Local docker registry in kubernetes cluster using kind

Developers use kind to run a local kubernetes cluster on their local machines on docker nodes. kind is an alternative to minikube to run a local k8s cluster.

Problem statement: Most of the default starter tutorials for a local kubernetes cluster set up pulls already created docker images from docker hub or hosted in some external repo and will not run into the issue of docker image being unavailable to the k8s cluster. But in real world, if you are a developer , the chances are that you want to build a docker container image locally and host it in a local docker registry before pushing it to an external docker registry.

Fortunately kind has a built in local mechanism to use the registry that can be utilized by the kubernetes cluster itself.

Pre-requisites

Below softwares are required and can easily be checked if they are installed. If they are not installed , please install it using the attached instructions from their official sites.

• kind

Installation: https://kind.sigs.k8s.io/docs/user/quick-start/#installation

kind --version

• docker

Installation: https://docs.docker.com/get-docker/

docker --version

Steps

• Check if a kind cluster already exists:

kind get clusters