Set up Minikube¶

This guide walks you through creating a local Kubernetes cluster with Minikube . Minikube runs Kubernetes on Linux, Windows, or macOS using a hypervisor (VirtualBox, KVM/QEMU, VMware Fusion, Hyper-V). It is a common way to try the Percona Operator for MongoDB locally before deploying to a cloud provider.

Prerequisites¶

Install Minikube using the official install guide for your system. That includes:

kubectl
A hypervisor (if not already installed)
The minikube binary

Create the Minikube cluster¶

Start Minikube with enough resources for the Operator and MongoDB (adjust memory, CPUs, and disk as needed):
```
minikube start --memory=5120 --cpus=4 --disk-size=30g
```
This downloads images, initializes the cluster, and starts it. Optionally run minikube dashboard to open the Kubernetes dashboard in your browser.
Verify the cluster is up:
```
kubectl get nodes
```

Delete Minikube¶

To stop or remove the Minikube cluster, see Delete the Operator and database.

Next steps¶

Deploy the Operator and Percona Server for MongoDB. For a minimal local deployment, use deploy/cr-minimal.yaml from the Operator repository instead of the default deploy/cr.yaml.

Single-namespace deployment Multi-namespace deployment

Last update: March 23, 2026
Created: March 23, 2026