Deploy Kubernetes Locally with Minikube

Learn how to use Minikube to create a lightweight, single-node Kubernetes cluster on your local machine for development and testing.

What is Minikube

Minikube is a lightweight Kubernetes implementation that creates a virtual machine on your local computer and deploys a simple cluster containing only one node. It's perfect for developers who want to try out Kubernetes or develop with it day-to-day.

What You'll Learn

In this section, you'll learn how to:

  • Install Minikube on different operating systems
  • Start your first local Kubernetes cluster
  • Deploy basic applications to your cluster
  • Understand Minikube's features and limitations

How Minikube Works

The following diagram illustrates how Minikube works at a high level:

Architecture Explanation

The above diagram simply describes what the minikube kubernetes cluster contains, which are the building blocks of any Kubernetes cluster:

  • API Server: The front-end of the Kubernetes control plane, handling all API requests
  • Scheduler: Assigns newly created pods to nodes based on resource availability
  • Controller Manager: Runs controller processes that regulate the state of the cluster
  • etcd: A distributed key-value store that stores all cluster data
  • Kubelet: The primary node agent that ensures containers are running in a pod
  • Kube Proxy: Maintains network rules on nodes to allow network communication
  • Container Runtime: The software responsible for running containers (like Docker or containerd)