How to setup kubernetes cluster using kind

Here in this article we will try to setup a local development environment kubernetes cluster using kind.

Table of Contents

Test Environment

Fedora 41 server
go1.23.10
Docker version 27.5.1

What is Kind

kind also known as kubernetes in docker is a tool that we can use to setup a local kubernetes cluster environment for development purpose. This cluster consist of nodes as docker containers. It offers extremely fast startup times and cluster creation.

Advantages

Speed: Starts up extremely quickly as it runs Kubernetes nodes as Docker containers.
Lightweight: Uses fewer resources (CPU, memory) because it avoids the overhead of virtual machines.
Multi-Node: Easily supports multi-master and multi-worker configurations by starting multiple Docker containers.
CI/CD Focus: Its speed and lightweight nature make it perfect for continuous integration and continuous deployment pipelines.

Disadvantages

Docker-Centric: Relies entirely on Docker, limiting testing of other container technologies or VM-based environments.
Docker in Docker: The cluster runs inside Docker, which can add a layer of complexity for network management.

If you are interested in watching the video. Here is the YouTube video on the same step by step procedure outlined below.

Procedure

Step1: Ensure Go and Docker installed

As a first step ensure that you have Go and Docker installed on your machine. Also ensure that docker service is up and running.

admin@linuxser:~$ go version
go version go1.23.10 linux/amd64

admin@linuxser:~$ docker --version
Docker version 27.5.1, build 9f9e405

admin@linuxser:~$ sudo systemctl start docker.service

Step2: Install kind

Here let’s install kind using go as shown below.

admin@linuxser:~$ go install sigs.k8s.io/kind@v0.30.0
go: downloading sigs.k8s.io/kind v0.30.0
go: downloading al.essio.dev/pkg/shellescape v1.5.1
go: downloading github.com/spf13/pflag v1.0.5
go: downloading github.com/spf13/cobra v1.8.0
go: downloading github.com/pkg/errors v0.9.1
go: downloading golang.org/x/sys v0.6.0
go: downloading github.com/pelletier/go-toml v1.9.5
go: downloading github.com/BurntSushi/toml v1.4.0
go: downloading github.com/evanphx/json-patch/v5 v5.6.0
go: downloading go.yaml.in/yaml/v3 v3.0.4
go: downloading sigs.k8s.io/yaml v1.4.0

Step3: Create a three node Kubernetes cluster

Let’s now create a kubernetes cluster configuration file that we will use setup a three node cluster with 1 master and 2 worker nodes as shown below.

admin@linuxser:~$ cat config.yaml 
# three node (two workers) cluster config
kind: Cluster
apiVersion: kind.x-k8s.io/v1alpha4
nodes:
- role: control-plane
- role: worker
- role: worker

Now’s let’s create the kubernetes cluster using king with the configuration file that was created.

admin@linuxser:~$ kind create cluster --name k8dev --config config.yaml 
Creating cluster "k8dev" ...
 ✓ Ensuring node image (kindest/node:v1.34.0) 🖼
 ✓ Preparing nodes 📦 📦 📦  
 ✓ Writing configuration 📜 
 ✓ Starting control-plane 🕹️ 
 ✓ Installing CNI 🔌 
 ✓ Installing StorageClass 💾 
 ✓ Joining worker nodes 🚜 
Set kubectl context to "kind-k8dev"
You can now use your cluster with:

kubectl cluster-info --context kind-k8dev

Have a nice day! 👋

Step4: Verify k8dev cluster context

Once the kubernetes cluster installation is completed, you can verify the cluster context that has been created as shown below.

admin@linuxser:~$ kubectl cluster-info --context kind-k8dev
Kubernetes control plane is running at https://127.0.0.1:38383
CoreDNS is running at https://127.0.0.1:38383/api/v1/namespaces/kube-system/services/kube-dns:dns/proxy

To further debug and diagnose cluster problems, use 'kubectl cluster-info dump'.

