Minikube

What is Minikube?

Minikube is a tool that makes it easy to run Kubernetes locally. Minikube runs a single-node Kubernetes cluster inside a VM on your laptop for users looking to try out Kubernetes or develop with it day-to-day.

Installation

macOS

brew cask install minikube

Linux

curl -Lo minikube https://storage.googleapis.com/minikube/releases/latest/minikube-linux-amd64 && chmod +x minikube && sudo mv minikube /usr/local/bin/

Windows

Download the minikube-windows-amd64.exe file, rename it to minikube.exe and add it to your path.

Linux Continuous Integration without VM Support

Example with kubectl installation:

curl -Lo minikube https://storage.googleapis.com/minikube/releases/latest/minikube-linux-amd64 && chmod +x minikube
curl -Lo kubectl 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

export MINIKUBE_WANTUPDATENOTIFICATION=false
export MINIKUBE_WANTREPORTERRORPROMPT=false
export MINIKUBE_HOME=$HOME
export CHANGE_MINIKUBE_NONE_USER=true
mkdir $HOME/.kube || true
touch $HOME/.kube/config

export KUBECONFIG=$HOME/.kube/config
sudo -E ./minikube start --vm-driver=none

# this for loop waits until kubectl can access the api server that Minikube has created
for i in {1..150}; do # timeout for 5 minutes
   ./kubectl get po &> /dev/null
   if [ $? -ne 1 ]; then
      break
  fi
  sleep 2
done

# kubectl commands are now able to interact with Minikube cluster

Other Ways to Install

• [Linux]
  • Arch Linux AUR
  • Fedora/CentOS/Red Hat COPR
• [Windows] Chocolatey

Minikube Version Management

The asdf tool offers version management for a wide range of languages and tools. On macOS, asdf is available via Homebrew and can be installed with brew install asdf. Then, the Minikube plugin itself can be installed with asdf plugin-add minikube. A specific version of Minikube can be installed with asdf install minikube <version>. The tool allows you to switch versions for projects using a .tool-versions file inside the project. An asdf plugin exists for kubectl as well.

We also released a Debian package and Windows installer on our releases page. If you maintain a Minikube package, please feel free to add it here.

Requirements

• kubectl
• macOS
  • Hyperkit driver, xhyve driver, VirtualBox, or VMware Fusion
• Linux
  • VirtualBox or KVM
  • NOTE: Minikube also supports a --vm-driver=none option that runs the Kubernetes components on the host and not in a VM. Docker is required to use this driver but no hypervisor. If you use --vm-driver=none, be sure to specify a bridge network for docker. Otherwise it might change between network restarts, causing loss of connectivity to your cluster.
• Windows
  • VirtualBox or Hyper-V
• VT-x/AMD-v virtualization must be enabled in BIOS
• Internet connection on first run

Quickstart

Here's a brief demo of Minikube usage. If you want to change the VM driver add the appropriate --vm-driver=xxx flag to minikube start. Minikube supports the following drivers:

• virtualbox
• vmwarefusion
• KVM
• hyperkit
• xhyve
• Hyper-V
• none (Linux-only) - this driver can be used to run the Kubernetes cluster components on the host instead of in a VM. This can be useful for CI workloads which do not support nested virtualization.

$ minikube start
Starting local Kubernetes v1.7.5 cluster...
Starting VM...
SSH-ing files into VM...
Setting up certs...
Starting cluster components...
Connecting to cluster...
Setting up kubeconfig...
Kubectl is now configured to use the cluster.

$ kubectl run hello-minikube --image=registry.cn-hangzhou.aliyuncs.com/google_containers/echoserver:1.4 --port=8080
deployment "hello-minikube" created
$ kubectl expose deployment hello-minikube --type=NodePort
service "hello-minikube" exposed

# We have now launched an echoserver pod but we have to wait until the pod is up before curling/accessing it
# via the exposed service.
# To check whether the pod is up and running we can use the following:
$ kubectl get pod
NAME                              READY     STATUS              RESTARTS   AGE
hello-minikube-3383150820-vctvh   1/1       ContainerCreating   0          3s
# We can see that the pod is still being created from the ContainerCreating status
$ kubectl get pod
NAME                              READY     STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
hello-minikube-3383150820-vctvh   1/1       Running   0          13s
# We can see that the pod is now Running and we will now be able to curl it:
$ curl $(minikube service hello-minikube --url)
CLIENT VALUES:
client_address=192.168.99.1
command=GET
real path=/
...
$ kubectl delete deployment hello-minikube
deployment "hello-minikube" deleted
$ minikube stop
Stopping local Kubernetes cluster...
Machine stopped.

Interacting With Your Cluster

kubectl

The minikube start command creates a "kubectl context" called "minikube". This context contains the configuration to communicate with your Minikube cluster.

Minikube sets this context to default automatically, but if you need to switch back to it in the future, run:

kubectl config use-context minikube,

or pass the context on each command like this: kubectl get pods --context=minikube.

Dashboard

To access the Kubernetes Dashboard, run this command in a shell after starting Minikube to get the address:

minikube dashboard

Services

To access a service exposed via a node port, run this command in a shell after starting Minikube to get the address:

minikube service [-n NAMESPACE] [--url] NAME

Design

Minikube uses libmachine for provisioning VMs, and localkube (originally written and donated to this project by Redspread) for running the cluster.

For more information about Minikube, see the proposal.

Additional Links

• Advanced Topics and Tutorials
• Contributing
• Development Guide

Community

• #minikube on Kubernetes Slack
• kubernetes-dev mailing list (If you are posting to the list, please prefix your subject with "minikube: ")