Kubernetes allows administrators to create a cluster and deploy containerized applications into it. Kubernetes makes it easy to scale your applications, keep them up to date, and provide fault tolerance across numerous nodes. One of the easiest ways to get started with Kubernetes is by installing minikube.
Minikube is software that allows users to run a Kubernetes cluster of just a single node. It makes for a perfect testing environment for developers to see how their containerized application will run on Kubernetes. In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Kubernetes on an Ubuntu Linux system.
In this tutorial you will learn:
- How to download and install Minikube on Ubuntu Linux
- How to install the
kubectlcommand - How to interact with your Minikube single node cluster
| Category | Requirements, Conventions or Software Version Used |
|---|---|
| System | Ubuntu Linux |
| Software | Kubernetes |
| Other | Privileged access to your Linux system as root or via the sudo command. |
| Conventions |
# – requires given linux commands to be executed with root privileges either directly as a root user or by use of sudo command$ – requires given linux commands to be executed as a regular non-privileged user |
Install Kubernetes on Ubuntu Linux step by step instructions
In case you would rather install a production ready bootstrapper for Kubernetes, see our tutorial on How to Install Kubernetes on All Linux Distros for instructions on installing kubeadm, as opposed to minikube.
- Let’s get started by installing all of the prerequisite packages we are going to need, which is just the curl command and Docker:
$ sudo apt update $ sudo apt install curl docker.io
- Once Docker has finished installing, use the following commmands to start the service and to make sure it starts automatically after each reboot:
$ sudo systemctl start docker $ sudo systemctl enable docker
- Next, we need to make sure that swap space is disabled on our system, otherwise Kubernetes will fail to run. Execute the following commands to turn off swap space and permanently disable it with the sed command inside of your
/etc/fstabfile:$ sudo swapoff -a $ sudo sed -i '/ swap / s/^/#/' /etc/fstab
- Next, use the
curlcommand to download the latest version of the Minikube installer:$ curl -LO https://storage.googleapis.com/minikube/releases/latest/minikube_latest_amd64.deb
- After the download completes, use the following
dpkgcommand to install the package:$ sudo dpkg -i minikube_latest_amd64.deb
- After installation, we can launch Minikube with the following command:
$ minikube start
In some cases, you may find that you need to specify the container manager that you have on your system with the
--driveroption, such as the following command for Docker:$ minikube start --driver=docker
- Now it is time to install the kubectl command, by executing:
$ minikube kubectl -- get po -A
- Then, to save yourself some keystrokes and sanity, create a permanent alias by adding the following line to the
~/.bashrcfile:alias kubectl="minikube kubectl --"
- You can now get started with creating your own deployments. Or, if you do not have your own and want to make sure that Minikube is working as intended, we can create a simple deployment and then expose it on port 8000:
$ kubectl create deployment hello-minikube --image=kicbase/echo-server:1.0 $ kubectl expose deployment hello-minikube --type=NodePort --port=8000
- Now we can use the kubectl command to verify that our deployment has launched successfully:
$ kubectl get services hello-minikube
Closing Thoughts
In this tutorial, we saw how to install Kubernetes on an Ubuntu Linux system. We also learned how to get started with building a cluster by configuring our own test deployment. Minikube is ideal for testing or development purposes, and is a good starting point to learning Kubernetes. It is not production ready since it is just a single load cluster, but most Linux administrators will find themselves using Minikube at some point in order to test deployments or begin learning about and tinkering with Kubernetes.