 ~]# curl -sfL https://get.k3s.io | K3S_TOKEN=$(cat ~/.k3s_token) \
        sh -s - server --cluster-init --tls-san=r0.wg0.wan.buetow.org
[INFO]  Finding release for channel stable
[INFO]  Using v1.32.6+k3s1 as release
.
.
.
[INFO]  systemd: Starting k3s

Adding the remaining nodes to the cluster



Then I ran on the other two nodes r1 and r2:

[root@r1 ~]# curl -sfL https://get.k3s.io | K3S_TOKEN=$(cat ~/.k3s_token) \
        sh -s - server --server https://r0.wg0.wan.buetow.org:6443 \
        --tls-san=r1.wg0.wan.buetow.org

[root@r2 ~]# curl -sfL https://get.k3s.io | K3S_TOKEN=$(cat ~/.k3s_token) \
        sh -s - server --server https://r0.wg0.wan.buetow.org:6443 \
        --tls-san=r2.wg0.wan.buetow.org
.
.
.

Once done, I had a three-node Kubernetes cluster control plane:

[root@r0 ~]# kubectl get nodes
NAME                STATUS   ROLES                       AGE     VERSION
r0.lan.buetow.org   Ready    control-plane,etcd,master   4m44s   v1.32.6+k3s1
r1.lan.buetow.org   Ready    control-plane,etcd,master   3m13s   v1.32.6+k3s1
r2.lan.buetow.org   Ready    control-plane,etcd,master   30s     v1.32.6+k3s1

[root@r0 ~]# kubectl get pods --all-namespaces
NAMESPACE     NAME                                      READY   STATUS      RESTARTS   AGE
kube-system   coredns-5688667fd4-fs2jj                  1/1     Running     0          5m27s
kube-system   helm-install-traefik-crd-f9hgd            0/1     Completed   0          5m27s
kube-system   helm-install-traefik-zqqqk                0/1     Completed   2          5m27s
kube-system   local-path-provisioner-774c6665dc-jqlnc   1/1     Running     0          5m27s
kube-system   metrics-server-6f4c6675d5-5xpmp           1/1     Running     0          5m27s
kube-system   svclb-traefik-411cec5b-cdp2l              2/2     Running     0          78s
kube-system   svclb-traefik-411cec5b-f625r              2/2     Running     0          4m58s
kube-system   svclb-traefik-411cec5b-twrd7              2/2     Running     0          4m2s
kube-system   traefik-c98fdf6fb-lt6fx                   1/1     Running     0          4m58s

In order to connect with kubectl from my Fedora laptop, I had to copy /etc/rancher/k3s/k3s.yaml from r0 to ~/.kube/config and then replace the value of the server field with r0.lan.buetow.org. kubectl can now manage the cluster. Note that this step has to be repeated when I want to connect to another node of the cluster (e.g. when r0 is down).

Test deployments



Test deployment to Kubernetes



Let's create a test namespace:

> ~ kubectl create namespace test
namespace/test created

> ~ kubectl get namespaces
NAME              STATUS   AGE
default           Active   6h11m
kube-node-lease   Active   6h11m
kube-public       Active   6h11m
kube-system       Active   6h11m
test              Active   5s

> ~ kubectl config set-context --current --namespace=test
Context "default" modified.

And let's also create an Apache test pod:

> ~ cat <<END > apache-deployment.yaml
# Apache HTTP Server Deployment
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: apache-deployment
spec:
  replicas: 1
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: apache
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: apache
    spec:
      containers:
      - name: apache
        image: httpd:latest
        ports:
        # Container port where Apache listens
        - containerPort: 80
END

> ~ kubectl apply -f apache-deployment.yaml
deployment.apps/apache-deployment created

> ~ kubectl get all
NAME                                     READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
pod/apache-deployment-5fd955856f-4pjmf   1/1     Running   0          7s

