Setting Up a Local Kubernetes Cluster with Minikube.

Kubernetes has become the go-to container orchestration platform for deploying, scaling, and managing applications. However, setting up a full-scale Kubernetes cluster can be complex, especially for local development. That’s where Minikube comes in! Minikube allows you to run a lightweight Kubernetes cluster locally, perfect for development and testing purposes.

In this Blog, I’ll walk through the steps to set up a local Kubernetes cluster using Minikube, ensuring that you can start experimenting with Kubernetes in no time.

What is Minikube?

Minikube is a tool that sets up a single-node Kubernetes cluster on your local machine. It supports multiple container runtimes like Docker, containerd, and CRI-O, and it’s an excellent option for developers who want to test Kubernetes deployments before pushing them to production.

Prerequisites

Before we dive into the setup process, you’ll need:

• A machine with at least 2 CPUs and 2GB of RAM
• A hypervisor like VirtualBox or Hyper-V (if using Windows)
• kubectl (Kubernetes CLI tool)
• Minikube

Step 1: Install Minikube

First, you need to install Minikube on your machine. The installation process varies depending on your operating system. Follow these instructions based on your platform:

For macOS (via Homebrew):

brew install minikube

For Linux (via curl):

curl -LO https://storage.googleapis.com/minikube/releases/latest/minikube-linux-amd64

sudo install minikube-linux-amd64 /usr/local/bin/minikube

For Windows (via Chocolatey):

choco install minikube

Step 2: Install kubectl

The Kubernetes command-line tool, kubectl, is essential for interacting with the cluster.

For macOS (via Homebrew):

brew install kubectl

For Linux:

sudo apt-get install -y kubectl

For Windows (via Chocolatey):

choco install kubernetes-cli

Step 3: Start Minikube

Once Minikube is installed, start it with the following command:

minikube start

This command automatically sets up a Kubernetes cluster using the hypervisor installed on your machine (VirtualBox, Hyper-V, Docker, etc.). You can also specify the driver using the --driver flag, like so:

minikube start --driver="ANY REQUIRED"

Note: By default, Minikube will use Docker as the container runtime. If you prefer containerd or CRI-O, you can specify it with the required flag

Step 4: Verify the Setup

After Minikube has started, you can verify that your cluster is running by checking the nodes in the cluster:

kubectl get nodes

Step 5: Deploy an Application on Minikube

A deployment in Kubernetes is a higher-level abstraction that manages the rollout and scaling of applications. It defines how to create and update instances of the application (called pods) consistently across a cluster. Deployments ensure that the desired number of pod replicas are running, and they automatically handle updates, rollbacks, and scaling based on user-defined conditions.

The main purpose of Deployments is because they are essential for handling production workloads and managing containerized apps in a reliable, automated way. This ensures high availability by running multiple instances of an application and scale the application dynamically in response to traffic or resource usage.

Now that Minikube is running, let’s deploy a simple application. We’ll use a sample NGINX deployment to demonstrate.

First, create a Kubernetes deployment:

kubectl create deployment nginx --image=nginx

Verify that the deployment has been created:

kubectl get deployments

Step 6: Expose the Application

By default, the NGINX deployment is not accessible from outside the cluster. To expose it, we’ll create a service:

kubectl expose deployment my-nginx --port=80

Step 7: Access the Application

Now that the service is exposed, you can access the NGINX web server using Minikube’s IP. To get the Minikube IP, run:

minikube ip: 19X.XXX.XXX.XXX:PORT

Combine this IP with the NodePort value from the previous step to access the application in your browser:

Step 8: Stop the Cluster

Once you’re done experimenting, you can stop the Minikube cluster using the following command:

minikube stop

If you want to delete the cluster entirely, run:

minikube delete

Conclusion

Minikube is a fantastic tool for local Kubernetes development, offering a quick and easy way to spin up a local cluster. In this Blog, we went through the setup process, deployed a simple application, and exposed it for external access. Now you can start experimenting with Kubernetes features and workflows in a local environment before deploying them to a production environment.

Start your Kubernetes journey with Minikube today, and happy developing!

Reference Links:

• Minikube Documentation
• Kubernetes Documentation
• kubectl Command Reference
• Helm (Kubernetes Package Manager)
• VirtualBox Download
• Chocolatey Package Manager