Create an azure kubernetes cluster (aks) by running a Jenkins pipeline. Sometimes you just want to deploy something without having to figure out how to do it; on demand so to speak.
Note that at the time of writing this, aks only had a single master; hopefully this will change in time to offer a fault tolerant setup.
Official instructions are here.
Since creating an aks is fairly simple with the az cli, there is no need to use something like terraform or a resource manager template.
This pipeline does not create a service principle for the aks cluster; instead the service principle used to run the Jenkins job is used. This means we don't need to cleanup the service principle when the aks cluster is destroyed.
Pipeline uses a service principle (sp) with a secret. You can create this via the az command line or via the Azure portal.
The az cli setup is described here.
The Azure portal setup for the sp is described here.
Role Contributor is sufficient to deploy aks (but its not sufficient if a sp is also to be created).
Add the sp as a Jenkins credential using Kind Azure Service Principle; this will require the Azure Credentials Jenkins plugin. See this link for details. I would suggest a client secret and make sure you put the client secret Value in as the password and not the client secret ID!
The az cli needs installing on the Jenkins server and in the PATH for Jenkins.
Create a Pipeline in Jenkins and point it at a git repo where this code is hosted.
Specify Jenkinsfile to be used as the jenkinsfile.
You have the choice of Create or Destroy. Note there is no confirmation, so be aware when you run the job (you could use an input command for confirmation).
As mentioned in the last section, a credential using a service principle is required to access your Azure account to do the deployment.
Parameters that can be specified: 
.
kubectl is the kubernetes client. You should be able to install it via your package manager on your operating system.
The Create Jenkins console output will list what should be included in your ~/.kube/config file to access the cluster. Cut and paste this to the file. Note that this is based on using the same credentials on Jenkins and your client.
Alternativly, if using different credentials, use the following to get your kube config (cluster name and resource group name are the same):
$ az aks get-credentials --name <cluster-name> --resource-group <resource-grp-name> --file -
Then confirm you can see everything deployed in the cluster:
$ kubectl get all --all-namespaces
NAMESPACE NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE
kube-system pod/heapster-779db6bd48-msr5k 2/2 Running 0 29m
kube-system pod/kube-dns-autoscaler-5b94d96445-8fq72 1/1 Running 0 29m
kube-system pod/kube-dns-v20-6df5d5c657-l9s86 4/4 Running 0 29m
kube-system pod/kube-dns-v20-6df5d5c657-ql2ct 4/4 Running 0 25m
kube-system pod/kube-proxy-p6psh 1/1 Running 0 26m
kube-system pod/kube-svc-redirect-v82q9 2/2 Running 0 26m
kube-system pod/kubernetes-dashboard-f49587769-8vsc4 1/1 Running 0 29m
kube-system pod/omsagent-rs-6bff76b989-9vq6l 1/1 Running 1 29m
kube-system pod/omsagent-vw8pq 1/1 Running 1 26m
kube-system pod/tunnelfront-647668f595-k5k68 1/1 Running 0 29m
NAMESPACE NAME TYPE CLUSTER-IP EXTERNAL-IP PORT(S) AGE
default service/kubernetes ClusterIP 10.0.0.1 <none> 443/TCP 30m
kube-system service/heapster ClusterIP 10.0.220.186 <none> 80/TCP 29m
kube-system service/kube-dns ClusterIP 10.0.0.10 <none> 53/UDP,53/TCP 29m
kube-system service/kubernetes-dashboard ClusterIP 10.0.171.218 <none> 80/TCP 29m
NAMESPACE NAME DESIRED CURRENT READY UP-TO-DATE AVAILABLE NODE SELECTOR AGE
kube-system daemonset.extensions/kube-proxy 1 1 1 1 1 beta.kubernetes.io/os=linux 29m
kube-system daemonset.extensions/kube-svc-redirect 1 1 1 1 1 beta.kubernetes.io/os=linux 29m
kube-system daemonset.extensions/omsagent 1 1 1 1 1 beta.kubernetes.io/os=linux 29m
NAMESPACE NAME DESIRED CURRENT UP-TO-DATE AVAILABLE AGE
kube-system deployment.extensions/heapster 1 1 1 1 29m
kube-system deployment.extensions/kube-dns-autoscaler 1 1 1 1 29m
kube-system deployment.extensions/kube-dns-v20 2 2 2 2 29m
kube-system deployment.extensions/kubernetes-dashboard 1 1 1 1 29m
kube-system deployment.extensions/omsagent-rs 1 1 1 1 29m
kube-system deployment.extensions/tunnelfront 1 1 1 1 29m
NAMESPACE NAME DESIRED CURRENT READY AGE
kube-system replicaset.extensions/heapster-779db6bd48 1 1 1 29m
kube-system replicaset.extensions/kube-dns-autoscaler-5b94d96445 1 1 1 29m
kube-system replicaset.extensions/kube-dns-v20-6df5d5c657 2 2 2 29m
kube-system replicaset.extensions/kubernetes-dashboard-f49587769 1 1 1 29m
kube-system replicaset.extensions/omsagent-rs-6bff76b989 1 1 1 29m
kube-system replicaset.extensions/tunnelfront-647668f595 1 1 1 29m
NAMESPACE NAME DESIRED CURRENT READY UP-TO-DATE AVAILABLE NODE SELECTOR AGE
kube-system daemonset.apps/kube-proxy 1 1 1 1 1 beta.kubernetes.io/os=linux 29m
kube-system daemonset.apps/kube-svc-redirect 1 1 1 1 1 beta.kubernetes.io/os=linux 29m
kube-system daemonset.apps/omsagent 1 1 1 1 1 beta.kubernetes.io/os=linux 29m
NAMESPACE NAME DESIRED CURRENT UP-TO-DATE AVAILABLE AGE
kube-system deployment.apps/heapster 1 1 1 1 29m
kube-system deployment.apps/kube-dns-autoscaler 1 1 1 1 29m
kube-system deployment.apps/kube-dns-v20 2 2 2 2 29m
kube-system deployment.apps/kubernetes-dashboard 1 1 1 1 29m
kube-system deployment.apps/omsagent-rs 1 1 1 1 29m
kube-system deployment.apps/tunnelfront 1 1 1 1 29m
NAMESPACE NAME DESIRED CURRENT READY AGE
kube-system replicaset.apps/heapster-779db6bd48 1 1 1 29m
kube-system replicaset.apps/kube-dns-autoscaler-5b94d96445 1 1 1 29m
kube-system replicaset.apps/kube-dns-v20-6df5d5c657 2 2 2 29m
kube-system replicaset.apps/kubernetes-dashboard-f49587769 1 1 1 29m
kube-system replicaset.apps/omsagent-rs-6bff76b989 1 1 1 29m
kube-system replicaset.apps/tunnelfront-647668f595 1 1 1 29m
Check the worker nodes deployed:
$ kubectl get nodes
NAME STATUS ROLES AGE VERSION
aks-nodepool1-26648723-0 Ready agent 27m v1.9.11
aks is a fairly simple to deploy. However there is much more to aks. Head over the Azure docs.