NAME                                READY   UP-TO-DATE   AVAILABLE   AGE
deployment.apps/apache-deployment   1/1     1            1           7s

NAME                                           DESIRED   CURRENT   READY   AGE
replicaset.apps/apache-deployment-5fd955856f   1         1         1       7s

Let's also create a service: 

> ~ cat <<END > apache-service.yaml
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  labels:
    app: apache
  name: apache-service
spec:
  ports:
    - name: web
      port: 80
      protocol: TCP
      # Expose port 80 on the service
      targetPort: 80
  selector:
  # Link this service to pods with the label app=apache
    app: apache
END

> ~ kubectl apply -f apache-service.yaml
service/apache-service created

> ~ kubectl get service
NAME             TYPE        CLUSTER-IP      EXTERNAL-IP   PORT(S)   AGE
apache-service   ClusterIP   10.43.249.165   <none>        80/TCP    4s

Now let's create an ingress:

Note: I've modified the hosts listed in this example after I published this blog post to ensure that there aren't any bots scraping it.

> ~ cat <<END > apache-ingress.yaml

apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: Ingress
metadata:
  name: apache-ingress
  namespace: test
  annotations:
    spec.ingressClassName: traefik
    traefik.ingress.kubernetes.io/router.entrypoints: web
spec:
  rules:
    - host: f3s.foo.zone
      http:
        paths:
          - path: /
            pathType: Prefix
            backend:
              service:
                name: apache-service
                port:
                  number: 80
    - host: standby.f3s.foo.zone
      http:
        paths:
          - path: /
            pathType: Prefix
            backend:
              service:
                name: apache-service
                port:
                  number: 80
    - host: www.f3s.foo.zone
      http:
        paths:
          - path: /
            pathType: Prefix
            backend:
              service:
                name: apache-service
                port:
                  number: 80
END

> ~ kubectl apply -f apache-ingress.yaml
ingress.networking.k8s.io/apache-ingress created

> ~ kubectl describe ingress
Name:             apache-ingress
Labels:           <none>
Namespace:        test
Address:          192.168.1.120,192.168.1.121,192.168.1.122
Ingress Class:    traefik
Default backend:  <default>
Rules:
  Host                    Path  Backends
  ----                    ----  --------
  f3s.foo.zone
                          /   apache-service:80 (10.42.1.11:80)
  standby.f3s.foo.zone
                          /   apache-service:80 (10.42.1.11:80)
  www.f3s.foo.zone
                          /   apache-service:80 (10.42.1.11:80)
Annotations:              spec.ingressClassName: traefik
                          traefik.ingress.kubernetes.io/router.entrypoints: web
Events:                   <none>

Notes:


So I tested the Apache web server through the ingress rule:

> ~ curl -H "Host: www.f3s.foo.zone" http://r0.lan.buetow.org:80
<html><body><h1>It works!</h1></body></html>

Test deployment with persistent volume claim



Next, I modified the Apache example to serve the htdocs directory from the NFS share I created in the previous blog post. I used the following manifests. Most of them are the same as before, except for the persistent volume claim and the volume mount in the Apache deployment.

> ~ cat <<END > apache-deployment.yaml
# Apache HTTP Server Deployment
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: apache-deployment
  namespace: test
spec:
  replicas: 2
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: apache
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: apache
    spec:
      containers:
      - name: apache
        image: httpd:latest
        ports:
        # Container port where Apache listens
        - containerPort: 80
        readinessProbe:
          httpGet:
            path: /
            port: 80
          initialDelaySeconds: 5
          periodSeconds: 10
        livenessProbe:
          httpGet:
            path: /
            port: 80
          initialDelaySeconds: 15
          periodSeconds: 10
        volumeMounts:
        - name: apache-htdocs
          mountPath: /usr/local/apache2/htdocs/
      volumes:
      - name: apache-htdocs
        persistentVolumeClaim:
          claimName: example-apache-pvc
END

