Minikube supports several virtualization technologies. We’ll use VirtualBox throughout the book since it is the only virtualization supported in all operating systems. If you do not have it already, please head to the Download VirtualBox page and get the version that matches your OS.

⚠️ Please keep in mind that for VirtualBox or HyperV to work, virtualization must be enabled in the BIOS. Most laptops should have it enabled by default.

📝 The installation of Minikube may take a while.

Installation

Finally, we can install Minikube.

MacOS

If you’re using MacOS, please execute the command that follows. 

Minikube is a tool that makes it easy to run Kubernetes locally. 

This runs a single-node Kubernetes cluster inside a virtual machine.

https://kubernetes.io/docs/tutorials/kubernetes-basics/create-cluster/cluster-intro/#:~:text=Minikube%20is%20a%20lightweight%20Kubernetes,%2C%20macOS%2C%20and%20Windows%20systems.

Starting minikube to create a cluster

📝 A note to windows users

Understanding the process

Verification

Exploring the Kubernetes dashboard

Starting minikube to create a cluster

The folks behind Minikube made creating a cluster as easy as it can get. All we need to do is to execute a single command. Minikube will start a virtual machine locally and deploy the necessary Kubernetes components into it. The VM will get configured with Docker and Kubernetes via a single binary called localkube.

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