Setup a Single Node Kubernetes Cluster using MiniKube

I’m sure you’ve heard the term Kubernetes by now, and maybe you’re curious how you can get started with this technology. In this guide I will demonstrate how you can run Kubernetes locally on your Linux Desktop or Linux Server using MiniKube.

This guide will walk you through how to install Kubernetes using minikube and deploy an application to the cluster. Since this is being deployed to 1 Server / PC, this is referred to as a Single Node Cluster. This type of deployment for development, testing, or learning. Please don’t use this guide for the production of Kubernetes.

Prerequisites:

Basic Linux Knowlege

Server or PC running Linux (For this guide, I am using CentOS)

Docker installed (If you are running inside a VM)

Internet Connection

Settings up the Host

First, we need to make sure we have the latest updates, run the command,

sudo yum -y update

This will take a few minutes to run.

Once that is done, we will need to add the EPEL repository to be able to pull the packages we need for the system.

sudo yum -y install epel-release

Install the following packages:

sudo yum -y install libvirt qemu-kvm virt-install virt-top libguestfs-tools

Start the libvirtd service

sudo systemctl start libvirtd

Enable the libvirtd service (this allows it to boot at startup)

sudo systemctl enable libvirtd

Check the status of the service

systemctl status libvirtd

Add your username to the libvirt group

sudo usermod -a -G libvirt $(whoami)

The next step is to edit the conf file for libvirtd

sudo vi /etc/libvirt/libvirtd.conf

Uncomment these lines, (in vi you can hit “/” and type “unix_sock_group” and it will search the file for that and take you straight to it.) If you are new to VI, hit “i” to get into insert mode, which will allow you to enter text and remove as needed. After you make your changes, hit “esc” then “:wq” to write and quit.

unix_sock_group = "libvirt"

unix_sock_rw_perms = "0770"

Before:

After:

Restart the libvirtd service and check the status

sudo systemctl restart libvirtd.service
sudo systemctl status libvirtd.service

Your host is now set up and ready to install MiniKube

Installing minikube

Download MiniKube using this command

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

Change permissions to give it execute rights

chmod +x minikube-linux-amd64

Move the binary to /usr/local/bin

sudo mv minikube-linux-amd64 /usr/local/bin/minikube

To test to see if it’s working

minikube version

Now, we need to setup KubeCTL. This is what we will use to manage the cluster.

Pull the package down

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

Give kubectl execute rights

chmod +x kubectl

Move it to the usr/local/bin folder

sudo mv kubectl  /usr/local/bin/

Check the install

kubectl version --client -o json

Start MiniKube

minikube start --driver=kvm2

If you are running inside a VM (docker must be installed)

minikube start --driver=docker

Your Single Node Cluster is running! To see the running pods

kubectl get pods --all-namespaces

Deploy a Hello World Application

We will deploy a sample application and test it

kubectl create deployment web --image=gcr.io/google-samples/hello-app:1.0

Expose the deployment

kubectl expose deployment web --type=NodePort --port=8080

Get the application URL

minikube service web --url

Now, CURL the URL to see the output

curl http://192.168.39.99:30326

To see the runnings pods

kubectl get pods

To see the deployment

kubectl get deployments

To delete the web deployment

kubectl delete deployment web

Congrats! You have successfully installed minikube and deployed a sample application. I hope this guide was able to get you started as this doesn’t even scratch the surface when it comes to Kubernetes. I will be posting more guides for Kubernetes in the very near future.