Setting up Kubernetes on your local machine via minikube and kubectl.

In this tutorial , I will be explaining how we can configure a small kubernetes cluster locally .

Prerequisites :

1. docker installed and running
2. Ubuntu or any other distro.
3. Some knowledge on what Kubernetes is and why its the ‘talk of the town’ nowadays.
4. Interest , that’s the most important requirement ;)

Step # 1 : Installing kubectl .

The first step is to install Kubectl , the utility which is used to interact , manage and configure kubernetes clusters .

1. Download the binary via curl command :

curl -LO https://storage.googleapis.com/kubernetes-release/release/`curl -s https://storage.googleapis.com/kubernetes-release/release/stable.txt`/bin/linux/amd64/kubectl

2. After that , make the binary of kubectl executable :

chmod +x ./kubectl

Run that above command where you have downloaded the binary .

3. Now move the binary into your usr/local/bin folder so that it becomes part of your $PATH variable .

sudo mv ./kubectl /usr/local/bin/kubectl

4. And thats it ! Verify it by running

kubectl version --client 

Output of command

If you see the above command , it means your kubectl utility is working fine !

Step # 2: Installing minikube .

Now minikube is used to setup a single node cluster running on your local machine , it is not generally used in production environments . If you just want to have some fun with kubernetes then minikube is your ‘go to guy’ .

1. Download the binary via curl :

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

2. Make the binary executable

chmod +x minikube

3. Now install it :

sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/bin/
sudo install minikube /usr/local/bin

4. Now start the minikube service by running :

minikube start --driver=docker

( The driver=docker flag is to tell minikube to spin up its cluster directly on the host machine docker service by creating a virtual machine )

It might take some time to start as its downloading the relevant docker images for it .
You will see output similar to the below screenshot ( i like how they put those emojis ! )

I also ran docker ps after starting up a local cluster , you can see some minikube related containers running .

I created a script file that is combining all the above steps in a single script file , just download it and run it as sudo user :)
https://gist.github.com/BilalAM/97f9881e390f9d449f4cf970bdcf3936