> ~ cat <<END > apache-ingress.yaml
apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: Ingress
metadata:
  name: apache-ingress
  namespace: test
  annotations:
    spec.ingressClassName: traefik
    traefik.ingress.kubernetes.io/router.entrypoints: web
spec:
  rules:
    - host: f3s.foo.zone
      http:
        paths:
          - path: /
            pathType: Prefix
            backend:
              service:
                name: apache-service
                port:
                  number: 80
    - host: standby.f3s.foo.zone
      http:
        paths:
          - path: /
            pathType: Prefix
            backend:
              service:
                name: apache-service
                port:
                  number: 80
    - host: www.f3s.foo.zone
      http:
        paths:
          - path: /
            pathType: Prefix
            backend:
              service:
                name: apache-service
                port:
                  number: 80
END

> ~ cat <<END > apache-persistent-volume.yaml
apiVersion: v1
kind: PersistentVolume
metadata:
  name: example-apache-pv
spec:
  capacity:
    storage: 1Gi
  volumeMode: Filesystem
  accessModes:
    - ReadWriteOnce
  persistentVolumeReclaimPolicy: Retain
  hostPath:
    path: /data/nfs/k3svolumes/example-apache-volume-claim
    type: Directory
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: PersistentVolumeClaim
metadata:
  name: example-apache-pvc
  namespace: test
spec:
  storageClassName: ""
  accessModes:
    - ReadWriteOnce
  resources:
    requests:
      storage: 1Gi
END

> ~ cat <<END > apache-service.yaml
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  labels:
    app: apache
  name: apache-service
  namespace: test
spec:
  ports:
    - name: web
      port: 80
      protocol: TCP
      # Expose port 80 on the service
      targetPort: 80
  selector:
  # Link this service to pods with the label app=apache
    app: apache
END

I applied the manifests:

> ~ kubectl apply -f apache-persistent-volume.yaml
> ~ kubectl apply -f apache-service.yaml
> ~ kubectl apply -f apache-deployment.yaml
> ~ kubectl apply -f apache-ingress.yaml

Looking at the deployment, I could see it failed because the directory didn't exist yet on the NFS share (note that I also increased the replica count to 2 so if one node goes down there's already a replica running on another node for faster failover):

> ~ kubectl get pods
NAME                                 READY   STATUS              RESTARTS   AGE
apache-deployment-5b96bd6b6b-fv2jx   0/1     ContainerCreating   0          9m15s
apache-deployment-5b96bd6b6b-ax2ji   0/1     ContainerCreating   0          9m15s

> ~ kubectl describe pod apache-deployment-5b96bd6b6b-fv2jx | tail -n 5
Events:
  Type     Reason       Age                   From               Message
  ----     ------       ----                  ----               -------
  Normal   Scheduled    9m34s                 default-scheduler  Successfully
    assigned test/apache-deployment-5b96bd6b6b-fv2jx to r2.lan.buetow.org
  Warning  FailedMount  80s (x12 over 9m34s)  kubelet            MountVolume.SetUp
    failed for volume "example-apache-pv" : hostPath type check failed:
    /data/nfs/k3svolumes/example-apache is not a directory

That's intentional—I needed to create the directory on the NFS share first, so I did that (e.g. on r0):

[root@r0 ~]# mkdir /data/nfs/k3svolumes/example-apache-volume-claim/

[root@r0 ~]# cat <<END > /data/nfs/k3svolumes/example-apache-volume-claim/index.html
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
  <title>Hello, it works</title>
</head>
<body>
  <h1>Hello, it works!</h1>
  <p>This site is served via a PVC!</p>
</body>
</html>
END

The index.html file gives us some actual content to serve. After deleting the pod, it recreates itself and the volume mounts correctly:

> ~ kubectl delete pod apache-deployment-5b96bd6b6b-fv2jx

> ~ curl -H "Host: www.f3s.foo.zone" http://r0.lan.buetow.org:80
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
  <title>Hello, it works</title>
</head>
<body>
  <h1>Hello, it works!</h1>
  <p>This site is served via a PVC!</p>
</body>
</html>

