Kubernetes Dashboard is an application deployed on Kubernetes to provide a web-based UI for daily management, troubleshooting, and monitoring Kubernetes clusters. For Kubernetes beginners, it can serve as a valuable component in visualizing cluster state and to better understand what’s happening in your clusters. The dashboard provide a more real-time insights into the cluster resources, workloads, and events thus facilitate efficient debugging of issues.

Here is a table showing the key features of Kubernetes Dashboard:

Feature	Description
Cluster Overview	View node statuses, resource usage, and workloads at a glance.
Workload Management	Deployments, StatefulSets, Pods, ReplicaSets – create, edit, or delete them easily.
Real-Time Logs	View pod logs without needing kubectl logs.
Pod Monitoring	See pod status, restarts, container health, and events.
Namespace Switching	Quickly navigate between namespaces.
Secrets & ConfigMaps	View and edit them securely (if RBAC allows).
RBAC-Aware	Permissions are based on the service account or user accessing the dashboard.
Terminal Access	Open an interactive shell into a container (like kubectl exec -it in the browser).

In this short tutorial, we cover the necessary steps to install, configure, and access kubernetes dashboard via a web browser. The assumption is that you have a working Kubernetes cluster. You can refer to articles available in our website for the kubernetes installation guides.

Confirm your cluster is functional by listing nodes:

$ kubectl get nodes
NAME                       STATUS   ROLES           AGE   VERSION
k0snode01.cloudspinx.com   Ready    control-plane   26d   v1.32.2+k0s
k0snode02.cloudspinx.com   Ready    <none>          26d   v1.32.2+k0s

Install Helm

You should have helm installed in your workstation. If not run the following commands to have it installed.

curl -fsSL -o get_helm.sh https://raw.githubusercontent.com/helm/helm/main/scripts/get-helm-3
chmod 700 get_helm.sh
./get_helm.sh

Check the version to confirm it works:

helm version

Install Kubernetes Dashboard using helm

After helm is installed, add Kubernetes dashboard helm repository

helm repo add kubernetes-dashboard https://kubernetes.github.io/dashboard/

Generate default values.yaml for the chart

helm show values kubernetes-dashboard/kubernetes-dashboard > kubernetes-dashboard-values.yaml

Adjust the values as needed to suit your requirements.

Example : Enable Ingress

If you have an ingress configured in your cluster such as Nginx Ingress. Enable ingress configurations in the values file.

app:
  ingress:
    enabled: true
    hosts:
      - localhost
    ingressClassName: internal-nginx
    tls:
      enabled: true
      secretName: ""

Use helm to install Kubernetes Dashboard

After making the necessary adjustment to the default values, install kubernetes dashboard in the cluster.

helm upgrade --install kubernetes-dashboard \
kubernetes-dashboard/kubernetes-dashboard \
--create-namespace \
--namespace kubernetes-dashboard \
-f kubernetes-dashboard-values.yaml

Expected output from command execution:

Release "kubernetes-dashboard" does not exist. Installing it now.
NAME: kubernetes-dashboard
LAST DEPLOYED: Sun Apr  6 22:35:37 2025
NAMESPACE: kubernetes-dashboard
STATUS: deployed
REVISION: 1
TEST SUITE: None
NOTES:
*************************************************************************************************
*** PLEASE BE PATIENT: Kubernetes Dashboard may need a few minutes to get up and become ready ***
*************************************************************************************************

Congratulations! You have just installed Kubernetes Dashboard in your cluster.

To access Dashboard run:
  kubectl -n kubernetes-dashboard port-forward svc/kubernetes-dashboard-kong-proxy 8443:443

NOTE: In case port-forward command does not work, make sure that kong service name is correct.
      Check the services in Kubernetes Dashboard namespace using:
        kubectl -n kubernetes-dashboard get svc

Dashboard will be available at:
  https://localhost:8443

List all resources in the namespace to confirm successful installation:

# kubectl get all -n kubernetes-dashboard
NAME                                                        READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
pod/kubernetes-dashboard-api-868c9bc5f4-6gmtx               1/1     Running   0          3m20s
pod/kubernetes-dashboard-auth-7df6cd66db-svxw7              1/1     Running   0          3m20s
pod/kubernetes-dashboard-kong-678c76c548-m8b98              1/1     Running   0          3m20s
pod/kubernetes-dashboard-metrics-scraper-7d9658df44-w4xwq   1/1     Running   0          3m20s
pod/kubernetes-dashboard-web-66b75c6c7f-hbncj               1/1     Running   0          3m20s

