what is the use of microk8s

What is Kubernetes

Kubernetes clusters host containerised applications in a reliable and scalable way. Having DevOps in mind, Kubernetes makes maintenance tasks such as upgrades dead simple.

What is MicroK8s

MicroK8s is a CNCF certified upstream Kubernetes deployment that runs entirely on your workstation or edge device. Being a snap it runs all Kubernetes services natively (i.e. no virtual machines) while packing the entire set of libraries and binaries needed. Installation is limited by how fast you can download a couple of hundred megabytes and the removal of MicroK8s leaves nothing behind.

In this tutorial you’ll learn how to…

  • Get your Kubernetes cluster up and running
  • Enable core Kubernetes addons such as dns and dashboard
  • Control your cluster from the kubectl CLI client
  • Deploy your first container workload

You will only need …

  • A machine with Linux

Integrated commands

There are many commands that ship with MicroK8s. We’ve only seen the essential ones in this tutorial. Explore the others at your own convenience:

  • microk8s.status: Provides an overview of the MicroK8s state (running / not running) as well as the set of enabled addons
  • microk8s.enable: Enables an addon
  • microk8s.disable: Disables an addon
  • microk8s.kubectl: Interact with kubernetes
  • microk8s.config: Shows the kubernetes config file
  • microk8s.istioctl: Interact with the istio services; needs the istio addon to be enabled
  • microk8s.inspect: Performs a quick inspection of the MicroK8s intallation
  • microk8s.reset: Resets the infrastructure to a clean state
  • microk8s.stop: Stops all kubernetes services
  • microk8s.start: Starts MicroK8s after it is being stopped

Lightweight Kubernetes done right

The smallest, fastest, fully-conformant Kubernetes that tracks upstream releases and makes clustering trivial. MicroK8s is great for offline development, prototyping, and testing. Use it on a VM as a small, cheap, reliable k8s for CI/CD. The best kubernetes for appliances. Develop IoT apps for k8s and deploy them to MicroK8s on your Linux boxes.

Reliable, fast, small, upstream.

  • Fast install : Get a full Kubernetes system running in under 60 seconds.
  • Secure : Runs safely on your laptop with state of the art isolation.
  • Upstream : CNCF binaries delivered to your laptop, with updates and upgrades.
  • Complete : Includes a docker registry so you can make containers, push them, and deploy them all on your laptop.
  • Featureful : Cool things you probably want to try on a small, standard K8s are all built-in. Just enable them and go.
  • Updates : Get the daily build if you want it, or betas and milestones, or just stable point releases.
  • Upgrades : When a new major version comes out, upgrade with a single command (or automatically).
  • GPGPU Passthrough : Give MicroK8s a GPGPU and your docker containers can get all nice and CUDA.
  • Small : Use MicroK8s in your CI/CD pipelines and get on with your day without headaches.


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