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Minikube

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Information

Minikube is a command line utility that allows you to easily deploy a local Kubernetes cluster. It is useful for developers who need a local Kubernetes environment for testing and application development.

Attention

This is only a utility for managing container or virtual machine managers, such as: Docker, QEMU, Hyperkit, Hyper-V, KVM, Parallels, Podman, VirtualBox, or VMware Fusion/Workstation. You need to install the required containerization or VM software on the server yourself!

Minikube. Key Features

  • Quickly launch a local Kubernetes cluster - minikube allows you to launch a single-node Kubernetes cluster on a local machine in just a few minutes. You don't need to go through complex configuration or set up a full-blown multi-node cluster.
  • Support for different virtualization drivers - A minikube cluster can run inside VirtualBox, Hyper-V, VMware and natively on Linux, macOS and Windows. This gives you flexibility in how you deploy it.
  • Automatic kubectl configuration - once the cluster is started, minikube automatically configures kubectl to connect to it. There is no need to manually configure the Kubernetes client.
  • Built-in dashboard and applications - the dashboard, heapster, ingress controller and other useful tools are added to the cluster out of the box. This speeds up getting started.
  • Convenient management commands - minikube start, stop, delete and other commands make it easy to manage the cluster lifecycle right from the terminal.
  • Network isolation modes - it is possible to start the cluster in host-only network mode to isolate it from the main network.
  • Add-on support - additional features such as monitoring, logging, visualization, etc. can be enabled via add-ons.
  • Integration with cloud services - kubectl and dashboard can be customized to work with remote clusters in the cloud.

Deployment Features

  • Installation on Ubuntu desktop possible.

Getting started after deploying Minikube

A notification will be sent to the e-mail specified during registration that the server is ready for work after paying for the order. It will contain the IP address of the VPS, as well as the login and password for the connection.

Clients of our company manage the hardware in the server`s and API control panel — Invapi.

You can find the authorization data either in the Info >> Tags tab of the server control panel or in the email that was sent.

  • Password: Sent to your email address after the server is ready for use following software deployment.

To work with the service, you must connect to the server via SSH:

ssh root@<server_ip>

Then run the start command, which will automatically create a local Kubernetes cluster using multiple Docker containers and the latest stable version of Kubernetes:

minikube start

The command will take some time to run and should output information that kubectl is configured.

Note

If you need to run minikube with a non-standard Kubernetes version to check compatibility, you can use the minikube start command with the --kubernetes-version parameter, e.g. v1.2.3.

Installing minikube via Homebrew also installs kubectl, the main command-line tool for managing Kubernetes clusters. You can now run the kubectl get command, as you would for any other Kubernetes cluster, to list all running pods:

kubectl get pods -A

The -A parameter returns pods from all namespaces. ,

After performing the above steps, a local Kubernetes cluster will be created and you can work with it using standard Kubernetes tools such as kubectl.

You can use the command to access the Dashboard:

minikube dashboard
Once executed, a link will be displayed, e.g, http://127.0.0.1:42049/api/v1/namespaces/kubernetes-dashboard/services/http:kubernetes-dashboard:/proxy/. It should be edited - enter the IP address of the server and then proceed to view the dashboard.

Service Creation

By default, pod is only accessible from an internal IP address within the Kubernetes cluster. To make the hello-node container available outside the Kubernetes virtual network, you need to expose pod as a Kubernetes service.

You can make the subnet accessible from the public Internet by using the command kubectl expose:

kubectl expose deployment hello-node --type=LoadBalancer --port=8080

The --type=LoadBalancer flag indicates that the service should be visible outside the cluster.

The application code in the test image only listens on TCP port 8080. If you set the application to be available on a different port in the kubectl expose command, clients will not be able to connect to that port.

You can check the created service with the command:

kubectl get services
The conclusion would be something like this:

NAME             TYPE           CLUSTER-IP     EXTERNAL-IP      PORT(S)               AGE
hello-node       LoadBalancer   10.108.144.78  <pending>        8080:30369/TCP        21s
kubernetes       ClusterIP      10.96.0.1      <none>           443/TCP               23m

For cloud providers that support load balancers, an external IP address is provided to access the service. In Minikube, the LoadBalancer type makes the service available through the minikube service command.

Run the command:

minikube service hello-node

The command opens a browser window that runs the application and displays its response.

Note

For detailed information about the basic settings of Minikube see documentation of the developers.

Ordering a server with Minikube using the API

To install this software using the API, follow these instructions