Minikube is an excellent way to run Kubernetes (k8s) on your local machine. It creates a single node k8s cluster without requiring much time and resources.

Pre-requisite:

2 CPUs
2GB RAM
20GB HDD
Internet connection
Container or virtual machine manager, such as: Docker or VirtualBox

Install Minikube

To install the latest minikube stable release on x86-64 macOS:

curl -LO https://storage.googleapis.com/minikube/releases/latest/minikube-darwin-amd64
sudo install minikube-darwin-amd64 /usr/local/bin/minikube

Start your cluster

From a terminal with administrator access (but not logged in as root), run

minikube start

Interact with your cluster

If you already have kubectl installed, you can now use it to access your cluster

kubectl get po -A

Alternatively, minikube can download the appropriate version of kubectl and you should be able to use it

minikube kubectl -- get po -A

We would recommend you to add an alias

alias kubectl="minikube kubectl --"

To gain additional insight into the cluster state; minikube bundles the k8s dashboard. This will enable you to understand your new k8s environment

minikube dashboard

Deploy applications

Create a sample deployment and expose it on port 8080

kubectl create deployment new-minikube --image=k8s.gcr.io/echoserver:1.4
kubectl expose deployment new-minikube --type=NodePort --port=8080

It may take a moment for your deployment to show up when you run:

kubectl get services new-minikube

The easiest way to access this service is to let minikube launch a web browser for you:

minikube service new-minikube

Alternatively, use kubectl to forward the port:

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

Your application is now available at localhost:7080.

LoadBalancer deployments

To access a LoadBalancer deployment, use the “minikube tunnel” command. Here is an example deployment:

kubectl create deployment balanced --image=k8s.gcr.io/echoserver:1.4  
kubectl expose deployment balanced --type=LoadBalancer --port=8080

In another window, start the tunnel to create a routable IP for the ‘balanced’ deployment:

minikube tunnel

To find the routable IP, run this command and examine the EXTERNAL-IP column:

kubectl get services balanced

Your deployment is now available at :8080

Manage your cluster

Pause Kubernetes without impacting deployed applications:

minikube pause

Unpause a paused instance:

minikube unpause

Halt the cluster:

minikube stop

Increase the default memory limit (requires a restart):

minikube config set memory 16384

Browse the catalog of easily installed Kubernetes services:

minikube addons list

Create a second cluster running an older Kubernetes release:

minikube start -p aged --kubernetes-version=v1.16.1

Delete all of the minikube clusters:

minikube delete --all

Known Issues:

Issue 1:

  💥  initialization failed, will try again: run: /bin/bash -c "sudo env PATH=/var/lib/minikube/binaries/v1.18.0:$PATH kubeadm init --config /var/tmp/minikube/kubeadm.yaml  --ignore-preflight-errors=DirAvailable--etc-kubernetes-manifests,DirAvailable--var-lib-minikube,DirAvailable--var-lib-minikube-etcd,FileAvailable--etc-kubernetes-manifests-kube-scheduler.yaml,FileAvailable--etc-kubernetes-manifests-kube-apiserver.yaml,FileAvailable--etc-kubernetes-manifests-kube-controller-manager.yaml,FileAvailable--etc-kubernetes-manifests-etcd.yaml,Port-10250,Swap,SystemVerification": Process exited with status 1

Solution 1:

    Remove ~/.minikube directory and retry "minikube start"