NAME                                           TYPE           CLUSTER-IP       EXTERNAL-IP     PORT(S)          AGE
service/kubernetes-dashboard-api               ClusterIP      10.152.183.245   <none>          8000/TCP         3m20s
service/kubernetes-dashboard-auth              ClusterIP      10.152.183.250   <none>          8000/TCP         3m20s
service/kubernetes-dashboard-kong-proxy        ClusterIP      10.152.183.78    <none>          443/TCP          3m20s
service/kubernetes-dashboard-metrics-scraper   ClusterIP      10.152.183.236   <none>          8000/TCP         3m20s
service/kubernetes-dashboard-web               ClusterIP      10.152.183.93    <none>          8000/TCP         3m20s

NAME                                                   READY   UP-TO-DATE   AVAILABLE   AGE
deployment.apps/kubernetes-dashboard-api               1/1     1            1           3m20s
deployment.apps/kubernetes-dashboard-auth              1/1     1            1           3m20s
deployment.apps/kubernetes-dashboard-kong              1/1     1            1           3m20s
deployment.apps/kubernetes-dashboard-metrics-scraper   1/1     1            1           3m20s
deployment.apps/kubernetes-dashboard-web               1/1     1            1           3m20s

NAME                                                              DESIRED   CURRENT   READY   AGE
replicaset.apps/kubernetes-dashboard-api-868c9bc5f4               1         1         1       3m20s
replicaset.apps/kubernetes-dashboard-auth-7df6cd66db              1         1         1       3m20s
replicaset.apps/kubernetes-dashboard-kong-678c76c548              1         1         1       3m20s
replicaset.apps/kubernetes-dashboard-metrics-scraper-7d9658df44   1         1         1       3m20s
replicaset.apps/kubernetes-dashboard-web-66b75c6c7f               1         1         1       3m20s

Access Kubernetes Dashboard

Before we can access the dashboard, let’s first configure correct authentication using service account and bearer token.

Create kubernetes resources

Let’s start by creating:

• A service account with the name dashboard-admin in namespace kubernetes-dashboard
• Create a ClusterRoleBinding
• Create a secret with the bearer token

1) Admin User creation

Run the following commands to create service account and assign cluster role binding with admin privileges.

kubectl apply -f - <<EOF
apiVersion: v1
kind: ServiceAccount
metadata:
  name: dashboard-admin
  namespace: kubernetes-dashboard
---
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: ClusterRoleBinding
metadata:
  name: dashboard-admin
roleRef:
  apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io
  kind: ClusterRole
  name: cluster-admin
subjects:
- kind: ServiceAccount
  name: dashboard-admin
  namespace: kubernetes-dashboard
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
  name: dashboard-admin
  namespace: kubernetes-dashboard
  annotations:
    kubernetes.io/service-account.name: "dashboard-admin"   
type: kubernetes.io/service-account-token  
EOF

Once the secret is created, execute the following commands to get the token:

kubectl get secret dashboard-admin -n kubernetes-dashboard -o jsonpath="{.data.token}" | base64 -d;echo

2) read only user

If you want to create a read-only user, refer to the following service account and

kubectl apply -f - <<EOF
apiVersion: v1
kind: ServiceAccount
metadata:
  name: dashboard-read-only-user
  namespace: kubernetes-dashboard
---
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: ClusterRole
metadata:
  annotations:
    rbac.authorization.kubernetes.io/autoupdate: "true"
  labels:
  name: dashboard-read-only-clusterrole
  namespace: kubernetes-dashboard
rules:
- apiGroups:
  - ""
  resources: ["*"]
  verbs:
  - get
  - list
  - watch
- apiGroups:
  - extensions
  resources: ["*"]
  verbs:
  - get
  - list
  - watch
- apiGroups:
  - apps
  resources: ["*"]
  verbs:
  - get
  - list
  - watch
---
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: ClusterRoleBinding
metadata:
  name: dashboard-read-only-binding
roleRef:
  kind: ClusterRole
  name: dashboard-read-only-clusterrole
  apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io
subjects:
- kind: ServiceAccount
  name: dashboard-read-only-user
  namespace: kubernetes-dashboard
EOF

Then obtain token from secret created:

kubectl get secret dashboard-read-only-user -n kubernetes-dashboard -o jsonpath="{.data.token}" | base64 -d;echo

Access Kubernetes dashboard using kubectl port forwarding

The most secure method for accessing Kubernetes dashboard is using kubectl proxy for port forwarding.

kubectl -n kubernetes-dashboard port-forward svc/kubernetes-dashboard-kong-proxy 8443:443

Command execution output:

Forwarding from 127.0.0.1:8443 -> 8443
Forwarding from [::1]:8443 -> 8443

Then access the URL at https://localhost:8443. Paste the generated token to authenticate:

After logging into kubernetes dashboard, you can browse and manage various Kubernetes resource types.

Useful Kubernetes Dashboard Links:

• User Guide
• Access Control
• Developer Guide