Install Openshift or Minishift in local system Windows 10

Introduction

In this blog, we will explore the process to Install Openshift or Minishift in local system Windows 10. But before that some words to build the basics.

OpenShift hardly needs an introduction to the technology fraternity. But still, here is a brief overview of this platform. OpenShift is one of the very popular PaaS ((Platform as a service) platform available in the market. It is provided by Red Hat. It is basically kubernetes based docker container orchestration platform on the foundation of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. 

Now let’s introduce another term OKD. OKD is the community distribution of Kubernetes that powers Red Hat OpenShift. To make it simple to understand, OKD is the open source version of OpenShift.

Whenever, we get introduced to a new technology, we always look for a way to install, explore, develop, try it in personal capacity; if possible in the personal system itself. For this purpose, Red Hat provided us with Minishift. Minishift is a tool that help you run your own OKD (OpenShift community edition) directly in your local system!! How exciting, isn’t it!!

Well, enough of introduction. Let’s explore how we can install and run Minishift in Windows 10 laptop.

Prerequisite

• A machine with Windows OS. In my case, I am using Windows 10 Pro. However, you can try this tutorial on Windows 10 Home as well.
• You should have minimum 4 GB RAM.
• Try and Install the VirtualBox and the MiniShift only in the C: drive to avoid any complexity later on.
• The system should be capable of virtualization. Hence, don’t try it in a VM as there can be an issue of nested virtualization.
• In this tutorial, I’ll use virtualbox for virtualization need. You can use Hyper-V as well. However, the process is a little more complicated for Hyper-V.

Make sure that Hyper-V is not already enabled. To check this, please go to “Control Panel” -> “Programs” -> “Turn Windows Features on or off.”. A window will pop up. Ensure that Hyper-V checkbox is unchecked. Ensure to restart the machine thereafter.

Download and Install VirtualBox

Head to VirtualBox download page. Click on the link for Windows hosts and download the latest VirtualBox exe. Install the VirtualBox in your system by double clicking on the exe file. Please install it only in C: drive.

At the time of writing this blog, I installed v6.1.14 of VirtualBox.

The note of caution is to install the VirtualBox and MiniShift in C: drive to avoid any conflict in the future process of installation.

Install Minishift

In next few steps, we will download minishift and setup the environment.

Download latest Minishift:

Head to Minishift release page in Github and download the latest one. At the time of writing this blog, I downloaded v1.34.3 by clicking on the minishift-1.34.3-windows-amd64.zip file.

Extract the .zip file content

Now, extract the downloaded .zip file in a folder of your choice. I have extracted it to C:\minishift folder. After extraction, it looks as follows:

Add the MiniShift directory to PATH variable

Edit the Environment variables and add the above folder path (C:\minishift) to PATH environment variable.

Setup the VrtualBox as default driver for Minishift

Open command prompt as admin and run the following command:
minishift config set vm-driver virtualbox

Start MiniShift installation

Now that everything is setup, run the following command (run the command prompt as admin) to start installation of MiniShift. Ensure to be connected to internet:
minishift start
The command may take quite sometime to complete the installation. Have patience! Following is the brief snippet of the installation process output.

At the end of all the setup, you will see something like below:

Now, you can use the mentioned link to login to the console using the mentioned credential on screen::

You might have already noticed above that you can also login as administrator using oc login -u system:admin command.

• To make this command available to your command prompt, ensure to add this path (C:\Users\<YOUR_USER_ID>\.minishift\cache\oc\<YOUR_INSTALLED_VERSION>\windows) to PATH environment variable.
• Alternatively, you can also run minishift oc-env command to get the path and set in PATH environment variable. For reference, take a look at below screen snip:

Useful MiniShift command

• To start MiniShift: minishift start
• To stop MiniShift: minishift stop
• To delete Mnishift instance completely: minishift delete

Conclusion

Well that’s it for now! In future, as I get some time, I will demonstrate as to how to deploy sample applications in Minishift.

Reference

• https://okd.io/
• https://www.okd.io/minishift/