Quickstart for Kubernetes

This procedure deploys a Standalone MinIO server onto Kubernetes for early development and evaluation of MinIO Object Storage and it’s S3-compatible API layer.

Standalone deployments (also called “filesystem mode”) support a subset of MinIO features where redundancy or availability are dependent entirely on the underlying drive or volume.

For production-ready Distributed MinIO deployments on Kubernetes, use the MinIO Kubernetes Operator.

Prerequisites

An existing Kubernetes deployment where at least one Worker Node has a locally-attached drive.
A local kubectl installation configured to create and access resources on the target Kubernetes deployment.
Familiarity with Kubernetes environments
Familiarity with using a Terminal or Shell environment

Procedure

Download the MinIO Object

Download the MinIO Kubernetes Object Definition

Download minio-dev.yaml to your host machine:

curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/minio/docs/master/source/extra/examples/minio-dev.yaml -O

The file describes two Kubernetes resources:

A new namespace minio-dev, and
A MinIO pod using a drive or volume on the Worker Node for serving data

Select the Overview of the MinIO Object YAML for a more detailed description of the object.

Overview of the MinIO Object YAML

The minio-dev.yaml contains the following Kubernetes resources:

# Deploys a new Namespace for the MinIO Pod
apiVersion: v1
kind: Namespace
metadata:
  name: minio-dev # Change this value if you want a different namespace name
  labels:
    name: minio-dev # Change this value to match metadata.name
---
# Deploys a new MinIO Pod into the metadata.namespace Kubernetes namespace
#
# The `spec.containers[0].args` contains the command run on the pod
# The `/data` directory corresponds to the `spec.containers[0].volumeMounts[0].mountPath`
# That mount path corresponds to a Kubernetes HostPath which binds `/data` to a local drive or volume on the worker node where the pod runs
# 
apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  labels:
    app: minio
  name: minio
  namespace: minio-dev # Change this value to match the namespace metadata.name
spec:
  containers:
  - name: minio
    image: quay.io/minio/minio:latest
    command:
    - /bin/bash
    - -c
    args: 
    - minio server /data --console-address :9090
    volumeMounts:
    - mountPath: /data
      name: localvolume # Corresponds to the `spec.volumes` Persistent Volume
  nodeSelector:
    kubernetes.io/hostname: kubealpha.local # Specify a node label associated to the Worker Node on which you want to deploy the pod.
  volumes:
  - name: localvolume
    hostPath: # MinIO generally recommends using locally-attached volumes
      path: /mnt/disk1/data # Specify a path to a local drive or volume on the Kubernetes worker node
      type: DirectoryOrCreate # The path to the last directory must exist

The object deploys two resources:

A new namespace minio-dev, and
A MinIO pod using a drive or volume on the Worker Node for serving data

The MinIO resource definition uses Kubernetes Node Selectors and Labels to restrict the pod to a node with matching hostname label. Use kubectl get nodes --show-labels to view all labels assigned to each node in the cluster.

The MinIO Pod uses a hostPath volume for storing data. This path must correspond to a local drive or folder on the Kubernetes worker node.

Users familiar with Kubernetes scheduling and volume provisioning may modify the spec.nodeSelector, volumeMounts.name, and volumes fields to meet more specific requirements.

Apply the MinIO Object Definition

The following command applies the minio-dev.yaml configuration and deploys the objects to Kubernetes:
```
kubectl apply -f minio-dev.yaml
```
The command output should resemble the following:
```
namespace/minio-dev created
pod/minio created
```
You can verify the state of the pod by running kubectl get pods:
```
kubectl get pods -n minio-dev
```
The output should resemble the following:
```
NAME    READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
minio   1/1     Running   0          77s
```
You can also use the following commands to retrieve detailed information on the pod status:
```
kubectl describe pod/minio -n minio-dev

kubectl logs pod/minio -n minio-dev
```
Temporarily Access the MinIO S3 API and Console

Use the kubectl port-forward command to temporarily forward traffic from the MinIO pod to the local machine:
```
kubectl port-forward pod/minio 9000 9090
```
The command forwards the pod ports 9000 and 9090 to the matching port on the local machine while active in the shell. The kubectl port-forward command only functions while active in the shell session. Terminating the session closes the ports on the local machine.

Note

The following steps of this procedure assume an active kubectl port-forward command.

To configure long term access to the pod, configure Ingress or similar network control components within Kubernetes to route traffic to and from the pod. Configuring Ingress is out of the scope for this documentation.
Connect your Browser to the MinIO Server

Access the MinIO Console by opening a browser on the local machine and navigating to http://127.0.0.1:9090.

Log in to the Console with the credentials minioadmin | minioadmin. These are the default root user credentials.

You can use the MinIO Console for general administration tasks like Identity and Access Management, Metrics and Log Monitoring, or Server Configuration. Each MinIO server includes its own embedded MinIO Console.

For more information, see the MinIO Console documentation.
(Optional) Connect the MinIO Client

If your local machine has mc installed, use the mc alias set command to authenticate and connect to the MinIO deployment:
```
mc alias set k8s-minio-dev http://127.0.0.1:9000 minioadmin minioadmin
mc admin info k8s-minio-dev
```
- The name of the alias
- The hostname or IP address and port of the MinIO server
- The Access Key for a MinIO user
- The Secret Key for a MinIO user

Quickstart for Kubernetes

Prerequisites

Procedure

Next Steps