Step5: Verify cluster

Let’s now verify the status all the nodes and pods that are created as a part of cluster creation.

admin@linuxser:~$ kubectl get nodes
NAME                  STATUS   ROLES           AGE   VERSION
k8dev-control-plane   Ready    control-plane   58s   v1.34.0
k8dev-worker          Ready    <none>          47s   v1.34.0
k8dev-worker2         Ready    <none>          47s   v1.34.0

admin@linuxser:~$ kubectl get pods -A
NAMESPACE            NAME                                          READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
kube-system          coredns-66bc5c9577-bhj4s                      1/1     Running   0          46s
kube-system          coredns-66bc5c9577-nq5sk                      1/1     Running   0          46s
kube-system          etcd-k8dev-control-plane                      1/1     Running   0          51s
kube-system          kindnet-qlfk7                                 1/1     Running   0          46s
kube-system          kindnet-spf8m                                 1/1     Running   0          43s
kube-system          kindnet-xsrts                                 1/1     Running   0          43s
kube-system          kube-apiserver-k8dev-control-plane            1/1     Running   0          51s
kube-system          kube-controller-manager-k8dev-control-plane   1/1     Running   0          51s
kube-system          kube-proxy-2w5x5                              1/1     Running   0          43s
kube-system          kube-proxy-lqk6h                              1/1     Running   0          43s
kube-system          kube-proxy-nc847                              1/1     Running   0          46s
kube-system          kube-scheduler-k8dev-control-plane            1/1     Running   0          51s
local-path-storage   local-path-provisioner-7b8c8ddbd6-2bfdk       1/1     Running   0          46s

Step6: Create a deployment

Here let’s create a deployment with image named “kubernetes-bootcamp”.

admin@linuxser:~$ kubectl create deployment kubernetes-bootcamp --image=gcr.io/google-samples/kubernetes-bootcamp:v1
deployment.apps/nginx created

Step7: Verify a deployment

Verify that the deployment has instantiated the pod for that deployment.

admin@linuxscratch:~$ kubectl get pods
NAME                                   READY   STATUS    RESTARTS      AGE
kubernetes-bootcamp-658f6cbd58-rpzsw   1/1     Running   1 (75s ago)   35h

Step8: Expose Deployment as Service

Now let’s expose this deployment as a service of type “NodePort” as shown below and capture the node port value on which its exposed.

In my case it was “31084”.

admin@linuxscratch:~$ kubectl expose deployment kubernetes-bootcamp --type=NodePort --port=8080

admin@linuxscratch:~$ kubectl get svc
NAME                  TYPE           CLUSTER-IP     EXTERNAL-IP   PORT(S)          AGE
kubernetes            ClusterIP      10.96.0.1      <none>        443/TCP          36h
kubernetes-bootcamp   NodePort       10.96.8.41     <none>        8080:31084/TCP   35h

Step9: Validate Service

As we have exposed the service on “NodePort”, we need to get the IP address of the worker node as well.

admin@linuxscratch:~$ kubectl get nodes -o wide
NAME                  STATUS   ROLES           AGE   VERSION   INTERNAL-IP   EXTERNAL-IP   OS-IMAGE                         KERNEL-VERSION           CONTAINER-RUNTIME
k8dev-control-plane   Ready    control-plane   36h   v1.34.0   172.18.0.4    <none>        Debian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm)   6.16.7-100.fc41.x86_64   containerd://2.1.3
k8dev-worker          Ready    <none>          36h   v1.34.0   172.18.0.3    <none>        Debian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm)   6.16.7-100.fc41.x86_64   containerd://2.1.3
k8dev-worker2         Ready    <none>          36h   v1.34.0   172.18.0.2    <none>        Debian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm)   6.16.7-100.fc41.x86_64   containerd://2.1.3

Let’s now access our service using the worker node ip address and node port as shown below.

admin@linuxscratch:~$ curl http://172.18.0.2:31084/
Hello Kubernetes bootcamp! | Running on: kubernetes-bootcamp-658f6cbd58-rpzsw | v=1

We can also verify the logs of the pod to check our request that was received by the pod as shown below.

admin@linuxscratch:~$ kubectl logs kubernetes-bootcamp-658f6cbd58-rpzsw
Kubernetes Bootcamp App Started At: 2025-09-24T02:07:59.301Z | Running On:  kubernetes-bootcamp-658f6cbd58-rpzsw 

Running On: kubernetes-bootcamp-658f6cbd58-rpzsw | Total Requests: 1 | App Uptime: 249.133 seconds | Log Time: 2025-09-24T02:12:08.434Z

Hope you enjoyed reading this article. Thank you..

How to setup kubernetes cluster using kind