Lab 00: Environment Setup¶

Objectives¶

✅ Verify Docker installation
✅ Set up Minikube cluster (or kind for multi-region)
✅ Install and verify kubectl
✅ Configure Helm and Flux CLI
✅ Test basic cluster access

Prerequisites¶

Docker Desktop or Docker Engine installed
~15 minutes
Reference: Setup Guide

🔍 How to Tell if Minikube is Running¶

Before any lab, always verify your cluster is up. Run minikube status and compare to the examples below.

✅ Minikube is running (ready to use):

minikube
type: Control Plane
host: Running
kubelet: Running
apiserver: Running
kubeconfig: Configured

⚠️ Minikube is stopped (cluster exists but not started):

minikube
type: Control Plane
host: Stopped
kubelet: Stopped
apiserver: Stopped
kubeconfig: Stopped

❌ Docker Desktop is not running (minikube can't start without it):

E0606 ...  status error: host: state: unknown state "minikube": docker container inspect minikube
...
failed to connect to the docker API at unix://...docker.sock; check if the path is correct
and if the daemon is running: dial unix ...docker.sock: connect: no such file or directory

❌ kubectl error when cluster is not reachable:

error: error validating "api-pod.yaml": error validating data: failed to download openapi:
Get "https://127.0.0.1:XXXXX/openapi/v2?timeout=32s": dial tcp 127.0.0.1:XXXXX:
connect: connection refused

Note: The openapi download is normal — kubectl always fetches the cluster's schema to validate your YAML. The real error is connection refused, meaning the cluster is unreachable.

🚀 Starting the Cluster¶

# 1. Start Docker Desktop first (open from Applications)
#    Wait for the whale icon in the menu bar to stop animating

# 2. Then start Minikube
minikube start

# OR for the named "east" cluster used in multi-region labs:
minikube start -p east --cpus 4 --memory 6144 --driver docker

# 3. Confirm it's ready
minikube status
kubectl get nodes

Steps¶

Step 1: Verify Docker¶

docker --version
docker run hello-world

Expected output:

Docker version 24.x.x
...
Hello from Docker!

Step 2: Start Minikube Cluster¶

# Start single cluster
minikube start --cpus 4 --memory 6144 --driver docker

# Verify it's running
minikube status

Step 3: Configure kubectl¶

# Check cluster info
kubectl cluster-info

# Get nodes
kubectl get nodes

# Expected: 1 control plane node (minikube)

Step 4: Verify Helm¶

helm version

# Add Bitnami repo (used in labs)
helm repo add bitnami https://charts.bitnami.com/bitnami
helm repo update

Step 5: Verify Flux CLI¶

flux version

# Check if Flux can bootstrap (don't actually run yet)
flux check --pre

Validation¶

All commands should return version information and success status:

cat << 'EOF' > /tmp/test-setup.sh
#!/bin/bash
set -e

echo "Testing environment setup..."

# Docker
docker --version && echo "✓ Docker" || (echo "✗ Docker"; exit 1)

# kubectl
kubectl cluster-info && echo "✓ kubectl" || (echo "✗ kubectl"; exit 1)

# Helm
helm version && echo "✓ Helm" || (echo "✗ Helm"; exit 1)

# Flux
flux version && echo "✓ Flux" || (echo "✗ Flux"; exit 1)

echo "✓ All checks passed!"
EOF

chmod +x /tmp/test-setup.sh
/tmp/test-setup.sh

Challenge (Optional)¶

Create additional namespaces for future labs:

kubectl create namespace production
kubectl create namespace staging
kubectl create namespace monitoring

kubectl get namespaces

Cleanup¶

For now, keep cluster running. To reset later:

minikube delete

Next: Lab 01: Docker Basics