Kubernetes is a powerful tool. It can help you manage complex applications and provide you with the ability to easily automate tasks involved in managing them. In this course, we will start exploring Kubernetes from a beginner's standpoint. We will discuss what Kubernetes is and what it does, and we will work with some of the basic functionality of Kubernetes hands-on. We will build a simple Kubernetes cluster. We will also deploy a sample microservice application to the cluster in order to explore how Kubernetes can help easily manage such applications.

A Practical Guide to Kubernetes

## Checking the Enviroment Variables
Another useful Minikube command to output the enviroment variables is `docker-env`:

export DOCKER_TLS_VERIFY="1"
export DOCKER_HOST="tcp://192.168.99.100:2376"
export DOCKER_CERT_PATH="/Users/educative/.minikube/certs"
export DOCKER_API_VERSION="1.23"
# Run this command to configure your shell:
# eval $(minikube docker-env)

If you have worked with Docker Machine, you'll notice that the output is the same. Both `docker-machine env` and `minikube docker-env` serve the same purpose. They output the environment variables required for a local Docker client to communicate with a remote Docker server. In this case, that Docker server is the one inside a VM created by Minikube. 
>**📝Note :** We assume that you already have Docker installed on your machine. If that's not the case, please go to the [Install Docker](https://docs.docker.com/engine/installation/) page and follow the instructions for your operating system. 

## Configuring the Shell
Once Docker is installed, we can connect the client running on your laptop with the server in the Minikube VM.

# Checking the Enviroment Variables
Another useful Minikube command to output the enviroment variables is `docker-env`:

If you have worked with Docker Machine, you'll notice that the output is the same. Both `docker-machine env` and `minikube docker-env` serve the same purpose. They output the environment variables required for a local Docker client to communicate with a remote Docker server. In this case, that Docker server is the one inside a VM created by Minikube. 
>**📝Note :** We assume that you already have Docker installed on your machine. If that's not the case, please go to the [Install Docker](https://docs.docker.com/engine/installation/) page and follow the instructions for your operating system. 

# Configuring the Shell
Once Docker is installed, we can connect the client running on your laptop with the server in the Minikube VM.

We evaluated (created) the environment variables provided through the `minikube docker-env` command. As a result, every command we send to our local Docker client will be executed on the Minikube VM. 

>📝 The above command will not result in any output to the console.
## Verification

We can test that easily by, for example, listing all the running containers on that VM.

Let's learn about some other useful Minikube commands.

Exploring Minikube Commands

Checking the Enviroment Variables

Configuring the Shell