Scaling Traefik for faster failover



Traefik (used for ingress on k3s) ships with a single replica by default, but for faster failover I bumped it to two replicas so each worker node runs one pod. That way, if a node disappears, the service stays up while Kubernetes schedules a replacement. Here's the command I used:

> ~ kubectl -n kube-system scale deployment traefik --replicas=2

And the result:

> ~ kubectl -n kube-system get pods -l app.kubernetes.io/name=traefik
kube-system   traefik-c98fdf6fb-97kqk   1/1   Running   19 (53d ago)   64d
kube-system   traefik-c98fdf6fb-9npg2   1/1   Running   11 (53d ago)   61d

Make it accessible from the public internet



Next, I made this accessible through the public internet via the www.f3s.foo.zone hosts. As a reminder from part 1 of this series, I reviewed the section titled "OpenBSD/relayd to the rescue for external connectivity":

f3s: Kubernetes with FreeBSD - Part 1: Setting the stage

All apps should be reachable through the internet (e.g., from my phone or computer when travelling). For external connectivity and TLS management, I've got two OpenBSD VMs (one hosted by OpenBSD Amsterdam and another hosted by Hetzner) handling public-facing services like DNS, relaying traffic, and automating Let's Encrypt certificates.

All of this (every Linux VM to every OpenBSD box) will be connected via WireGuard tunnels, keeping everything private and secure. There will be 6 WireGuard tunnels (3 k3s nodes times two OpenBSD VMs).

So, when I want to access a service running in k3s, I will hit an external DNS endpoint (with the authoritative DNS servers being the OpenBSD boxes). The DNS will resolve to the master OpenBSD VM (see my KISS highly-available with OpenBSD blog post), and from there, the relayd process (with a Let's Encrypt certificate—see my Let's Encrypt with OpenBSD and Rex blog post) will accept the TCP connection and forward it through the WireGuard tunnel to a reachable node port of one of the k3s nodes, thus serving the traffic.

> ~ curl https://f3s.foo.zone
<html><body><h1>It works!</h1></body></html>

> ~ curl https://www.f3s.foo.zone
<html><body><h1>It works!</h1></body></html>

> ~ curl https://standby.f3s.foo.zone
<html><body><h1>It works!</h1></body></html>

This is how it works in relayd.conf on OpenBSD:

OpenBSD relayd configuration



The OpenBSD edge relays keep the Kubernetes-facing addresses for the f3s ingress endpoints in a shared backend table so TLS traffic for every f3s hostname lands on the same pool of k3s nodes (pointing to the WireGuard IP addresses of those nodes - remember, they are running locally in my LAN, wheras the OpenBSD edge relays operate in the public internet):

table <f3s> {
  192.168.2.120
  192.168.2.121
  192.168.2.122
}

Inside the http protocol "https" block each public hostname gets its Let's Encrypt certificate and is matched to that backend table. Besides the primary trio, every service-specific hostname (anki, bag, flux, audiobookshelf, gpodder, radicale, vault, syncthing, uprecords) and their www / standby aliases reuse the same pool so new apps can go live just by publishing an ingress rule, whereas they will all map to a service running in k3s:

