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Minikube and Docker

Using containerized deployments with tools like Docker and Minikube gives you a modern way to build, test, ship, and scale applications consistently across environments.

Benefits of Docker Containerization

Environment Consistency

A Docker container packages:

- Application code
- Runtime
- Libraries
- Dependencies
- Configuration
Faster Deployment

Containers start in seconds because they:

Share the host OS kernel Are lightweight compared to virtual machines

Benefits:

Faster CI/CD pipelines
Quicker scaling
Faster rollback and recovery
Better Resource Utilization

Compared to traditional VMs:

Virtual Machines Containers Heavy Lightweight Full OS per VM Shared kernel Slower startup Fast startup Higher memory usage Lower memory usage

This allows:

More workloads per server Lower cloud costs Higher efficiency

Portability

Docker containers can run almost anywhere:

Local laptop On-prem servers AWS Azure Google Cloud Kubernetes clusters

Build once → run anywhere.

Simplified Dependency Management

Instead of manually installing:

Java Node.js Python packages System libraries

Everything is defined in a Dockerfile.

Example:

FROM python:3.12
COPY . .
RUN pip install -r requirements.txt
CMD ["python", "app.py"]

This improves:

Reproducibility Automation Team collaboration

Benefits of Minikube Deployment

Kubernetes is powerful but complex. Minikube helps developers run Kubernetes locally.

Learn Kubernetes Safely

Minikube creates a local Kubernetes cluster on your laptop.

You can safely practice:

Pods Deployments Services Ingress Persistent volumes Helm charts

Without paying for cloud infrastructure.

Local Kubernetes Testing

Before deploying to production clusters:

Test manifests locally Debug networking Validate scaling Simulate deployments

This reduces production failures.

Production-Like Environment

Minikube mimics real Kubernetes behavior:

Scheduler API server etcd kubelet

So your local environment becomes very close to:

Amazon Web Services EKS Microsoft AKS Google GKE

This improves deployment confidence.

Great for CI/CD Practice

You can simulate:

Docker builds Kubernetes deployments GitOps workflows Helm releases Canary deployments

Excellent for:

DevOps learning Cloud engineering portfolios Security testing labs

Prerequisites

Before installing Minikube. It is important you make sure your system meets the below requirements:

Requirement Details
Container/VM Environment Docker, VirtualBox, or similar
CPU Minimum of 2 CPUs
Memory At least 2GB of free memory
Disk Space 20GB of free disk space
Internet Connection Required for downloading Minikube and Kubernetes

Installation

You can use the Minikube guide here:

Or alternativly, if you are using MacOs it is easy as just running:

# Using Homebrew
brew install minikube

# Using the minikube stable release on GitHub
curl -LO https://github.com/kubernetes/minikube/releases/latest/download/minikube-darwin-amd64
sudo install minikube-darwin-amd64 /usr/local/bin/minikube

Kubectl Installation

Kubectl is a kubernetes command-line tool that allows you to run commands against a Kubernetes clusters and many other functionalities which we will be going over in the page.

Use the below Kubernetes install documentation to install kubectl.

Docker Desktop Installation

You can use the Docker Official guide as a baseline for install Docker Desktop

Docker Desktop installation

Installation Steps for Docker

Download Docker Desktop 1. Visit the official Docker website. 2. Click on the appropriate download link for your operating system (Windows, macOS, or Linux).

Install Docker Desktop

For Windows:
    1. Run the downloaded installer.
    2. Follow the on-screen instructions, ensuring to enable the option for WSL 2 (Windows Subsystem for Linux) if prompted.

For macOS:
    1. Open the downloaded .dmg file.
    2. Drag the Docker icon to the Applications folder.
    3.Launch Docker from the Applications folder and grant necessary permissions.

For Linux:
    1. Update your package database.
    2. Install prerequisites for HTTPS support.
    3. Add Docker’s GPG key and set up the stable repository.
    4. Install Docker using your package manager.

Verify Installation

After installation, confirm that Docker is working correctly by running the following command in your terminal or command prompt:

docker run hello-world

Deploying a Kubernetes Cluster using Minikube

Once we have already install both Docker Desktop and Minikube, you can now proceed with the below steps to deploy our k8s cluster locally.

minikube start -n=3 -d=docker
Flags:

minikube start - To start a minikube k8s cluster

-n=3 - Number of cluster nodes to deploy

-d=docker - Which driver to use. I used Docker.

You have an output like this:

minikube start -n=3 -d=docker
😄  minikube v1.38.1 on Darwin 15.7.2
✨  Using the docker driver based on user configuration
❗  Starting v1.39.0, minikube will default to "containerd" container runtime. See #21973 for more info.
📌  Using Docker Desktop driver with root privileges
👍  Starting "minikube" primary control-plane node in "minikube" cluster
🚜  Pulling base image v0.0.50 ...
🔥  Creating docker container (CPUs=2, Memory=3072MB) ...
🐳  Preparing Kubernetes v1.35.1 on Docker 29.2.1 ...
🔗  Configuring CNI (Container Networking Interface) ...
🔎  Verifying Kubernetes components...
    ▪ Using image gcr.io/k8s-minikube/storage-provisioner:v5
🌟  Enabled addons: storage-provisioner, default-storageclass

👍  Starting "minikube-m02" worker node in "minikube" cluster
🚜  Pulling base image v0.0.50 ...
🔥  Creating docker container (CPUs=2, Memory=3072MB) ...
🌐  Found network options:
    ▪ NO_PROXY=192.168.49.2
🐳  Preparing Kubernetes v1.35.1 on Docker 29.2.1 ...
    ▪ env NO_PROXY=192.168.49.2
🔎  Verifying Kubernetes components...

