This guide shows how to run Kubernetes in a Windows Host, using kind to run the control plane in Docker and WSL 2 to run Docker itself.

The whole point of doing that is to run Kubernetes:

1. In a Windows Host
2. Without using virtualization
3. Without using Docker Desktop's native Kubernetes feature (as it might break other workflows that do not relly on k8s).

To use this guide, just follow each session sequentially. There are no optional steps.

scoop is a lightweight package manager for Windows. It installs applications in ~/.scoop and adds then to PATH. We will use it to install CLI tools.

Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned -scope CurrentUser
iwr -useb get.scoop.sh | iex
scoop --version

kind is a tool for running local Kubernetes clusters using Docker containers as “nodes”.

kubectl is a tool that allows runing commands against Kubernetes clusters.

We will install those tools using scoop.

scoop install kind kubectl
kind version
kubectl version --client

Docker Desktop an application created by Docker Inc.'s (the company that created Docker, the technology). It provides a user friendly graphical user interface to run and inspect Docker containers. It also creates and manages a virtual machine in which containers are executed. That allows Windows users to run Linux containers. The most recent versions of Docker for Desktop run containers using WSL 2, which is a Windows subsystem that ships a Linux kernel, allowing users to run Linux distros in Windows without the overhead of a virtual machine.

To install Docker Desktop, download it from the official web page and follow the interactive graphical installer (this will require privillege elevation).

Create a cluster by invoking kind, then check if kubectl is configured correctly:

kind create cluster
kubectl cluster-info --context kind-kind

If everything was setup correctly, you should see a message like so:

Kubernetes control plane is running at https://127.0.0.1:62109
CoreDNS is running at https://127.0.0.1:62109/api/v1/namespaces/kube-system/services/kube-dns:dns/proxy

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

That's it. You can now run commands against your cluster using kubectl or use graphical tools like Lens.