I love my Arch Linux, which I've been using it for years, more than I care to count. But sometimes I believe that all of us Linux users, deep in our heart of hearts, have some Windows- or Mac-only software that we covet.
For me, that software is Docker Desktop; not much for the sake of Docker, but mainly for the standalone Kubernetes cluster.
I'm afraid I can't give you Docker Desktop for Linux, but I'll offer the next best thing instead:
7 tips to get the most out of Minikube
Use the Dashboard
This is one of the best features for me. Type minikube dashboard
, which starts the Web UI that lets you manage all your Kubernetes resources. You can even start a terminal in a pod for a quick debug.
Periodically Reset Minikube
Every now and then, delete the cluster with minikube delete
and start a new one with minikube start
. I've been bitten by strange networking problems in the past and they all cleared up everytime after resetting the cluster.
SSH to the VM
Minikube runs a single-node Kubernetes on your laptop. Sometimes we need to log in to the VM to get a closer look. The problem is that it runs in headless mode, so we don't have a terminal window. But Minikube has a built-in ssh command for this: minikube ssh
File Sync
If you put a file in $HOME/.minikube/files
it will automatically be copied into the VM when you start the cluster.
For instance you can override the DNS servers in the VM like this:
$ mkdir -p ~/.minikube/files/etc
$ echo nameserver 1.1.1.1 > ~/.minikube/files/etc/resolv.conf
$ minikube start
Automount $HOME
Did you know that if you start Minikube with minikube start --mount
it automatically mounts $HOME
in the VM? On my machine, home gets mapped to /minikube-host
(which is different that documented path).
You can also mount any directory in the VM with:
$ minikube mount /path/on/host:/path/on/vm &
Try Different Versions
It's a good idea to always use the same Kubernetes version that you have in production. You can change the local version with --kubernetes-version
. For example:
$ minikube start --kubernetes-version="v1.18.5"
Connect with Tunnel
You may have noticed this when you deploy a load balancer service:
$ kubectl get service
NAME TYPE CLUSTER-IP EXTERNAL-IP PORT(S) AGE
my-service LoadBalancer 10.97.97.121 <pending> 80:32446/TCP 88s
It never gets assigned an external IP.
At first, I didn't pay much attention to that, I just went with the links provided minikube service --url SERVICE_NAME
.
But see what happens when you start a tunnel (do this on a second terminal)
$ minikube tunnel
Now suddenly the LoadBalancer service has an IP:
$ kubectl get service
NAME TYPE CLUSTER-IP EXTERNAL-IP PORT(S) AGE
my-service LoadBalancer 10.97.97.121 10.97.97.121 80:32446/TCP 88s
And it should be connectable:
$ curl 10.97.97.121:80
I'm glad we have Minikube; it's an excellent way to try out and develop Kubernetes applications. I hope these tips helped you get the most out of it.
-Tomas 👋
Interested in Kubernetes? I wrote a bit about it some time ago.
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