Minikube is a tool that makes it easy to run Kubernetes locally. Minikube runs a single-node Kubernetes cluster inside a VM on your laptop for users looking to try out Kubernetes or develop with it day-to-day.

• Minikube packages and configures a Linux VM, Docker and all Kubernetes components, optimized for local development.
• Minikube supports Kubernetes features such as:
  • DNS
  • NodePorts
  • ConfigMaps and Secrets
  • Dashboards

• OS X
  • xhyve driver, VirtualBox or VMware Fusion installation
• Linux
  • VirtualBox or KVM installation,
• VT-x/AMD-v virtualization must be enabled in BIOS
• kubectl must be on your path. Minikube currently supports any version of kubectl greater than 1.0, but we recommend using the most recent version. You can install kubectl with these steps.

See the installation instructions for the latest release.

Here's a brief demo of minikube usage. If you want to change the VM driver add the appropriate --vm-driver=xxx flag to minikube start. Minikube Supports the following drivers:

• virtualbox
• vmwarefusion
• kvm (driver installation)
• xhyve (driver installation)

Note that the IP below is dynamic and can change. It can be retrieved with minikube ip.

$ minikube start
Starting local Kubernetes cluster...
Running pre-create checks...
Creating machine...
Starting local Kubernetes cluster...
Kubernetes is available at https://192.168.99.100:8443.

$ kubectl run hello-minikube --image=gcr.io/google_containers/echoserver:1.4 --port=8080
deployment "hello-minikube" created
$ kubectl expose deployment hello-minikube --type=NodePort
service "hello-minikube" exposed

# We have now launched an echoserver pod but we have to wait until the pod is up before curling/accessing it
# via the exposed service.
# To check whether the pod is up and running we can use the following:
$ kubectl get pod
NAME                              READY     STATUS              RESTARTS   AGE
hello-minikube-3383150820-vctvh   1/1       ContainerCreating   0          3s
# We can see that the pod is still being created from the ContainerCreating status
$ kubectl get pod
NAME                              READY     STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
hello-minikube-3383150820-vctvh   1/1       Running   0          13s
# We can see that the pod is now Running and we will now be able to curl it:
$ curl $(minikube service hello-minikube --url)
CLIENT VALUES:
client_address=192.168.99.1
command=GET
real path=/
...
$ minikube stop
Stopping local Kubernetes cluster...
Stopping "minikubeVM"...

See DRIVERS for details on supported drivers and how to install plugins, if required.

When using a single VM of kubernetes its really handy to reuse the Docker daemon inside the VM; as this means you don't have to build on your host machine and push the image into a docker registry - you can just build inside the same docker daemon as minikube which speeds up local experiments.

To be able to work with the docker daemon on your mac/linux host use the docker-env command in your shell:

eval $(minikube docker-env)

you should now be able to use docker on the command line on your host mac/linux machine talking to the docker daemon inside the minikube VM:

docker ps

The minikube start command can be used to start your cluster. This command creates and configures a virtual machine that runs a single-node Kubernetes cluster. This command also configures your kubectl installation to communicate with this cluster.

The minikube stop command can be used to stop your cluster. This command shuts down the minikube virtual machine, but preserves all cluster state and data. Starting the cluster again will restore it to it's previous state.

The minikube delete command can be used to delete your cluster. This command shuts down and deletes the minikube virtual machine. No data or state is preserved.

The minikube start command creates a "kubectl context" called "minikube". This context contains the configuration to communicate with your minikube cluster.

Minikube sets this context to default automatically, but if you need to switch back to it in the future, run:

kubectl config set-context minikube,

or pass the context on each command like this: kubectl get pods --context=minikube.

To access the Kubernetes Dashboard, run this command in a shell after starting minikube to get the address:

minikube dashboard

To access a service exposed via a node port, run this command in a shell after starting minikube to get the address:

minikube service [-n NAMESPACE] [--url] NAME

The minikube VM is exposed to the host system via a host-only IP address, that can be obtained with the minikube ip command. Any services of type NodePort can be accessed over that IP address, on the NodePort.

To determine the NodePort for your service, you can use a kubectl command like this:

kubectl get service $SERVICE --output='jsonpath="{.spec.ports[0].NodePort}"'

Minikube supports PersistentVolumes of type hostPath. These PersistentVolumes are mapped to a directory inside the minikube VM.

To access a private container registry, follow the steps on this page.

We recommend you use ImagePullSecrets, but if you would like to configure access on the minikube VM you can place the .dockercfg in the /home/docker directory or the config.json in the /home/docker/.docker directory.

For a list of minikube's available commands see the full CLI docs.

Minikube creates a Virtual Machine that includes Kubernetes and a Docker daemon. When Kubernetes attempts to schedule containers using Docker, the Docker daemon may require external network access to pull containers.

If you are behind an HTTP proxy, you may need to supply Docker with the proxy settings. To do this, pass the required environment variables as flags during minikube start.

For example:

$ minikube start --docker-env HTTP_PROXY=http://$YOURPROXY:PORT \
                 --docker-env HTTPS_PROXY=https://$YOURPROXY:PORT

• Features that require a Cloud Provider will not work in Minikube. These include:
  • LoadBalancers
  • PersistentVolumes
  • Ingress
• Features that require multiple nodes. These include:
  • Advanced scheduling policies
• Alternate runtimes, like rkt.

Minikube uses libmachine for provisioning VMs, and localkube (originally written and donated to this project by RedSpread) for running the cluster.

