Low overhead, on-demand Kubernetes clusters deployed on CI Workers Nodes with KinD

See also

• https://www.praqma.com/stories/testing-kubernetes-deployments-within-ci-pipelines/

On-Demand Private Kubernetes Cluster with KinD

Kubernetes-in-Docker (KinD) is an implementation of a Kubernetes cluster using Docker-in-Docker (DIND) technology. Docker-in-docker means that we can run containers inside containers and those inner containers are only visible inside the outer container.

KinD uses this to implement a cluster by using the outer container to implement Kubernetes cluster nodes.

When a Kubernetes POD is started on a node it is implemented with containers inside the outer node container.

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However, there are still many cases where testing with a KinD Kubernetes cluster is ideal, e.g. when you have Kubernetes-related artifacts to test like a Helm chart or YAML manifests, and when an external CI/staging Kubernetes cluster involves too much maintenance overhead or is too resource in-efficient.