http protocol "https" {
    tls keypair f3s.foo.zone
    tls keypair www.f3s.foo.zone
    tls keypair standby.f3s.foo.zone
    tls keypair anki.f3s.foo.zone
    tls keypair www.anki.f3s.foo.zone
    tls keypair standby.anki.f3s.foo.zone
    tls keypair bag.f3s.foo.zone
    tls keypair www.bag.f3s.foo.zone
    tls keypair standby.bag.f3s.foo.zone
    tls keypair flux.f3s.foo.zone
    tls keypair www.flux.f3s.foo.zone
    tls keypair standby.flux.f3s.foo.zone
    tls keypair audiobookshelf.f3s.foo.zone
    tls keypair www.audiobookshelf.f3s.foo.zone
    tls keypair standby.audiobookshelf.f3s.foo.zone
    tls keypair gpodder.f3s.foo.zone
    tls keypair www.gpodder.f3s.foo.zone
    tls keypair standby.gpodder.f3s.foo.zone
    tls keypair radicale.f3s.foo.zone
    tls keypair www.radicale.f3s.foo.zone
    tls keypair standby.radicale.f3s.foo.zone
    tls keypair vault.f3s.foo.zone
    tls keypair www.vault.f3s.foo.zone
    tls keypair standby.vault.f3s.foo.zone
    tls keypair syncthing.f3s.foo.zone
    tls keypair www.syncthing.f3s.foo.zone
    tls keypair standby.syncthing.f3s.foo.zone
    tls keypair uprecords.f3s.foo.zone
    tls keypair www.uprecords.f3s.foo.zone
    tls keypair standby.uprecords.f3s.foo.zone

    match request quick header "Host" value "f3s.foo.zone" forward to <f3s>
    match request quick header "Host" value "www.f3s.foo.zone" forward to <f3s>
    match request quick header "Host" value "standby.f3s.foo.zone" forward to <f3s>
    match request quick header "Host" value "anki.f3s.foo.zone" forward to <f3s>
    match request quick header "Host" value "www.anki.f3s.foo.zone" forward to <f3s>
    match request quick header "Host" value "standby.anki.f3s.foo.zone" forward to <f3s>
    match request quick header "Host" value "bag.f3s.foo.zone" forward to <f3s>
    match request quick header "Host" value "www.bag.f3s.foo.zone" forward to <f3s>
    match request quick header "Host" value "standby.bag.f3s.foo.zone" forward to <f3s>
    match request quick header "Host" value "flux.f3s.foo.zone" forward to <f3s>
    match request quick header "Host" value "www.flux.f3s.foo.zone" forward to <f3s>
    match request quick header "Host" value "standby.flux.f3s.foo.zone" forward to <f3s>
    match request quick header "Host" value "audiobookshelf.f3s.foo.zone" forward to <f3s>
    match request quick header "Host" value "www.audiobookshelf.f3s.foo.zone" forward to <f3s>
    match request quick header "Host" value "standby.audiobookshelf.f3s.foo.zone" forward to <f3s>
    match request quick header "Host" value "gpodder.f3s.foo.zone" forward to <f3s>
    match request quick header "Host" value "www.gpodder.f3s.foo.zone" forward to <f3s>
    match request quick header "Host" value "standby.gpodder.f3s.foo.zone" forward to <f3s>
    match request quick header "Host" value "radicale.f3s.foo.zone" forward to <f3s>
    match request quick header "Host" value "www.radicale.f3s.foo.zone" forward to <f3s>
    match request quick header "Host" value "standby.radicale.f3s.foo.zone" forward to <f3s>
    match request quick header "Host" value "vault.f3s.foo.zone" forward to <f3s>
    match request quick header "Host" value "www.vault.f3s.foo.zone" forward to <f3s>
    match request quick header "Host" value "standby.vault.f3s.foo.zone" forward to <f3s>
    match request quick header "Host" value "syncthing.f3s.foo.zone" forward to <f3s>
    match request quick header "Host" value "www.syncthing.f3s.foo.zone" forward to <f3s>
    match request quick header "Host" value "standby.syncthing.f3s.foo.zone" forward to <f3s>
    match request quick header "Host" value "uprecords.f3s.foo.zone" forward to <f3s>
    match request quick header "Host" value "www.uprecords.f3s.foo.zone" forward to <f3s>
    match request quick header "Host" value "standby.uprecords.f3s.foo.zone" forward to <f3s>
}

Both IPv4 and IPv6 listeners reuse the same protocol definition, making the relay transparent for dual-stack clients while still health checking every k3s backend before forwarding traffic over WireGuard:

relay "https4" {
    listen on 46.23.94.99 port 443 tls
    protocol "https"
    forward to <f3s> port 80 check tcp
}

relay "https6" {
    listen on 2a03:6000:6f67:624::99 port 443 tls
    protocol "https"
    forward to <f3s> port 80 check tcp
}

In practice, that means relayd terminates TLS with the correct certificate, keeps the three WireGuard-connected backends in rotation, and ships each request to whichever bhyve VM answers first.

