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Labs

Minikube: Using Helm

In this hands-on lab we will be looking at using Helm to deploy a microservice stack in our Minikube cluster. We will be using the Instana robot-shop application as an example.

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Lab platform
Lab Info
Level
Beginner
Last updated
Sep 21, 2025
Duration
30m

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Table of Contents
  1. Challenge

    Start the Minikube Cluster Using the Correct Driver

    Issue the command to start Minikube

    sudo minikube start --vm-driver none
    
  2. Challenge

    Unpack Helm, Move it into the Path, Install Socat and Run helm init

    Unpack the helm.tar.gz file that is sitting in our home directory:

    tar -xvzf ~/helm.tar.gz
    

    Move the helm and tiller executables into the path at /usr/local/bin:

    sudo mv ./linux-amd64/helm /usr/local/bin
    sudo mv ./linux-amd64/tiller /usr/local/bin
    

    To test, run helm version from our home directory. This means it's in our path and we can run helm commands from anywhere.

    Initialize Helm:

    sudo helm init
    

    Check that helm and tiller are up and available:

    sudo helm version
    

    Helm requires socat in order to run, but it is already installed on your lab server.

  3. Challenge

    Install the Robot-Shop Application into Its Own Namespace via Helm

    Get into the directory containing the Helm chart:

    cd ~/robot-shop/K8s/helm
    

    Create the name space:

    sudo kubectl create namespace robot-shop
    

    Run the Helm installation:

    sudo helm install --name robot-shop --namespace robot-shop .
    

    Verify that the pods are running:

    sudo kubectl -n robot-shop get po
    

    It might take a couple of minutes for all the pods to stand up.

  4. Challenge

    Edit the Web Service to Use Nodeport and Configure Nginx to Proxy to the Web Service

    Edit the web service:

    sudo kubectl -n robot-shop edit service web
    

    Edit the service spec similar to this (changing LoadBalancer to NodePort):

      selector:
        service: web
      sessionAffinity: None
      type: NodePort
    

    Make sure our change took effect:

    sudo kubectl -n robot-shop get service web
    

    Get the target port from Minikube:

    sudo minikube service list
    

    Pay attention to TARGET PORT on web. We'll need that in a minute.

    Configure Nginx to proxy to the target port from service list. Get the file open for editing:

    sudo vim /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default
    

    Now, down at about line 50, we've got to change something in the location section. We'll paste that TARGET PORT we saw earlier in here, replacing the existing line with what's shown here (the proxy_pass line):

    location / {
            # First attempt to serve request as file, then
            # as directory, then fall back to displaying a 404.
            proxy_pass http://<minikube IP>:<svc port>;
    

    Our changes should take effect after an Nginx restart:

    sudo systemctl restart nginx
    

    Open a browser and point it to our server's public IP address to ensure the application is running.

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