Install minishift

Paul Sterl — Sat, 02 May 2020 13:33:50 +0000

Install on Windows

Note: Windows 10 Pro or higher is required for Hyper-V — the install was recommended to be on the C: drive.

Auto Install

Check that your CPU virtualization is enabled
Download minishift and extract it into a folder
Add your user to the Hyper-V Administrators
Open Command-Line as Admin User
Execute minishift Install
Reboot
Configure network
Start (use optional --cpus and --memory)

The network install doesn’t always work, see manual install, step 4 and the following, to setup the network in case the following message is encountered [Virtual Switch not found] in step 7.

 # 5. run install as admin in the folder minishift was extracted
 minishift setup
 # 5. reboot, no admin mode needed anymore
 # 7. configure network
 minishift config set hyperv-virtual-switch minishift-external
 # 8. start minishift
 minishift start

Manual install

Enable Virtualization in the Bios
Download minishift and extract it into a folder
Enable Hyper-V in Windows 10 Pro
Create a virtual network
Add the Hyper-V Administrators role to your user account
Update minishift config to use the network
Start minishift

# Requires admin permissions
# 3. enable hyper-V
Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName Microsoft-Hyper-V -All

# 4. create virtual network
Get-NetAdapter
# Select the adapter and provide the name in this line
$net = Get-NetAdapter -Name 'Ethernet 2'
New-VMSwitch -Name "minishift-external" -AllowManagementOS $True -NetAdapterName $net.Name

# 6. update minishift config and use the network
minishift config set hyperv-virtual-switch "minishift-external"
# 7. start minishift
minishift start

Troubleshooting

Checking if Hyper-V driver is installed … FAIL

This error can occur e.g.:

Hyper-V Service is not running
Virtualization in the firmware isn’t enabled
Hyper-V isn’t supported

Run the following command to check the virtualization settings:

# following command should return true
@(Get-Wmiobject Win32_ComputerSystem).HypervisorPresent
# show all CPU settings
gwmi Win32_Processor | fl *

The following settings should be both true. Most likely the first one which means the Bios settings aren’t set to enabled – (SVM Mode for Ryzen CPUs).

VirtualizationFirmwareEnabled           : False
VMMonitorModeExtensions                 : True

.SSH cmd err, output: exit status 255

During the start of minishift following error often occur on Windows:

# during normal start "minishift start"
Error starting the VM: Error creating the VM. Error creating machine: Error detecting OS: Too many retries waiting for SSH to be available.

# with logging the details
minishift start --show-libmachine-logs -v5

About to run SSH command:
exit 0
.SSH cmd err, output: exit status 255:
Error getting ssh command 'exit 0' : ssh command error:
command : exit 0
err     : exit status 255

The main problem here is the SSL client version 0.0.1.0 from Microsoft which as to be uninstalled. After that, the minishift start works fine.

Remove-WindowsCapability -Online -Name OpenSSH.Client~~~~0.0.1.0

Useful shell Commands

# delete VM, delete the ssh identities after that, as the SSH key will change
minishift delete
# delete everything
minishift delete --force --clear-cache

# set auto start for Hyper-V Manager Service 
sc config vmms start=auto
# start Hyper-V Manager Service
sc start vmms

# start minishift with log output
minishift start --show-libmachine-logs -v5

Useful Power Shell Commands

# check if Hyper-V is running well
@(Get-Wmiobject Win32_ComputerSystem).HypervisorPresent

# output ip of the minishift VM
echo (( Hyper-V\Get-VM minishift ).networkadapters[0]).ipaddresses[0]

Install – Pauls Blog