Answering the question:

If I set cpus and memory then are these the max values the cluster as a whole can ever consume?

In short. It will be a limit for the whole resource (either a

VM

, a container, etc. depending on a

--driver

used). It will be used for the underlying OS, Kubernetes components and the workload that you are trying to run on it.

Are these the values it will reserve on the host machine in preparation for use?

I'd reckon this would be related to the

--driver

you are using and how its handling the resources. I personally doubt it's reserving the 100% of

CPU

and

memory

you've passed in the

$ minikube start

and I'm more inclined to the idea that it uses how much it needs during specific operations.

Are these the values that are handed to the control plane container/VM and now I have to specify more resources when making a worker node?

By default, when you create a

minikube

instance with:

$ minikube start ...

you will create a single node cluster capable of being a

control-plane

node and a

worker

node simultaneously. You will be able to run your workloads (like an

nginx-deployment

without adding additional node).

You can add a node to your

minikube

ecosystem with just:

$ minikube node add

. This will make another node marked as a

worker

(with no

control-plane

components). You can read more about it here:

• Minikube.sigs.k8s.io: Docs: Tutorials: Multi node

What if I want to add another machine (VM or bare metal) and add its resources in the form of a worker node to the cluster? From the looks of it I would have to delete that cluster, change the configuration, then start a new cluster with the new configuration. That doesn't seem scalable.

As said previously, you don't need to delete the

minikube

cluster to add another node. You can run

$ minikube node add

to add a node on a

minikube

host. There are also options to

delete

/

stop

/

start

nodes.

Personally speaking if the workload that you are trying to run requires multiple nodes, I would try to consider other Kubernetes cluster built on top/with:

• Kubeadm

• Kubespray

• Microk8s

This would allow you to have more flexibility on where you want to create your Kubernetes cluster (as far as I know,

minikube

works within a single host (like your laptop for example)).

A side note!

There is an answer (written more than 2 years ago) which shows the way to add a Kubernetes cluster node to a

minikube

here :

• Stackoverflow.com: Answer: How do I get the minikube nodes in a local cluster

---

Additional resources:

• Kubernetes.io: Docs: Setup: Production environment: Tools: Kubeadm: Create cluster kubeadm
• Github.com: Kubernetes sigs: Kubespray
• Microk8s.io