Minikube volumes

Question

Minikube is supposed to make it simple to run Kubernetes locally, not only for "getting started" but also for "day-to-day development workflows".

source : https://github.com/kubernetes/minikube/blob/master/ROADMAP.md#goals

But I can also read that : "PersistentVolumes are mapped to a directory inside the minikube VM. The Minikube VM boots into a tmpfs, so most directories will not be persisted across reboots (minikube stop)"

source : https://kubernetes.io/docs/getting-started-guides/minikube/#persistent-volumes

So what if my developments need persistent storage (MySQL database, mongodb database, ...) ? Do I need to throw my Minikube and install directly the full Kubernetes ?

score 20 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 25 '17 at 12:48

20

This is covered in the documentation. The relevant section starts right after the sentence that you've already quoted:

However, Minikube is configured to persist files stored under the following host directories:

/data

/var/lib/localkube

/var/lib/docker

Here is an example PersistentVolume config to persist data in the ‘/data’ directory:
apiVersion: v1
kind: PersistentVolume
metadata:
  name: pv0001
spec:
  accessModes:
    - ReadWriteOnce
  capacity:
    storage: 5Gi
  hostPath:
    path: /data/pv0001/

Simply declare hostPath volumes that are mapped to any directory in /data on the host, and these should persist across reboots.

answered Feb 25 '17 at 12:48

helmbert

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"should" ? so you don't know more than me right ? Cause what I understand is you can create volumes but the "host" will be minikube VM, that's what is written in the documentation you've just quoted. – Tristan Feb 25 '17 at 14:41
To be clear, you say : "Simply declare hostPath volumes", when doc says : "Minikube supports PersistentVolumes of type hostPath. These PersistentVolumes are mapped to a directory inside the minikube VM." – Tristan Feb 25 '17 at 14:46
"These PersistentVolumes are mapped to a directory inside the minikube VM." -- Yes. And the doc says that this directory is persisted across reboots of the Minikube VM. That what you've asked for in your question, wasn't it? – helmbert Feb 25 '17 at 14:55
Are we reading the same doc ? Mine says : "most directories will NOT be persisted across reboots" – Tristan Feb 25 '17 at 15:06
2

Yes. But `/data/` will. – helmbert Feb 25 '17 at 15:10
After a discussion with some minikube guy, he has made a pull request to correct the misleading documentation (You are right about /data/ though). – Tristan Feb 28 '17 at 08:01
as of 2022SEP document url should be changed to https://minikube.sigs.k8s.io/docs/handbook/persistent_volumes/ – Max Sep 14 '22 at 09:24

score 10 · Accepted Answer · edited Mar 11 '19 at 11:35

Here is the answer from a Minikube contributer, confirming there was a problem in the documentation :

I've reworded the readme to make a little more sense.

The host is the computer you're running minikube on. This is only exposed to the VM through the mounted host folders https://github.com/kubernetes/minikube/blob/master/docs/host_folder_mount.md

The guest, or minikube VM, will persist certain folders to a disk stored on the host (something like ~/.minikube/machines/minikube/disk.vmdk). Files stored in certain directories in the minikube VM will persist between start/stops, but not deletes.

source : https://github.com/kubernetes/minikube/issues/1184

score -4 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 25 '17 at 06:44

-4

Or you can try https://github.com/reachlin/k8s0/, which is a full-fledged kubernetes installed on a single host using ansible.

answered Jul 25 '17 at 06:44

reachlin

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Minikube volumes

3 Answers3