Creating a MicroShift cluster

With Podman Desktop, you can use the MicroShift in a Container (MINC) extension to create a lightweight OpenShift Kubernetes cluster that runs on minimal resources, such as CPU, RAM, and storage. The cluster is deployed as a container within your Podman environment and resembles a miniaturized version of OpenShift. After setting up a MicroShift cluster, you can:

• Develop OpenShift applications in a resource-constrained environment.
• Provision lightweight OpenShift control planes.
• Run your OpenShift workloads at the edge or even in network-constrained situations, such as low connectivity or node access issues.
• Access the images built with Podman from your cluster.
• Have a consistent development and management experience with an OpenShift cluster.

Prerequisites

• A running Podman machine with root privileges.
• Install the MINC extension.
• On Windows: Enable the cgroup v2 kernel feature in the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL).
  1. Open the .wslconfig file located in the %UserProfile% directory.
  2. Append the kernel command-line argument cgroup_no_v1=all to the kernelCommandLine key under the [wsl2] section.

Procedure: Create a MicroShift cluster

1. Go to Settings > Resources.
2. In the MicroShift tile, click the Create new ... button.
3. Optional: Edit the port number for the routes.
4. Click Create.
5. Optional: Click the Show Logs button to view the logs.
6. After successful creation, click the Go back to resources button.

Verification

• On the Settings > Resources page, your MicroShift instance is running.
• Set your current context to microshift for Kubernetes development.
• Run basic tasks, such as deploying a pod or container to Kubernetes.

Additional resources

• minc-extension repository