For more information about minikube, see the proposal.

For the goals and non-goals of the minikube project, please see our roadmap.

See CONTRIBUTING.md for an overview of how to send pull requests.

• A recent Go distribution (>1.6)
• If you're not on Linux, you'll need a Docker installation
• Minikube requires at least 4GB of RAM to compile, which can be problematic when using docker-machine

make

Start the cluster using your built minikube with:

$ ./out/minikube start

Unit tests are run on Travis before code is merged. To run as part of a development cycle:

make test

Integration tests are currently run manually. To run them, build the binary and run the tests:

make integration

These are kubernetes tests that run against an arbitrary cluster and exercise a wide range of kubernetes features. You can run these against minikube by following these steps:

• Clone the kubernetes repo somewhere on your system.
• Run make quick-release in the k8s repo.
• Start up a minikube cluster with: minikube start.
• Set these two environment variables:

export KUBECONFIG=$HOME/.kube/config
export KUBERNETES_CONFORMANCE_TEST=y

• Run the tests (from the k8s repo):

go run hack/e2e.go -v --test --test_args="--ginkgo.focus=\[Conformance\]" --check_version_skew=false --check_node_count=false

To run a specific Conformance Test, you can use the ginkgo.focus flag to filter the set using a regular expression. The hack/e2e.go wrapper and the e2e.sh wrappers have a little trouble with quoting spaces though, so use the \s regular expression character instead. For example, to run the test should update annotations on modification [Conformance], use this command:

go run hack/e2e.go -v --test --test_args="--ginkgo.focus=should\supdate\sannotations\son\smodification" --check_version_skew=false --check_node_count=false

Minikube uses Godep to manage vendored dependencies. Godep can be a bit finnicky with a project with this many dependencies. Here is a rough set of steps that usually works to add a new dependency.

1. Make a clean GOPATH, with minikube in it. This isn't strictly necessary, but it usually helps.

mkdir -p $HOME/newgopath/src/k8s.io
export GOPATH=$HOME/newgopath
cd $HOME/newgopath/src/k8s.io
git clone https://github.com/kubernetes/minikube.git

2. go get your new dependency.

go get mynewdepenency

3. Use it in code, build and test.

4. Import the dependency from GOPATH into vendor/

godep save ./...

If it is a large dependency, please commit the vendor/ directory changes separately. This makes review easier in Github.

git add vendor/
git commit -m "Adding dependency foo"
git add --all
git commit -m "Adding cool feature"

To update Kubernetes, follow these steps:

1. Make a clean GOPATH, with minikube in it. This isn't strictly necessary, but it usually helps.

mkdir -p $HOME/newgopath/src/k8s.io
export GOPATH=$HOME/newgopath
cd $HOME/newgopath/src/k8s.io
git clone https://github.com/kubernetes/minikube.git

2. Copy your vendor directory back out to the new GOPATH.

cd minikube
godep restore ./...

3. Kubernetes should now be on your GOPATH. Check it out to the right version. Make sure to also fetch tags, as Godep relies on these.

cd $GOPATH/src/k8s.io/kubernetes
git fetch --tags

Then list all available Kubernetes tags:

git tag
...
v1.2.4
v1.2.4-beta.0
v1.3.0-alpha.3
v1.3.0-alpha.4
v1.3.0-alpha.5
...

Then checkout the correct one and update its dependencies with:

git checkout $DESIREDTAG
godep restore ./...

4. Build and test minikube, making any manual changes necessary to build.

5. Update godeps

cd $GOPATH/src/k8s.io/minikube
rm -rf Godeps/ vendor/
godep save ./...

6. Verify that the correct tag is marked in the Godeps.json file by running this script:

python hack/get_k8s_version.py
-X k8s.io/minikube/vendor/k8s.io/kubernetes/pkg/version.gitCommit=caf9a4d87700ba034a7b39cced19bd5628ca6aa3 -X k8s.io/minikube/vendor/k8s.io/kubernetes/pkg/version.gitVersion=v1.3.0-beta.2 -X k8s.io/minikube/vendor/k8s.io/kubernetes/pkg/version.gitTreeState=clean

The -X k8s.io/minikube/vendor/k8s.io/kubernetes/pkg/version.gitVersion flag should contain the right tag.

Once you've build and started minikube, you can also run:

kubectl version
Client Version: version.Info{Major:"1", Minor:"2", GitVersion:"v1.2.4", GitCommit:"3eed1e3be6848b877ff80a93da3785d9034d0a4f", GitTreeState:"clean"}
Server Version: version.Info{Major:"1", Minor:"3+", GitVersion:"v1.3.0-beta.2", GitCommit:"caf9a4d87700ba034a7b39cced19bd5628ca6aa3", GitTreeState:"clean"}

The Server Version should contain the right tag in version.Info.GitVersion.

If any manual changes were required, please commit the vendor changes separately. This makes the change easier to view in Github.

git add vendor/
git commit -m "Updating Kubernetes to foo"
git add --all
git commit -m "Manual changes to update Kubernetes to foo"

The steps to release minikube can be found at RELEASING.md

The steps to release localkube can be found at LOCALKUBE_RELEASING.md

Contributions, questions, and comments are all welcomed and encouraged! minkube developers hang out on Slack in the #minikube channel (get an invitation here). We also have the kubernetes-dev Google Groups mailing list. If you are posting to the list please prefix your subject with "minikube: ".