Dapr extension for Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)

Prerequisites

• Azure subscription
• Azure CLI and the aks-preview extension.
• Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) cluster

Install Dapr using the AKS Dapr extension

The recommended approach for installing Dapr on AKS is to use the AKS Dapr extension. The extension offers support for all native Dapr configuration capabilities through command-line arguments via the Azure CLI and offers the option of opting into automatic minor version upgrades of the Dapr runtime.

How the extension works

The Dapr extension works by provisioning the Dapr control plane on your AKS cluster through the Azure CLI. The dapr control plane consists of:

• dapr-operator: Manages component updates and Kubernetes services endpoints for Dapr (state stores, pub/subs, etc.)
• dapr-sidecar-injector: Injects Dapr into annotated deployment pods and adds the environment variables DAPR_HTTP_PORT and DAPR_GRPC_PORT. This enables user-defined applications to communicate with Dapr without the need to hard-code Dapr port values.
• dapr-placement: Used for actors only. Creates mapping tables that map actor instances to pods
• dapr-sentry: Manages mTLS between services and acts as a certificate authority. For more information read the security overview.

Extension Prerequisites

In order to use the AKS Dapr extension, you must first enable the AKS-ExtensionManager and AKS-Dapr feature flags on your Azure subscription.

The below command will register the AKS-ExtensionManager and AKS-Dapr feature flags on your Azure subscription:

az feature register --namespace "Microsoft.ContainerService" --name "AKS-ExtensionManager"
az feature register --namespace "Microsoft.ContainerService" --name "AKS-Dapr"

After a few minutes, check the status to show Registered. Confirm the registration status by using the az feature list command:

az feature list -o table --query "[?contains(name, 'Microsoft.ContainerService/AKS-ExtensionManager')].{Name:name,State:properties.state}"
az feature list -o table --query "[?contains(name, 'Microsoft.ContainerService/AKS-Dapr')].{Name:name,State:properties.state}"

Next, refresh the registration of the Microsoft.KubernetesConfiguration and Microsoft.ContainerService resource providers by using the az provider register command:

az provider register --namespace Microsoft.KubernetesConfiguration
az provider register --namespace Microsoft.ContainerService

Enable the Azure CLI extension for cluster extensions

You will also need the k8s-extension Azure CLI extension. Install this by running the following commands:

az extension add --name k8s-extension

If the k8s-extension extension is already present, you can update it to the latest version using the below command:

az extension update --name k8s-extension

Create the extension and install Dapr on your AKS cluster

After your subscription is registered to use Kubernetes extensions, install Dapr on your cluster by creating the Dapr extension. For example:

az k8s-extension create --cluster-type managedClusters \
--cluster-name myAKSCluster \
--resource-group myResourceGroup \
--name myDaprExtension \
--extension-type Microsoft.Dapr

Additionally, Dapr can automatically update its minor version. To enable this, set the --auto-upgrade-minor-version parameter to true:

--auto-upgrade-minor-version true

Once the k8-extension finishes provisioning, you can confirm that the Dapr control plane is installed on your AKS cluster by running:

kubectl get pods -n dapr-system

In the example output below, note how the Dapr control plane is installed with high availability mode, enabled by default.

~  kubectl get pods -n dapr-system
NAME                                    READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
dapr-dashboard-5f49d48796-rnt5t         1/1     Running   0          1h
dapr-operator-98579b8b4-fpz7k           1/1     Running   0          1h
dapr-operator-98579b8b4-nn5vm           1/1     Running   0          1h
dapr-operator-98579b8b4-pplqr           1/1     Running   0          1h
dapr-placement-server-0                 1/1     Running   0          1h
dapr-placement-server-1                 1/1     Running   0          1h
dapr-placement-server-2                 1/1     Running   0          1h
dapr-sentry-775bccdddb-htcl7            1/1     Running   0          1h
dapr-sentry-775bccdddb-vtfxj            1/1     Running   0          1h
dapr-sentry-775bccdddb-w4l8x            1/1     Running   0          1h
dapr-sidecar-injector-9555889bc-klb9g   1/1     Running   0          1h
dapr-sidecar-injector-9555889bc-rpjwl   1/1     Running   0          1h
dapr-sidecar-injector-9555889bc-rqjgt   1/1     Running   0          1h

For more information about configuration options and targeting specific Dapr versions, see the official AKS Dapr Extension Docs.