how to access the minikube from a docker container

Question

I am trying to build ci/cd locally with jenkins and minikube. I run minikube on my machine (host) with docker driver, and run jenkins in a container too.

Both on the same docker network.

To run kubectl commands inside a jenkins pipeline I need to access the minikube from my container that is running jenkins.

I've tried to use the container name as a host but it didn't work.

I'm out of ideas for attempts can someone help me?

Answer 1

Running kubectl commands from a pod (container) is possible and simple to achieve. Although it's more practical and recommended to use Kubernetes API instead.

For both of them you are required to give the right permissions to your pods so they can authenticate to be able to make k8s API calls (kubectl is just an application that talks to your cluster through the API).

Here is a good example by mster :

apiVersion: extensions/v1beta1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: k8s-101
spec:
  replicas: 3
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: k8s-101
    spec:
      serviceAccountName: k8s-101-role
      containers:
      - name: k8s-101
        imagePullPolicy: Always
        image: yourrepo/yourcontainer
        ports:
        - name: app
          containerPort: 3000
---
kind: ClusterRoleBinding
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
metadata:
  name: k8s-101-role
subjects:
- kind: ServiceAccount
  name: k8s-101-role
  namespace: default
roleRef:
  kind: ClusterRole
  name: cluster-admin
  apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: ServiceAccount
metadata:
  name: k8s-101-role

Here we are giving cluster-role rights to the Deployment Pods and consider it as a bad example as it's dangerous, it exposes your cluster.

Next you have to prepare your containers to have kubectl built in:

1. Download & Build kubectl inside the container
2. Build your application, copying kubectl to your container
3. Voila! kubectl provides a rich cli for managing your kubernetes cluster

If you prefer to talk directly to the API, you don't need to do anything else. Just go to the documentation to understand how to make calls, and also check Access Clusters Using the Kubernetes API .

Answer 2

Went in to same issue: cannot access $(minikube ip) from external docker container while access from host machine is fine.
running the docker container with --network host option solved the issue.