Set up minikube on Windows

In my work as n8n's tech writer, I need to maintain some Kubernetes-based deployment guides. This blog post contains the steps for setting up minikube and kubectl on Windows, running it, and testing n8n's Kuberenetes hosting configurations. This is a letter to my future self. Some steps are n8n-specific, but this can also serve as a quick guide for any Kubernetes testing.

Install minikube and kubectl

1. Follow Step 1 of the minikube installation guide. Note the dependencies: make sure you have Docker installed and running. You'll already have this if you followed your Setting up a new Windows PC guide.
2. Start minikube, with extra CPUs:

   minikube start --cpus 4
   

   The default CPUs is 2. This isn't enough for n8n.
3. Install kubectl:

   minikube kubectl -- get po -A
   Set-Alias -Name kubectl -Value "minikube kubectl --"
   

Test an n8n configuration

1. Clone the repo and navigate into the new directory:

   git clone https://github.com/n8n-io/n8n-kubernetes-hosting.git
   cd n8n-kubernetes-hosting
   

2. Create a new resource:

   kubectl apply -f .
   

   If you get errors, re-run the command. On first setup, there is (in effect) a race condition where different parts of the configuration rely on each other, but they're all being set up.
3. Check if everything is working:

   kubectl -n n8n get pod
   

   Status should be Running. If it says Pending or ContainerCreating, try again in a few minutes.
4. Set up port forwarding so you can access n8n in your browser:

   kubectl port-forward -n n8n svc/n8n 5678
   

   n8n is now available on localhost:5678.

Clean up

1. kubectl delete -f .
2. minikube stop