---
title: "An alternative to Minikube in the Cloud"
description: "An easy way to deploy single-node Kubernetes clusters as you would do with Minikube, but on hosted virtual machines for real-life applications."
date: 2019-01-08
author: "Marc Falzon"
url: https://www.exoscale.com/blog/minikube-alternative-in-the-cloud/
---
# An alternative to Minikube in the Cloud

One popular way to try out Kubernetes easily is *[Minikube](https://github.com/kubernetes/minikube)*: this utility bootstraps a turn-key single-node Kubernetes cluster locally on your computer, which is a very easy and straightforward way to get your hands on a Kubernetes cluster without too much hassle.

However, in order to use it [you'll need to run a hypervisor on your computer](https://github.com/kubernetes/minikube#requirements), which is not necessarily something you can or want – as it can use a lot of resources you can't spare. If this requirement doesn't suit you, you'll be happy to hear about what's coming next.

The latest release of the [exo](https://github.com/exoscale/cli) CLI introduces a new *lab* section containing experimental functionalities. The first of these functionalities is the `kube` command that lets you to bootstrap a standalone Kubernetes cluster node very much like Minikube does -- but running securely on [Exoscale virtual machines](https://www.exoscale.com/compute/).

Thanks to this command, you are able to play with a fully-functional Kubernetes cluster within minutes without installing anything other than the `kubectl` command.

![An easy alternative to Minikube for single-node Kubernetes clusters](https://www.exoscale.com/blog/minikube-alternative-in-the-cloud/cover.jpg)

## Your first cluster

Let's first have a look at the CLI command – executing `exo lab kube` will show you all available sub-commands. Our first step is to create a cluster instance, using the `create` sub-command. Under the hood, it provisions a new Exoscale compute instance and installs all necessary software to run a standalone Kubernetes master node on it.

At this stage, you can optionally specify the size of the instance (`--size`) in case you plan to run large experiments involving lots of containers.

Within a few minutes, you should end up with a similar output:

```console
$ exo lab kube create 1ptikub
Creating private SSH key
Deploying "1ptikub" 100 % [======================================]
Bootstrapping Kubernetes cluster (can take up to several minutes):
Instance system upgrade: success
Docker Engine installation: success
Kubernetes cluster node installation: success
Kubernetes cluster node initialization: success

Your Kubernetes cluster is ready. What to do now?

1. Install the "kubectl" command, if you don't have it already:

    https://kubernetes.io/docs/tasks/tools/

2. Execute the following command:

    eval $(exo lab kube env "1ptikub")

You might want to persist this change by adding it to your shell startup
configuration (e.g. ~/.bashrc, ~/.zshrc).

3. Check that your cluster is reachable:

    kubectl cluster-info

4. When you're done with your cluster, you can either:
* stop it using the "exo lab kube stop" command
* restart it later using the "exo lab kube start" command
* delete it permanently using the "exo lab kube delete" command
```

As instructed, the next step is to execute the `eval $(exo lab kube env "kub")` command: this command sets up various environment variables so that you can use the `kubectl` and `docker` commands without having to specify any specific options.

To install the `kubectl` command, follow [the official documentation](https://kubernetes.io/docs/tasks/tools/) instructions according to your current platform; when you're ready, check that you can actually reach the cluster:

```console
$ eval $(exo lab kube env "1ptikub")
$ kubectl cluster-info
Kubernetes master is running at https://185.19.29.121:6443
KubeDNS is running at https://185.19.29.121:6443/api/v1/namespaces/kube-system/services/kube-dns:dns/proxy

To further debug and diagnose cluster problems, use 'kubectl cluster-info dump'.
```

At this point, you're free to explore your cluster. For example, you can list the nodes:

```
$ kubectl get nodes
NAME       STATUS    ROLES     AGE       VERSION
1ptikub    Ready     master    6m        v1.13.1

$ kubectl describe node 1ptikub
Name:               1ptikub
Roles:              master
...
```

Now that your Kubernetes cluster is up and running, a good first step is to [install the official web dashboard](https://github.com/kubernetes/dashboard), as it offers a good bird's eye view of your cluster.

Once you're done playing with your cluster instance, you can either destroy it using the `delete` command, or if you plan to come back to it soon you can stop the instance using the `stop` and restart it later using the `start` command. 

You can list all your existing cluster instances with the `list` command:

```console
$ exo lab kube list
┼───────────┼─────────────────┼────────┼─────────┼─────────┼
│   NAME    │   IP ADDRESS    │  SIZE  │ VERSION │  STATE  │
┼───────────┼─────────────────┼────────┼─────────┼─────────┼
│ 1ptikub   │ 185.19.29.121   │ Small  │ 1.13.1  │ Running │
│ 1groskub  │ 159.100.241.129 │ Medium │ 1.12    │ Stopped │
│ aperikub  │ 185.19.29.192   │ Large  │ 1.13.1  │ Running │
┼───────────┼─────────────────┼────────┼─────────┼─────────┼
```


## A good use case: integration testing with Kubernetes

A good use case for the exo CLI `kube` command is integration testing.

Say you run a production infrastructure featuring multiple micro-services and associated components (e.g. databases, caches, queues...): after describing your whole infrastructure as Kubernetes resources (i.e. deployments, services, ingress etc.) you could schedule a nightly integration test running the latest version of all your software components running in containers.

You may then use `exo lab kube` commands to automate the Kubernetes cluster provisioning, trigger your test suite and destroy the instance once the tests are done.