Mounting filesystems

How to mount a host directory into the VM

9P Mounts

9P mounts are flexible and work across all hypervisors, but suffers from performance and reliability issues when used with large folders (>600 files). See Driver Mounts as an alternative.

To mount a directory from the host into the guest using the mount subcommand:

minikube mount <source directory>:<target directory>

For example, this would mount your home directory to appear as /host within the minikube VM:

minikube mount $HOME:/host

This directory may then be referenced from a Kubernetes manifest, for example:

{
  "apiVersion": "v1",
  "kind": "Pod",
  "metadata": {
    "name": "ubuntu"
  },
  "spec": {
    "containers": [
      {
        "name": "ubuntu",
        "image": "ubuntu:18.04",
        "args": ["bash"],
        "stdin": true,
        "stdinOnce": true,
        "tty": true,
        "workingDir": "/host",
        "volumeMounts": [
          {
            "mountPath": "/host",
            "name": "host-mount"
          }
        ]
      }
    ],
    "volumes": [
      {
        "name": "host-mount",
        "hostPath": {
          "path": "/host"
        }
      }
    ]
  }
}

Driver mounts

Some hypervisors, have built-in host folder sharing. Driver mounts are reliable with good performance, but the paths are not predictable across operating systems or hypervisors:

These mounts can be disabled by passing --disable-driver-mounts to minikube start.

File Sync

See File Sync

Last modified June 28, 2021: Fix indentation of JSON manifest (2a7d7d5e0)