Configuration

Configuring your cluster

Basic Configuration

Most minikube configuration is done via the flags interface. To see which flags are possible for the start command, run:

  1. minikube start --help

Persistent Configuration

minikube allows users to persistently store new default values to be used across all profiles, using the minikube config command. This is done providing a property name, and a property value.

For example, to persistently configure minikube to use hyperkit:

  1. minikube config set driver hyperkit

You can get a complete list of configurable fields using:

  1. minikube config --help

To get a list of the currently set config properties:

  1. minikube config view

Kubernetes configuration

minikube allows users to configure the Kubernetes components with arbitrary values. To use this feature, you can use the --extra-config flag on the minikube start command.

This flag is repeated, so you can pass it several times with several different values to set multiple options.

Selecting a Kubernetes version

By default, minikube installs the latest stable version of Kubernetes that was available at the time of the minikube release. You may select a different Kubernetes release by using the --kubernetes-version flag, for example:

  1. minikube start --kubernetes-version=v1.11.10

minikube follows the Kubernetes Version and Version Skew Support Policy, so we guarantee support for the latest build for the last 3 minor Kubernetes releases. When practical, minikube aims to support older releases as well so that users can emulate legacy environments.

For up to date information on supported versions, see OldestKubernetesVersion and NewestKubernetesVersion in constants.go

Enabling feature gates

Kubernetes alpha/experimental features can be enabled or disabled by the --feature-gates flag on the minikube start command. It takes a string of the form key=value where key is the component name and value is the status of it.

  1. minikube start --feature-gates=EphemeralContainers=true

Modifying Kubernetes defaults

The kubeadm bootstrapper can be configured by the --extra-config flag on the minikube start command. It takes a string of the form component.key=value where component is one of the strings

  • kubeadm
  • kubelet
  • apiserver
  • controller-manager
  • scheduler

and key=value is a flag=value pair for the component being configured. For example,

  1. minikube start --extra-config=apiserver.v=10 --extra-config=kubelet.max-pods=100

For instance, to allow Kubernetes to launch on an unsupported Docker release:

  1. minikube start --extra-config=kubeadm.ignore-preflight-errors=SystemVerification

Runtime configuration

The default container runtime in minikube varies. You can select one explicitly by using:

  1. minikube start --container-runtime=docker

Options available are:

See https://kubernetes.io/docs/setup/production-environment/container-runtimes/

Environment variables

minikube supports passing environment variables instead of flags for every value listed in minikube config. This is done by passing an environment variable with the prefix MINIKUBE_.

For example the minikube start --iso-url="$ISO_URL" flag can also be set by setting the MINIKUBE_ISO_URL="$ISO_URL" environment variable.

Exclusive environment tunings

Some features can only be accessed by minikube specific environment variables, here is a list of these features:

  • MINIKUBE_HOME - (string) sets the path for the .minikube directory that minikube uses for state/configuration. If you specify it to /path/to/somewhere and somewhere is not equal to .minikube, the final MINIKUBE_HOME will be /path/to/somewhere/.minikube. Defaults to ~/.minikube if unspecified. Please note: this is used only by minikube and does not affect anything related to Kubernetes tools such as kubectl.

  • MINIKUBE_IN_STYLE - (bool) manually sets whether or not emoji and colors should appear in minikube. Set to false or 0 to disable this feature, true or 1 to force it to be turned on.

  • CHANGE_MINIKUBE_NONE_USER - (bool) automatically change ownership of ~/.minikube to the value of $SUDO_USER

  • MINIKUBE_ENABLE_PROFILING - (int, 1 enables it) enables trace profiling to be generated for minikube

  • MINIKUBE_SUPPRESS_DOCKER_PERFORMANCE - (bool) suppresses Docker performance warnings when Docker is slow

Example: Disabling emoji

  1. export MINIKUBE_IN_STYLE=false
  2. minikube start
  1. export MINIKUBE_IN_STYLE=false
  2. minikube start
  1. $env:MINIKUBE_IN_STYLE=false
  2. minikube start

Making environment values persistent

To make the exported variables persistent across reboots:

  • Linux and macOS: Add these declarations to ~/.bashrc or wherever your shells environment variables are stored.
  • Windows: Either add these declarations to your ~\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Microsoft.PowerShell_profile.ps1 or run the following in a PowerShell terminal:
  1. [Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable("key", "value", [EnvironmentVariableTarget]::User)

Last modified February 13, 2023: Clarify the current setting logic of MINIKUBE_HOME (6eb7444ec)