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Getting started with Kubernetes

How to get started with using Kubernetes on a local machine using minikube

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes

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Over the last few weeks I have been learning Kubernetes. Here is how I got set up and started learning.

To experiment with Kubernetes I used minikube to run a local cluster. This has dependencies of virtualbox and kubectl.

On Arch Linux minkube and kubectl may be installed from the AUR. Virtualbox is available in the core Arch Linux repositories. Once installed a Kubernetes cluster can be started as follows.

minikube start
Starting local Kubernetes cluster...
Kubectl is now configured to use the cluster.

Note that this can take some time to complete. Once complete some information can be gathered about the cluster.

kubectl cluster-info
Kubernetes master is running at https://192.168.99.101:8443
KubeDNS is running at https://192.168.99.101:8443/api/v1/proxy/namespaces/kube-system/services/kube-dns
kubernetes-dashboard is running at https://192.168.99.101:8443/api/v1/proxy/namespaces/kube-system/services/kubernetes-dashboard

Kubernetes ships with a dashboard that can be viewed as follows

minikube dashboard

Whilst it is possible to manage and deploy applications through the dashboard I prefer the command line! Nevertheless the dashboard is useful to visualise quickly what you have and it would be useful for teams to serve as a dashboard.

Kubenetes dashboard

Deploying an image

Now the cluster is running an image can be deployed into it. I used a Hello World web server written in Go that I had already created and pushed into the public registry.

Deploy an image

kubectl run hello-go --image=shapeshed/hello-go --port=8080

Expose the deployment

kubectl expose deployment hello-go --type=NodePort

Get the status of the pod

kubectl get pod
NAME                       READY     STATUS   RESTARTS   AGE
hello-go-772128995-1x5wj   1/1       Running  0          12m

Discover the URL of the service

minikube service hello-go --url

Visiting the URL serves the application through Kubernetes.

hello go

Summary

Getting Kubernetes up and running on Arch Linux was really straightforward and I found the documentation to be fantastic. I now have an environment where I can experiment with exploring more of what Kubernetes can do.

Further reading

Have an update or suggestion for this article? You can edit it here and send me a pull request.

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