Preparing a local Kubernetes environment with minikube

Helm won’t be able to deploy applications without access to a Kubernetes cluster. For this reason, let’s discuss one option where users can run a local cluster on their machine – minikube.

minikube is a community-driven tool that allows users to easily deploy a small, single-node Kubernetes cluster to their local machine. A cluster created with minikube is run inside either a container or a virtual machine (VM) so that it can easily be created and later discarded. minikube presents us with an excellent way to experiment with Kubernetes, and it can also be used to learn Helm alongside the examples provided throughout this book.

In the next few sections, we’ll cover how minikube can be installed and configured so that you have a Kubernetes cluster available while learning how to use Helm. For more comprehensive instructions, please refer to the Getting Started! page of the official minikube website...