Deploying the private Docker image registry



As not all Docker images I want to deploy are available on public Docker registries and as I also build some of them by myself, there is the need of a private registry.

All manifests for the f3s stack live in my configuration repository:

codeberg.org/snonux/conf/f3s

Within that repo, the examples/conf/f3s/registry/ directory contains the Helm chart, a Justfile, and a detailed README. Here's the condensed walkthrough I used to roll out the registry with Helm.

Prepare the NFS-backed storage



Create the directory that will hold the registry blobs on the NFS share (I ran this on r0, but any node that exports /data/nfs/k3svolumes works):

[root@r0 ~]# mkdir -p /data/nfs/k3svolumes/registry

Install (or upgrade) the chart



Clone the repo (or pull the latest changes) on a workstation that has helm configured for the cluster, then deploy the chart. The Justfile wraps the commands, but the raw Helm invocation looks like this:

$ git clone https://codeberg.org/snonux/conf/f3s.git
$ cd conf/f3s/examples/conf/f3s/registry
$ helm upgrade --install registry ./helm-chart --namespace infra --create-namespace

Helm creates the infra namespace if it does not exist, provisions a PersistentVolume/PersistentVolumeClaim pair that points at /data/nfs/k3svolumes/registry, and spins up a single registry pod exposed via the docker-registry-service NodePort (30001). Verify everything is up before continuing:

$ kubectl get pods --namespace infra
NAME                               READY   STATUS    RESTARTS      AGE
docker-registry-6bc9bb46bb-6grkr   1/1     Running   6 (53d ago)   54d

$ kubectl get svc docker-registry-service -n infra
NAME                      TYPE       CLUSTER-IP     EXTERNAL-IP   PORT(S)          AGE
docker-registry-service   NodePort   10.43.141.56   <none>        5000:30001/TCP   54d

Allow nodes and workstations to trust the registry



The registry listens on plain HTTP, so both Docker daemons on workstations and the k3s nodes need to treat it as an insecure registry. That's fine for my personal needs, as:


On my Fedora workstation where I build images:

$ cat <<"EOF" | sudo tee /etc/docker/daemon.json >/dev/null
{
  "insecure-registries": [
    "r0.lan.buetow.org:30001",
    "r1.lan.buetow.org:30001",
    "r2.lan.buetow.org:30001"
  ]
}
EOF
$ sudo systemctl restart docker

On each k3s node, make registry.lan.buetow.org resolve locally and point k3s at the NodePort:

$ for node in r0 r1 r2; do
>   ssh root@$node "echo '127.0.0.1 registry.lan.buetow.org' >> /etc/hosts"
> done

$ for node in r0 r1 r2; do
> ssh root@$node "cat <<'EOF' > /etc/rancher/k3s/registries.yaml
mirrors:
  "registry.lan.buetow.org:30001":
    endpoint:
      - "http://localhost:30001"
EOF
systemctl restart k3s"
> done

Thanks to the relayd configuration earlier in the post, the external hostnames (f3s.foo.zone, etc.) can already reach NodePort 30001, so publishing the registry later to the outside world is just a matter of wiring the DNS the same way as the ingress hosts. But by default, that's not enabled for now due to security reasons.

