Choosing the ISO Image

Overview

When you start Minishift, it downloads a live ISO image that the hypervisor uses to provision the Minishift VM.

By default, Minishift uses the Minishift CentOS ISO image. This ISO image is based on CentOS, an enterprise-ready Linux distribution that resembles a production environment.

You cannot run the same Minishift instance with different ISO images concurrently. To switch between ISO images, delete the Minishift instance and start a new instance with the ISO image that you want to use.

Using a Remote ISO Image

To use a remotely available ISO image, specify the URL of the Minishift ISO image during minishift start using the --iso-url flag:

  1. $ minishift start --iso-url https://github.com/minishift/minishift-centos-iso/releases/download/v1.15.0/minishift-centos7.iso

Using a Local ISO Image

To use a locally available ISO image, follow these steps:

  1. Manually download the Minishift CentOS ISO image from the Minishift CentOS ISO releases page.

  2. Specify the file URI to the image during minishift start using the --iso-url flag.

The path given for a file URI must be an absolute path.

On Linux or macOS, the path must begin with /. For example:

  1. $ minishift start --iso-url file:///path/to/image.iso

On Windows, the path must begin with a drive letter such as C:. For example:

  1. C:\> minishift.exe start --iso-url file://d:/path/to/image.iso