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Minikube drivers and configuration

Minikube requires a driver to manage the Kubernetes cluster's virtual machine or container environment. On Windows 10 Pro, Minikube typically defaults to a Docker Desktop driver with root privileges, creating a container (CPUs=2, Memory=3875MB) to host the control plane node.^[400-devops-06-kubernetes-minikube.md]

Setting the default driver

You can explicitly configure Minikube to use a specific driver via the CLI.^[400-devops-06-kubernetes-minikube.md]

[Minikube](<./minikube.md>) config set driver docker

Note that changing the driver configuration requires deleting the existing cluster and restarting for changes to take effect.^[400-devops-06-kubernetes-minikube.md]

Resource configuration

Minikube allows you to customize the compute resources allocated to the cluster, such as memory and CPU limits.^[400-devops-06-kubernetes-minikube.md] These settings can be applied persistently via configuration commands or temporarily as flags during the start command.

To set persistent defaults: 

[Minikube](<./minikube.md>) config set memory 8192
[Minikube](<./minikube.md>) config set cpus 4

To override settings for a single session: 

[Minikube](<./minikube.md>) start --cpus 6 --memory 12288

Cluster management

Minikube supports profiles to manage multiple configurations or clusters simultaneously.^[400-devops-06-kubernetes-minikube.md] You can create additional clusters with specific parameters, such as defining a custom number of nodes or running a specific Kubernetes version.

To start a multi-node cluster: 

[Minikube](<./minikube.md>) start --nodes 2 -p multinode-demo

To start a cluster with a specific Kubernetes version: 

[Minikube](<./minikube.md>) start -p aged --kubernetes-version=v1.16.1

Sources

  • 400-devops-06-kubernetes-minikube.md