Pushing and pulling images



Tag any locally built image with one of the node IPs on port 30001, then push it. I usually target whichever node is closest to me, but any of the three will do:

$ docker tag my-app:latest r0.lan.buetow.org:30001/my-app:latest
$ docker push r0.lan.buetow.org:30001/my-app:latest

Inside the cluster (or from other nodes), reference the image via the service name that Helm created:

image: docker-registry-service:5000/my-app:latest

You can test the pull path straight away:

$ kubectl run registry-test \
>   --image=docker-registry-service:5000/my-app:latest \
>   --restart=Never -n test --command -- sleep 300

If the pod pulls successfully, the private registry is ready for use by the rest of the workloads. Note, that the commands above actually don't work, they are only for illustration purpose mentioned here.

Example: Anki Sync Server from the private registry



One of the first workloads I migrated onto the k3s cluster after standing up the registry was my Anki sync server. The configuration repo ships everything in examples/conf/f3s/anki-sync-server/: a Docker build context plus a Helm chart that references the freshly built image.

Build and push the image



The Dockerfile lives under docker-image/ and takes the Anki release to compile as an ANKI_VERSION build argument. The accompanying Justfile wraps the steps, but the raw commands look like this:

$ cd conf/f3s/examples/conf/f3s/anki-sync-server/docker-image
$ docker build -t anki-sync-server:25.07.5b --build-arg ANKI_VERSION=25.07.5 .
$ docker tag anki-sync-server:25.07.5b \
    r0.lan.buetow.org:30001/anki-sync-server:25.07.5b
$ docker push r0.lan.buetow.org:30001/anki-sync-server:25.07.5b

Because every k3s node treats registry.lan.buetow.org:30001 as an insecure mirror (see above), the push succeeds regardless of which node answers. If you prefer the shortcut, just f3s in that directory performs the same build/tag/push sequence.

Create the Anki secret and storage on the cluster



The Helm chart expects the services namespace, a pre-created NFS directory, and a Kubernetes secret that holds the credentials the upstream container understands:

$ ssh root@r0 "mkdir -p /data/nfs/k3svolumes/anki-sync-server/anki_data"
$ kubectl create namespace services
$ kubectl create secret generic anki-sync-server-secret \
    --from-literal=SYNC_USER1='paul:SECRETPASSWORD' \
    -n services

If the services namespace already exists, you can skip that line or let Kubernetes tell you the namespace is unchanged.

Deploy the chart



With the prerequisites in place, install (or upgrade) the chart. It pins the container image to the tag we just pushed and mounts the NFS export via a PersistentVolume/PersistentVolumeClaim pair:

$ cd ../helm-chart
$ helm upgrade --install anki-sync-server . -n services

Helm provisions everything referenced in the templates:

containers:
- name: anki-sync-server  image: registry.lan.buetow.org:30001/anki-sync-server:25.07.5b
  volumeMounts:
  - name: anki-data
    mountPath: /anki_data

Once the release comes up, verify that the pod pulled the freshly pushed image and that the ingress we configured earlier resolves through relayd just like the Apache example.

$ kubectl get pods -n services
$ kubectl get ingress anki-sync-server-ingress -n services
$ curl https://anki.f3s.foo.zone/health

All of this runs solely on first-party images that now live in the private registry, proving the full flow from local bild to WireGuard-exposed service.

NFSv4 UID mapping for Postgres-backed (and other) apps



NFSv4 only sees numeric user and group IDs, so the postgres account created inside the container must exist with the same UID/GID on the Kubernetes worker and on the FreeBSD NFS servers. Otherwise the pod starts with UID 999, the export sees it as an unknown anonymous user, and Postgres fails to initialise its data directory.