👍  Starting "minikube-m03" worker node in "minikube" cluster
🚜  Pulling base image v0.0.50 ...
🔥  Creating docker container (CPUs=2, Memory=3072MB) ...
🌐  Found network options:
    ▪ NO_PROXY=192.168.49.2,192.168.49.3
🐳  Preparing Kubernetes v1.35.1 on Docker 29.2.1 ...
    ▪ env NO_PROXY=192.168.49.2
    ▪ env NO_PROXY=192.168.49.2,192.168.49.3
🔎  Verifying Kubernetes components...
🏄  Done! kubectl is now configured to use "minikube" cluster and "default" namespace by default

On your Docker Desktop, you should be able to your deployed Kubernetes cluster under the Containers tab. docker-k8s

From your terminal, you can now use kubectl in your cluster to get the list of nodes

# Using minikube
minikube status
minikube
type: Control Plane
host: Running
kubelet: Running
apiserver: Running
kubeconfig: Configured

minikube-m02
type: Worker
host: Running
kubelet: Running

minikube-m03
type: Worker
host: Running
kubelet: Running

# Using kubectl

kubectl get nodes
NAME           STATUS   ROLES           AGE   VERSION
minikube       Ready    control-plane   14m   v1.35.1
minikube-m02   Ready    <none>          13m   v1.35.1
minikube-m03   Ready    <none>          13m   v1.35.1

# Get more information 
kubectl get nodes -o wide
NAME           STATUS   ROLES           AGE   VERSION   INTERNAL-IP    EXTERNAL-IP   OS-IMAGE                         KERNEL-VERSION     CONTAINER-RUNTIME
minikube       Ready    control-plane   15m   v1.35.1   192.168.49.2   <none>        Debian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm)   6.12.76-linuxkit   docker://29.2.1
minikube-m02   Ready    <none>          14m   v1.35.1   192.168.49.3   <none>        Debian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm)   6.12.76-linuxkit   docker://29.2.1
minikube-m03   Ready    <none>          14m   v1.35.1   192.168.49.4   <none>        Debian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm)   6.12.76-linuxkit   docker://29.2.1

Other Minikube cluster deployment types

Deploying a specific k8s version 
minikube start --kubernetes-version=v1.27.0
Allocatee more CPU and memory 
minikube start --cpus=4 --memory=8192

Minikube Dashboard

Minikube also offers a dashboard to simplify how your monitor and configure your kubernetes cluster

Just by running minikube dashboard, minikube enables the dashboard add-on, then proceeds to start a proxy server for you to connect securely to the dashboard from your local device.

It then automatically configures a URL and automatically opens your browser window.

minikube dashboard
🔌  Enabling dashboard ...
    ▪ Using image docker.io/kubernetesui/dashboard:v2.7.0
    ▪ Using image docker.io/kubernetesui/metrics-scraper:v1.0.8
💡  Some dashboard features require the metrics-server addon. To enable all features please run:

    minikube addons enable metrics-server

🤔  Verifying dashboard health ...
🚀  Launching proxy ...
🤔  Verifying proxy health ...
🎉  Opening http://127.0.0.1:63957/api/v1/namespaces/kubernetes-dashboard/services/http:kubernetes-dashboard:/proxy/ in your default browser...

minikube-dashboard

When Minikube Is NOT Ideal

Minikube is great for:

  • Learning
  • Development
  • Testing

But not ideal for:

  • Large production workloads
  • Multi-node enterprise clusters
  • High availability production systems

Production alternatives include:

  • Amazon EKS
  • Azure Kubernetes Service
  • Google Kubernetes Engine
  • OpenShift

Best Use Cases

Docker + Minikube is excellent for:

  • Learning Kubernetes
  • DevOps labs
  • Cloud security labs
  • CI/CD testing
  • Microservices development
  • Local platform engineering
  • Interview preparation
  • Portfolio projects

Clean up

After testing or practice, you can delete the just deployed cluster by running: minikube delete

minikube delete
🔥  Deleting "minikube" in docker ...
🔥  Deleting container "minikube" ...
🔥  Deleting container "minikube-m02" ...
🔥  Deleting container "minikube-m03" ...
🔥  Removing /Users/cloudguy/.minikube/machines/minikube ...
🔥  Removing /Users/cloudguy/.minikube/machines/minikube-m02 ...
🔥  Removing /Users/cloudguy/.minikube/machines/minikube-m03 ...
💀  Removed all traces of the "minikube" cluster.