Minikube

Minikube is a distribution of kubernetes that can be run on a single machine.

Installation

On Windows if it's running on Hyper-V, you need to be a member of the Hyper-V Administrators group in order to use it.

Starting

minikube start will setup and run the initial VM. Make sure to do this as your regular user and make sure to apply the Hyper-V Administrator's rights beforehand.

Building Images

This is the same syntax as Docker. In the same directory do this:

minikube build image . -t [image-name:tag]

It can then be run.

kubectl run [pod-name] --image=[image-name:tag] --image-pull-policy=IfNotPresent

The main issue here is when using the latest tag on an image, or don't supply a tag. Kubernetes defaults the pull policy to Always which will cause the image to fail as it doesn't exist in the docker container registry. Or --- worse, maybe it does exist with the same name but a different image, but get's downloaded in the k8s cluster. IfNotPresent will only try to download the image if it doesn't exist. Never would never pull the image.

Context

The kubectl context for local access to the cluster is minikube

Accessing Pods

Port Forward

To simply forward a port from a pod, can use standard kubernetes port forwarding.

kubectl port-forward pod/image-name [local-port]:[remote-port]