Minikube¶

Minikube can be used to run a single node Kubernetes cluster on your local machine.

Installation¶

Read the official instructions how to Install Minikube.

On Windows 10¶

Pre-reqs:

Hyper-V enabled

Installation with chocolatey:

choco install minikube -y
choco install kubernetes-cli -y

Network Configuration:

Using PowerShell (run as Administrator):

Get-NetAdapter
New-VMSwitch -Name "ExternalSwitch" -NetAdapterName "Ethernet 2" -AllowManagement $True

Important commands¶

Run minikube:

minikube start --vm-driver hyperv --hyperv-virtual-switch "ExternalSwitch"

Stop minikube:

minikube stop

Get IP address:

minikube ip

Open dashboard:

minikube dashboard

Update minikube:

minikube update-check

Cleaning up cluster:

minikube delete

SSH (Minikube command):

minikube ssh

SSH (alternative command on WSL):

chmod 0600 "$(wslpath -u "$(minikube ssh-key)")"
ssh -a -i "$(wslpath -u "$(minikube ssh-key)")" -l docker "$(minikube ip)"

Knative installation on Minikube¶

The following instructions are based on the official GitHub wiki Knative Install on Minikube.

Minikube has to be started with priviledged rights (root / administrator). Important note: At least 8 GiB of free memory are required. Also 4 vCPUs are required, otherwise later on some pods will fail (status “OutOfcpu”).

Before starting Minikube, ensure that a virtual network switch called “ExternalSwitch” exists. If you are using Mac OS or Linux you have to change the vm-driver. For Linux specify --vm-driver=kvm2. Omitting the --vm-driver option will use the default driver.

Start Minikube with Hyper-V:

minikube start --memory=8192 --cpus=4 \
  --kubernetes-version=v1.13.5 \
  --vm-driver=hyperv \
  --hyperv-virtual-switch "ExternalSwitch" \
  --bootstrapper=kubeadm \
  --extra-config=apiserver.enable-admission-plugins="LimitRanger,NamespaceExists,NamespaceLifecycle,ResourceQuota,ServiceAccount,DefaultStorageClass,MutatingAdmissionWebhook"

Confirm that your kubectl context is pointing to the new cluster:

kubectl config current-context

Install Istio:

# Install Istio
curl -L https://github.com/knative/serving/releases/download/v0.2.2/istio.yaml \
  | sed 's/LoadBalancer/NodePort/' \
  | kubectl apply --filename -

# Label the default namespace with istio-injection=enabled.
kubectl label namespace default istio-injection=enabled

Monitor the Istio components:

kubectl get pods --namespace istio-system --watch

Install Knative Serving (lite version without monitoring components):

curl -L https://github.com/knative/serving/releases/download/v0.2.2/release-lite.yaml \
  | sed 's/LoadBalancer/NodePort/' \
  | kubectl apply --filename -

Monitor the Knative components:

kubectl get pods --namespace knative-serving --watch

Helpful commands:

Get IP address and NodePort for the knative-ingressgateway:

echo $(minikube ip):$(kubectl get svc knative-ingressgateway --namespace istio-system --output 'jsonpath={.spec.ports[?(@.port==80)].nodePort}')

Troubleshooting¶

minikube stop does not work, command hangs and finally crashes. As a workaround use SSH instead minikube issue 2914

Poweroff via SSH:
```
minikube ssh "sudo poweroff"
```
Kubernetes cluster shutsdown after a few minutes MiniKube VM still running. Under Windows 10 the Hyper-V functionality “Dynamic Memory” could be the problem minikube issue 2326

Disable Dynamic RAM allocation in Hyper-V:
```
Set-VMMemory minikube -DynamicMemoryEnabled $false
```
If there is any problem with Hyper-V on Windows, you can try to restart the Hyper-V Virtual Machine Management service

Restarting Hyper-V Virtual Machine Management service:
```
net.exe stop vmms
net.exe start vmms
```
If you have problems to start Minikube, you can delete the cache (everything is lost!)

On Linux:
```
rm -rf ~/.minikube
```
On Windows:
```
rm -rf %USERPROFILE%/.minikube
```