How to create a minikube single node cluster for learning Kubernetes

In this post I will explain how to setup a minikube single node kubernetes cluster using AWS EC2 instance which would help anyone who is trying to learn kubernetes and also help them to gain practical knowledge in kubernetes by running kubernetes commands, creating kubernetes objects etc.

Minikube is a single node kubernetes cluster which means a kubernetes cluster with only one node that is a single VM.

Minikube is only used for learning purposes and it is not an alternative for a real kubernetes cluster and should not be used for development and production usage.

In this example I have launched an AWS EC2 instance with below configuration where I will install minikube and related tools.

AWS EC2 Instance Configuration
AMI: Ubuntu Free tier eligible 64 bit
Instance type : t2-large ( For me t2-small or t2-micro is giving performance issues due to less memory)

Once the EC2 instance is up and running, login to the instance using below command on terminal. If you are using windows OS then use Putty or git bash or any tools like that.

ssh -i "my.pem" ubuntu@xxxxx.ca-central-1.compute.amazonaws.com

Step 1: Install kubectl
kubectl is a tool that you can use to execute kubernetes commands on the cluster to create and
monitor resources. Run below command.

curl -LO https://storage.googleapis.com/kubernetes-release/release/$(curl -s https://storage.googleapis.com/kubernetes-release/release/stable.txt)/bin/linux/amd64/kubectl

Provide execute permission:
chmod +x kubectl

Move it to /usr/local/bin:
sudo mv kubectl /usr/local/bin/kubectl

Step 2: Install Docker runtime 
kubernets is a container orchestration tool and we would need to install a container run time such as docker or rkt etc. Here we are going to install docker.

Install Docker:
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install docker.io -y

Verify Docker:
docker --version

Step 3: Install Minikube
Run below command:
curl -LO minikube https://storage.googleapis.com/minikube/releases/latest/minikube-linux-amd64 && chmod +x minikube

Move it to /usr/local/bin:
sudo install minikube /usr/local/bin/

Start minikube:
sudo minikube start --driver=none

If you get an error as below,
The none driver requires conntrack to be installed for kubernetes version 1.18.0


Install conntrack:
sudo apt-get -qq -y install conntrack

Try to Start minikube again:
sudo minikube start --driver=none


If successfull then you will see a message as below:
Done! kubectl is now configured to use "minikube"

Now verify our minikube cluster by running a kubectl command:
sudo kubectl get nodes

If everything configured correctly then you will see:
ubuntu@XXX:~$ sudo kubectl get nodes

NAME STATUS ROLES AGE VERSION
ip-172-31-10-105 Ready master 40m v1.18.0

Step 4: Create and verify kubernetes deployment
Create a deployment with a pod running nginx container:
sudo kubectl create deployment nginx --image=nginx

Verify the deployment and all resources created:
kubectl get all

ubuntu@ip-172-31-10-105:~$ k get all

NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE
pod/nginx-f89759699-zzfj9 1/1 Running 0 72

NAME TYPE CLUSTER-IP EXTERNAL-IP PORT(S) AGE
service/kubernetes ClusterIP 10.96.0.1 <none> 443/TCP 52m

NAME READY UP-TO-DATE AVAILABLE AGE
deployment.apps/nginx 1/1 1 1 72

NAME DESIRED CURRENT READY AGE
replicaset.apps/nginx-f89759699 1 1 1 72s

If you want to save some typing then create an alias for "sudo kubectl":
alias k=sudo kubectl

then instead of "sudo kubectl" type just k as below:
k get all

ubuntu@ip-172-31-10-105:~$ k get all

NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE
pod/nginx-f89759699-zzfj9 1/1 Running 0 4m58s

NAME TYPE CLUSTER-IP EXTERNAL-IP PORT(S) AGE
service/kubernetes ClusterIP 10.96.0.1 <none> 443/TCP 56m

NAME READY UP-TO-DATE AVAILABLE AGE
deployment.apps/nginx 1/1 1 1 4m58s

NAME DESIRED CURRENT READY AGE
replicaset.apps/nginx-f89759699 1 1 1 4m58s


Now your learning environment has been setup. Have a good learning experience! Please let me know your comments.