Kubernetes – How to Install Kubernetes on Ubuntu (Linux)

This blog represents steps/instructions on how to setup Kubernetes on Ubuntu (Linux) using Minikube. The instructions have been used to setup Kubernetes on Ubuntu 16.04. Following are key steps which need to be taken in order to setup and get started with Kubernetes:

• Ensure Virtualization Technology (VT) is enabled in BIOS
• Install VirtualBox and VBoxManage
• Install KubeCtl
• Install Minikube
• Launch Kubernetes cluster

Ensure Virtualization Technology is Enabled in BIOS Setup

First and foremost, ensure that Virtualization Technology (VT) is enabled in BIOS setup. In order to do that, do following:

• Shutdown the system and restart.
• Keep tapping ESC key when starting the machine. This would bring up the startup screen such as that shown in below screenshot:

  Figure 1. Accessing BIOS Setup

• Select F10 to go to BIOS setup. This would bring up the screen such as that shown below:

  Figure 2. Enable Virtualization Technology

• Go to System Configuration, scroll down using arrow mark to Virtualization Technology, press enter, and select Enabled.
• Press F10 for saving and existing the setup.

Install VirtualBox (Hypervisor) and VBoxManage

Follow the steps given below to setup Virtual Box:

• Follow the steps mentioned on the page, How to Install Latest VirtualBox 5.1 on Ubuntu 16.06/Debian 8Execute command such as the following to ensure VirtualBox is setup correctly. It should open up VirtualBox tool as shown in the screenshot below:

  Figure 3. VirtualBox Started

Follow the steps given below to setup VBoxManage:

VBoxManage is the command-line interface to VirtualBox.

• Download the appropriate VBoxManage extension on your system using the command such as following:

  wget http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/5.1.0/Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-5.1.0.vbox-extpack
  

• Install VBoxManage on your system using the following:

  sudo VBoxManage extpack install ./Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-5.1.0.vbox-extpack
  

• Run the following command to confirm that VBoxManage has been successfully installed.

  VBoxManage list extpacks
  

  Following is the screenshot representing the output of execution of above command:

  Figure 4. VBoxManage List Extpacks

Install Kubectl

• Execute the following command to download the latest version of kubectl

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

• Change the permission of kubectl file to make it executable

  chmod +x ./kubectl
  

• Move the kubectl to PATH

  sudo mv ./kubectl /usr/local/bin/kubectl
  

The above details can also be found on the page, Install Kubectl binary via curl

In order to confirm if everything is alright, execute the following command:

kubectl version

Above would show the result as shown in the screenshot given below:

Install Minikube

Install Minikube using the following command:

curl -Lo minikube https://storage.googleapis.com/minikube/releases/v0.22.2/minikube-linux-amd64 && chmod +x minikube && sudo mv minikube /usr/local/bin/

Execute the following command which would print the version of Minikube such as v0.22.2

minikube version

Launch Kubernetes Cluster

Execute the following command to launch Kubernetes cluster

minikube start

Above would result in starting of Kubernetes cluster. Following screenshot represents the same:

Once started, access the Kubernetes Dashboard by executing following command:

minikube dashboard

It would open up a browser window with Dashboard as represented in the following screenshot.

You can stop the cluster using the following command:

minikube stop