Preparing to Install Minishift

Overview

The following section describes how to install Minishift and the required dependencies.

These are the basic steps for setting up Minishift on your personal system:

1. Set up your virtualization environment

2. Download Minishift software for your operating system from the Minishift Releases page

3. Install Minishift

4. Start Minishift

5. Configure Minishift so you can use it efficiently

The setup procedure should be run as a regular user with permission to launch virtual machines. In the procedure, you will see how to assign that permission, along with ways to configure your hypervisor and command shell to start and effectively interact with Minishift.

Prerequisites

Minishift requires a hypervisor to start the virtual machine on which the OpenShift cluster is provisioned. Verify that the hypervisor of your choice is installed and enabled on your system before you set up Minishift. Once the hypervisor is up and running, additional setup is required for Minishift to work with that hypervisor.

Depending on your host operating system, you have the choice of the following recommended native hypervisors:

macOS

• xhyve

Linux

• KVM

Windows

• Hyper-V

  To use Minishift with Hyper-V ensure that, after you install Hyper-V, you also add a Virtual Switch using the Hyper-V Manager and set the configuration option hyperv-virtual-switch to this virtual switch. For specific configuration steps see the Setting Up the Hyper-V Driver section.

All Platforms

• VirtualBox

  VirtualBox 5.1.12 or later is recommended on Windows to avoid the issue Error: machine does not exist. If you encounter issues related to the hypervisor, see the Troubleshooting Driver Plug-ins section.

Refer to the documentation for each hypervisor to determine the hardware and operating system versions needed to run that hypervisor.