Chilling by Lake Balaton with great coffee (at The Rusty Box), while working on some new iximiuz Labs content.

🎉 Today's the day! 🎉

Come see myself and @sagikazarmark.com chatting about our experience with the oddities in Kubernetes that we've experienced over our careers.

This is going to be a fun one!

11:45am
Hall 7 - Room A

kccnceu2026.sched.com/event/2CW2p/...

Kubernetes the (Very) Hard Way (course) | iximiuz Labs A hands-on, step-by-step guide to assembling a Kubernetes cluster from the ground up, (without using any automation) while deeply exploring each component's role and functionality along the way.

🚨 KUBERNETES THE VERY HARD WAY IS COMPLETE!

The complete course is now available on iximiuz Labs: labs.iximiuz.com/courses/kub...

If you want to learn how Kubernetes works under the hood, this course is for you.

Kubernetes networking is complex.

But that doesn't mean it's impossible to understand. Break it down into smaller pieces and you'll see how it all connects.

The next lesson of Kubernetes the Very Hard Way discusses this topic: labs.iximiuz.com/courses/kub...

#Kubernetes

KubeCon is in less than two weeks.

If this is your first time, I gathered a few thoughts on how to navigate the conference without getting completely lost (or tired) on day one: sagikazarmark.com/blog/posts/...

#kubecon

When did installing prebuilt binaries using npm become the standard?

TLS bootstrapping is how worker nodes securely join a Kubernetes cluster without manually distributing certificates.

The next lesson in "Kubernetes the Very Hard Way" covers the entire process of forming a functional cluster from control plane and worker components.

labs.iximiuz.com/courses/kub...

You've got a control plane and a worker node. Now what?

The next lesson in "Kubernetes the Very Hard Way" walks through joining a worker node to the cluster, including TLS bootstrapping and certificate management.

Available on iximiuz Labs: labs.iximiuz.com/courses/kub...

The final control plane lesson in Kubernetes the Very Hard Way, introducing kube-controller-manager, is out: labs.iximiuz.com/courses/kub...

Next stop: assembling a functional cluster!

Ever wondered how Kubernetes decides which node runs your pod?

The next lesson in "Kubernetes the Very Hard Way" covers kube-scheduler, the component that handles pod placement decisions.

Available on iximiuz Labs: labs.iximiuz.com/courses/kub...

Pods don't just randomly land on nodes. kube-scheduler evaluates every placement based on resource availability, constraints, and policies.

The next lesson in "Kubernetes the Very Hard Way" breaks down how kube-scheduler operates under the hood.

labs.iximiuz.com/courses/kub...

Have you ever used curl to interact with the Kubernetes API or observed what is stored in etcd after executing kubectl apply?

The next lesson in Kubernetes the Very Hard Way explores how kube-apiserver integrates into Kubernetes and operates under the hood: labs.iximiuz.com/courses/kub...

If you've followed along with Kubernetes the Very Hard Way, it was worth it, because now the real fun begins:

By adding kube-apiserver to the mix, you can learn how the component you interact with daily works under the hood.

labs.iximiuz.com/courses/kub...

etcd is a highly available, strongly consistent key-value store that supports Kubernetes by storing all its state.

The next lesson in "Kubernetes the Very Hard Way," discussing etcd, is available on iximiuz Labs:

labs.iximiuz.com/courses/kub...

After discussing the worker node components, it's time to move on to the control plane.

The next lesson in "Kubernetes the Very Hard Way" begins with a discussion on the control plane components, starting with etcd.

labs.iximiuz.com/courses/kub...

Did you know you can run pods on a Kubernetes node without a control plane?

Or that you can communicate directly with the kubelet via its API?

Check out my "Kubernetes the Very Hard Way" course's next lesson that provides an in-depth view of kubelet: labs.iximiuz.com/courses/kub...

#Kubernetes

Kubelet is the "hands and feet" of Kubernetes: it's the component sitting on every node making desired state a reality.

The next lesson of "Kubernetes the Very Hard Way" provides an in-depth view of kubelet.

Available on iximiuz Labs: labs.iximiuz.com/courses/kub...

#Kubernetes

Kubernetes the (Very) Hard Way (course) | iximiuz Labs A hands-on, step-by-step guide to assembling a Kubernetes cluster from the ground up, (without using any automation) while deeply exploring each component's role and functionality along the way.

Check out my new course, "Kubernetes the Very Hard Way," on iximiuz Labs to learn how containerd allows Kubernetes to manage thousands and thousands of containers: labs.iximiuz.com/courses/kub....

The course is free for a limited time, so enroll now!

Containerd is the default container runtime for Kubernetes. However, we seldom interact with containerd directly or fully understand the components involved in effectively managing containers.

PagerDuty calls: your app hosted on Kubernetes is not available.

What's the first thing you do / command you run?

#Kubernetes

Over the next 10 weeks, I'll release a new lesson each week, starting with containerd (available today).

The course is free for a limited time, so enroll now!

#Kubernetes

Inspired by Kelsey Hightower's "Kubernetes the Hard Way," this course guides you through manually building a Kubernetes cluster from scratch in a lab environment, without the hassle of setting up VMs.

Kubernetes the (Very) Hard Way (course) | iximiuz Labs A hands-on, step-by-step guide to assembling a Kubernetes cluster from the ground up, (without using any automation) while deeply exploring each component's role and functionality along the way.

Ever wanted to peek under the hood of Kubernetes and discover what makes it tick?

Now you can.

After months of effort, my new course, "Kubernetes the Very Hard Way," is live on iximiuz Labs: labs.iximiuz.com/courses/kub....

Full story: sagikazarmark.com/blog/posts/...

Built a product in 2 days with AI.

I'm a backend dev who avoids frontend. But I had a problem to solve, so I let Claude Code take the wheel.

Result: talkpulse.app - simple audience feedback for speakers

The honest truth: AI is amazing at writing code. Less amazing at not creating a mess.

Bottom line: Claude is not a mind reader and not a senior engineer. It needs guidance. How long? We will figure that out in the future.

So while Claude delivers excellent results from a functional perspective, it's still not delivering good quality code.

I'm not saying it's Claude's fault though: I could provide much better specifications and then it may deliver the desired results. But I may as well just do the work myself.

I've spent the last two days coding exclusively with Claude Code.

In the end, I haven't even looked at the code, just accepted it if it worked.

I'm looking at the code now and trying to make manual changes: it's not complete crap, but it's close to it.

Sessionize says I've been an active speaker last year.

I'M SPEAKING AT KubeCon CloudNativeCon Europe 2026 23-26 MARCH AMSTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS #KubeCon #CloudNativeCon

Well this is freaking exciting! 😁 I’ll be speaking at #KubeConCloudNativeCon for the first time next year! 🎉

Myself and @sagikazarmark.com are going to be telling you all about the oddities in Kubernetes! 😎

This is going to be a fun one!

kccnceu2026.sched.com/event/2CW2p/...

#KubeCon #KubeConEU