To verify things line up end-to-end I run id in the container and on the hosts:

> ~ kubectl exec -n services deploy/miniflux-postgres -- id postgres
uid=999(postgres) gid=999(postgres) groups=999(postgres)

[root@r0 ~]# id postgres
uid=999(postgres) gid=999(postgres) groups=999(postgres)

paul@f0:~ % doas id postgres
uid=999(postgres) gid=99(postgres) groups=999(postgres)

The Rocky Linux workers get their matching user with plain useradd/groupadd (repeat on r0, r1, and r2):

[root@r0 ~]# groupadd --gid 999 postgres
[root@r0 ~]# useradd --uid 999 --gid 999 \
                --home-dir /var/lib/pgsql \
                --shell /sbin/nologin postgres

FreeBSD uses pw, so on each NFS server (f0, f1, f2) I created the same account and disabled shell access:

paul@f0:~ % doas pw groupadd postgres -g 999
paul@f0:~ % doas pw useradd postgres -u 999 -g postgres \
                -d /var/db/postgres -s /usr/sbin/nologin

Once the UID/GID exist everywhere, the Miniflux chart in examples/conf/f3s/miniflux deploys cleanly. The chart provisions both the application and its bundled Postgres database, mounts the exported directory, and builds the DSN at runtime. The important bits live in helm-chart/templates/persistent-volumes.yaml and deployment.yaml:

# Persistent volume lives on the NFS export
hostPath:
  path: /data/nfs/k3svolumes/miniflux/data
  type: Directory
...
containers:
- name: miniflux-postgres
  image: postgres:17
  volumeMounts:
  - name: miniflux-postgres-data
    mountPath: /var/lib/postgresql/data

Follow the README beside the chart to create the secrets and the target directory:

$ cd examples/conf/f3s/miniflux/helm-chart
$ mkdir -p /data/nfs/k3svolumes/miniflux/data
$ kubectl create secret generic miniflux-db-password \
    --from-literal=fluxdb_password='YOUR_PASSWORD' -n services
$ kubectl create secret generic miniflux-admin-password \
    --from-literal=admin_password='YOUR_ADMIN_PASSWORD' -n services
$ helm upgrade --install miniflux . -n services --create-namespace

And to verify it's all up:

$ kubectl get all --namespace=services | grep mini
pod/miniflux-postgres-556444cb8d-xvv2p   1/1     Running   0             54d
pod/miniflux-server-85d7c64664-stmt9     1/1     Running   0             54d
service/miniflux                   ClusterIP   10.43.47.80     <none>        8080/TCP             54d
service/miniflux-postgres          ClusterIP   10.43.139.50    <none>        5432/TCP             54d
deployment.apps/miniflux-postgres   1/1     1            1           54d
deployment.apps/miniflux-server     1/1     1            1           54d
replicaset.apps/miniflux-postgres-556444cb8d   1         1         1       54d
replicaset.apps/miniflux-server-85d7c64664     1         1         1       54d

Or from the repository root I simply run:

Helm charts currently in service



These are the charts that already live under examples/conf/f3s and run on the cluster today (and I'll keep adding more as new services graduate into production):


I hope you enjoyed this walkthrough. In the next part of this series, I will likely tackle monitoring, backup, or observability. I haven't fully decided yet which topic to cover next, so stay tuned!

Other *BSD-related posts:

2025-10-02 f3s: Kubernetes with FreeBSD - Part 7: k3s and first pod deployments (You are currently reading this)
2025-07-14 f3s: Kubernetes with FreeBSD - Part 6: Storage
2025-05-11 f3s: Kubernetes with FreeBSD - Part 5: WireGuard mesh network
2025-04-05 f3s: Kubernetes with FreeBSD - Part 4: Rocky Linux Bhyve VMs
2025-02-01 f3s: Kubernetes with FreeBSD - Part 3: Protecting from power cuts
2024-12-03 f3s: Kubernetes with FreeBSD - Part 2: Hardware and base installation
2024-11-17 f3s: Kubernetes with FreeBSD - Part 1: Setting the stage
2024-04-01 KISS high-availability with OpenBSD
2024-01-13 One reason why I love OpenBSD
2022-10-30 Installing DTail on OpenBSD
2022-07-30 Let's Encrypt with OpenBSD and Rex
2016-04-09 Jails and ZFS with Puppet on FreeBSD

E-Mail your comments to paul@nospam.buetow.org

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