Minikube single node cluster architecture

Question

I am confused as to how the minikube single node cluster works, when I start a k8s cluster using minikube start --driver=docker, is the single node itself a docker container, or it is our local machine? I assume that single node is the local machine and the pods are containers inside this node.

Can anyone confirm this? Or perhaps correct me?

I have tried looking into the explanations in the minikube docs, but could not find a definitive answer.

Answer 1

In the last two paragraphs of kubernetes-basics/Using Minikube to Create a Cluster, it says:

Minikube is a lightweight Kubernetes implementation that creates a VM on your local machine and deploys a simple cluster containing only one node.

Minikube creates a single node cluster contained in a virtual machine (VM), with the help of a virtualization manager on Linux, MacOS, or Windows operating systems.

Answer 2

Minikube cluster is a single-node cluster, meaning that it consists of only one machine–typically a containerized or virtual machine running on our laptop or desktop and deploys a simple cluster containing only one node.

Nodes in Kubernetes clusters are assigned roles. Start your Minikube cluster and then run the following command:

kubectl get nodes

You should see one node, named minikube, because this is a single-node cluster.

NAME      STATUS   ROLES                  AGE     VERSION
minikube   Ready    control-plane,master   99s     v1.23.1

Refer to the blog written by Eric Gregory for information on architecture of single-node clusters.