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Minikube intro

Minikube is a tool that simplifies running a local Kubernetes cluster by launching a single-node cluster on a laptop/desktop/server using virtual machines, containers, or bare metal (depending on OS). It uses the same upstream Kubernetes binaries as production environments, making it ideal for development, testing, and learning Kubernetes without the overhead of managing a full-scale cluster. Minikube is not a separate version or subset of Kubernetes—it doesn't modify Kubernetes core functionality or APIs. Instead, it is a setup and convenience layer around Kubernetes that streamlines installation, networking, and basic tooling for local use. It is not intended for production use, nor does it replicate the performance or complexity of multi-node, cloud-native Kubernetes clusters.

Install minikube (macos)

brew install minikube
brew install kubectl

Start minikube

minikube start --driver=docker

This launches a local Kubernetes cluster (in a docker container). This will download the VM image too in case it does not exist.

Interact with the cluster

Start minikube dashboard

minikube dashboard

See all pods in all namespaces (get po short for get pods and -A short for --all-namespaces).

$ kubectl get po -A
NAMESPACE              NAME                                         READY   STATUS    RESTARTS        AGE
kube-system            coredns-674b8bbfcf-sgpsl                     1/1     Running   0               5m16s
kube-system            etcd-minikube                                1/1     Running   0               5m23s
kube-system            kube-apiserver-minikube                      1/1     Running   0               5m22s
kube-system            kube-controller-manager-minikube             1/1     Running   0               5m22s
kube-system            kube-proxy-n55xw                             1/1     Running   0               5m17s
kube-system            kube-scheduler-minikube                      1/1     Running   0               5m23s
kube-system            storage-provisioner                          1/1     Running   1 (4m46s ago)   5m20s
kubernetes-dashboard   dashboard-metrics-scraper-5d59dccf9b-724xl   1/1     Running   0               3m5s
kubernetes-dashboard   kubernetes-dashboard-7779f9b69b-7mvvp        1/1     Running   0               3m5s


Quick description of the pods

  • coredns: Provides DNS resolution inside the cluster so services can find and communicate with each other.

  • etcd: A distributed key-value store used to hold all cluster data and configuration.

  • kube-apiserver: Serves as the front end of the Kubernetes control plane, exposing the Kubernetes API.

  • kube-controller-manager: Runs controller processes that handle routine cluster tasks such as replication and node lifecycle management.

  • kube-proxy: Maintains network rules on nodes, enabling network communication between pods and services.

  • kube-scheduler: Assigns newly created pods to nodes based on resource availability and constraints.

  • storage-provisioner: Automatically provisions persistent volumes for pods based on PersistentVolumeClaims (PVCs).

  • dashboard-metrics-scraper: Collects resource usage metrics (CPU, memory) for display in the Kubernetes Dashboard.

  • kubernetes-dashboard: A web-based UI for managing and monitoring Kubernetes resources.

Deploy a hello world app

Create and expose deployment.

kubectl create deployment hello-minikube --image=kicbase/echo-server:1.0
kubectl expose deployment hello-minikube --type=NodePort --port=8080

To see the service is running:

kubectl get services hello-minikube

To access the service by allowing minikube to launch a webserver:

minikube service hello-minikube

In macos you may get this error (in case you are using qemu driver):

Exiting due to MK_UNIMPLEMENTED: minikube service is not currently implemented with the builtin network on QEMU, try starting minikube with '--network=socket_vmnet'

One way to overcome this is:

kubectl port-forward service/hello-minikube 7080:8080

Then open the browser: http://localhost:7080/

Another is to install socket_vmnet (see instructions), then start the process to create minikube again, as it will detect the socket_vmnet installation.

Delete cluster

This will stop the VM running minikube and delete the cluster state.

minikube delete

References