Unable to access the Kubernetes Dashboard on Google Cloud Platform - kubernetes

Question

This is my first time of setting up Kubernetes on Google Cloud Platform.
These are the steps I followed:
I created an account on Google Cloud Platform and spun up a new instance:
https://console.cloud.google.com/compute
Installed the gcloud SDK:
curl https://sdk.cloud.google.com | bash
Configured my Google Cloud Platform account information
gcloud auth login
Installed the latest verion of Kubernetes
curl -sS https://get.k8s.io | bash
Launched a new cluster:
kubernetes/cluster/kube-up.sh
Confirmed that my configuration along with the cluster management credentials are stored in:
sudo nano /home/promisepreston/.kube/config
Installed kubectl on the server
curl -LO "https://storage.googleapis.com/kubernetes-release/release/$(curl -s https://storage.googleapis.com/kubernetes-release/release/stable.txt)/bin/linux/amd64/kubectl"
chmod +x ./kubectl
sudo mv ./kubectl /usr/local/bin/kubectl
Ran the command below which outputted the URL for the master services including DNS, UI, and monitoring
kubectl cluster-info
Deployed the Dashboard UI by running the following command:
kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kubernetes/dashboard/v2.0.0/aio/deploy/recommended.yaml
And finally, I tried accessing the Dashboard by running the following command:
kubectl proxy
Which should make the Dashboard available at:
http://localhost:8001/api/v1/namespaces/kubernetes-dashboard/services/https:kubernetes-dashboard:/proxy/
However, when I visit that URL I get error:
Unable to connect
And even when I try the command below:
curl http://localhost:8001/api
I get the error below:
curl: (7) Failed to connect to localhost port 8001: Connection refused
I have looked through a lot of documentation and tried multiple solutions, but none seems to work for me.

Answer 1

Installed kubectl on the server
You need kubectl on machine, from which you're going to access your cluster. If you installed it on the server and you ran kubectl proxy on the server - then you can access the proxy only from your server (depends on your network config).
If you do curl http://localhost:8001/api on the server - it will work.
So, you need to install kubectl on your machine, set up the k8s context for it and then run kubectl proxy - after that, all requests to proxy will be forwarded to your cluster.
In each request to k8s API server you need to be authenticated, when you run kubectl proxy - basically proxy will take care of authentication and SSL/TLS related stuff.
Read this for more info: Use an HTTP Proxy to Access the Kubernetes API
and The Kubernetes API
Configure Access to Multiple Clusters - may also be useful
Basically you need to do the following:
Note: These should be done directly on your local machine, and not on the server or the terminal connecting to the server, but directly on your local machine:
Install the gcloud SDK:
# Add the Cloud SDK distribution URI as a package source
echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/cloud.google.gpg] http://packages.cloud.google.com/apt cloud-sdk main" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-cloud-sdk.list
# Import the Google Cloud public key
curl https://packages.cloud.google.com/apt/doc/apt-key.gpg | sudo apt-key --keyring /usr/share/keyrings/cloud.google.gpg add -
# Update the package list and install the Cloud SDK
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install google-cloud-sdk
Configure your Google Cloud Platform account information:
gcloud auth login
Install Kubectl the Kubernetes command line tool:
curl -LO "https://storage.googleapis.com/kubernetes-release/release/$(curl -s https://storage.googleapis.com/kubernetes-release/release/stable.txt)/bin/linux/amd64/kubectl"
chmod +x ./kubectl
sudo mv ./kubectl /usr/local/bin/kubectl
Install Minikube that will be using to install Kubernetes on your local machine:
curl -LO https://storage.googleapis.com/minikube/releases/latest/minikube_latest_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i minikube_latest_amd64.deb
Start Minikube to pull the latest image of Kubenetes on your local system and configure it with Kubectl:
minikube start
If you already have some clusters set up, you can now use it to access your shiny new cluster:
kubectl get po -A
Minikube bundles the Kubernetes Dashboard, allowing you to get easily acclimated to your new environment:
minikube dashboard