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‎content/posts/kind-macos.md

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# Running Kubernetes in Docker (kind) on Macos
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---
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title: Running IPv6 enabled Kubernetes on a MacOS
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date: 2025-03-15
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tags: ["Kubernetes", "IPv6", "Cilium"]
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author: "Kapil Agrawal"
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comments: false
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---
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If you use MacOS as your daily driver and need a functional IPv6 enabled Kubernetes cluster for local development/testing this article is meant for you! I have been using [orbstack](https://orbstack.dev) for a few years now as a drop in replacement for Docker desktop and I have to say it's beyond impressive in terms of performance and features. My main motivation to move away from Docker desktop was the lack of support IPv6 on a MacOS and the horrendous performance. The next thing I tried was Colima which is quite flexible but still [lacks IPv6 support on MacOS](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41422931).
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While there are multiple kubernetes distributions such as [minikube](https://github.com/kubernetes/minikube/issues/8535), [k3d](https://github.com/k3d-io/k3d/issues/833) which work quite well on a MacOS, neither of those support IPv6 😭 Eventually I ended up trying [KIND](https://kind.sigs.k8s.io) and turns out, it works perfectly fine with IPv6 and is fully customizable 🎉
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If you look under the hood, Kubernetes is an API server which relies on composable set of components to build a distributed system. Kubernetes by itself does not handle networking just as it does not handle managing container lifecycle, it relies on a container runtime such as containerd. Similarly, k8s relies on a container network interface [CNI] (https://cni.dev) which is the component that manages cluster networking and routing network traffic in and out of the cluster. I will write more about CNI's in a separate blog post ;) But to make a Kubernetes cluster IPv6 capable, we need to install a CNI which supports IPv6. Cilium is my CNI of choice as it support IPv6, has a large community around it and is a CNCF graduate project which speaks for it's maturity.
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**To get a functional IPv6 capable kubernetes cluster on a MacOS we need the following**
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I have been using [orbstack](https://orbstack.dev) for over two years now as a drop in replacement for Docker desktop and I have to say it's beyond impressive in terms of performance and feature set. My main motivation to move away from Docker desktop was because it does not support IPv6 on a MacOS. The next thing I tried was Colima but that doesn't support IPv6 either.
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- [orbstack](https://orbstack.dev)
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- [KIND](https://kind.sigs.k8s.io)
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- [Cilium] (https://cilium.io)
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### Orbstack supports IPv6 containers on MacOS
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After installing [orbstack](https://orbstack.dev) make sure your docker context is pointing to Orbstack. You may have to explicitly switch the docker context to orbstack if you have Docker desktop installed. In my case, I uninstalled Docker desktop.
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```bash
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~
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❯ docker context ls
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NAME DESCRIPTION DOCKER ENDPOINT ERROR
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default Current DOCKER_HOST based configuration unix:///var/run/docker.sock
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desktop-linux unix:///Users/kagraw/.docker/run/docker.sock
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orbstack * OrbStack unix:///Users/kagraw/.orbstack/run/docker.sock
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```
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Enable IPv6 in Docker daemon with the following config.
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```sh
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❯ cat .orbstack/config/docker.json
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{
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"ip6tables" : false,
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"ipv6" : true
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}
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```
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Create a file named `kind-config.yaml` to pre-configure KIND with the following config options. Notice that I am disabling the default CNI (flannel) so I can install Cilium 😋
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#### kind-config.yaml
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```YAML
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---
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ipFamily: dual
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disableDefaultCNI: true
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# IPv6 prefix must be specified first
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serviceSubnet: fd00:10:96::/112,10.96.0.0/12
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serviceSubnet: fd00:10:96::/112,10.96.0.0/16
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nodes:
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- role: control-plane
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- role: worker
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- role: worker
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```
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#### IPv6 enabled #KIND cluster
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### Create KIND cluster
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The following snippet assumes that you already have the following already installed on your Mac. If not, you can install them using homebrew.
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- `helm`
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- `kubectl`
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- `cilium-cli`
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```bash
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# Creates a new cluster with our custom config
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❯ kind create cluster --config kind-config.yaml
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Creating cluster "kind" ...
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✓ Ensuring node image (kindest/node:v1.32.2) 🖼
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✓ Preparing nodes 📦 📦 📦
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✓ Writing configuration 📜
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✓ Starting control-plane 🕹️
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✓ Installing StorageClass 💾
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✓ Joining worker nodes 🚜
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Set kubectl context to "kind-kind"
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You can now use your cluster with:
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kubectl cluster-info --context kind-kind
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Thanks for using kind! 😊
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```
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# Creates a new cluster
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❯ kind create cluster --config ~/.config/kind/kind-config.yaml
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# Install Cilium with IPv6 enabled
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❯ helm install cilium cilium/cilium --namespace=kube-system --set ipv6.enabled=true
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Next we install Cilium CNI with IPv6 enabled
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```sh
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❯ helm install cilium cilium/cilium --namespace=kube-system --set ipv6.enabled=true --set ipam.mode=kubernetes
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```
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#### Delete a #KIND cluster
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Optionally, we can enable Hubble as well!
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```bash
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❯ helm upgrade -n kube-system \
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cilium cilium/cilium \
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--reuse-values --version 1.17.1 \
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--set hubble.relay.enabled=true \
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--set hubble.ui.enabled=true
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```
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❯ kind delete cluster --name $(kind get clusters)
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The installation takes about 2-3 mins. We can monitor progress using the following
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```
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❯ cilium status --wait
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❯ kubectl get nodes -o wide | awk '{print $1, $2, $3, $5, $6}' | column -t
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NAME STATUS ROLES VERSION INTERNAL-IP
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kind-control-plane Ready control-plane v1.32.2 fc00:f853:ccd:e793::2
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kind-worker Ready worker v1.32.2 fc00:f853:ccd:e793::3
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kind-worker2 Ready worker v1.32.2 fc00:f853:ccd:e793::4
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```
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Now let's try deploying a simple application and verify connectivity over IPv6.
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### Deploy an app and verify connectivity over IPv6
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```bash
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❯ kubectl create deployment --image nginx nginx --port 80
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deployment.apps/nginx created
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❯ kubectl expose deployment nginx --type NodePort
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service/nginx exposed
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❯ kubectl get svc
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NAME TYPE CLUSTER-IP EXTERNAL-IP PORT(S) AGE
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nginx NodePort fd00:10:96::dbc9 <none> 80:30368/TCP 12s
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```
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External IP shows as none but that is expected since we created a service of type `NodePort` which is exposed over port `30368`. To access a NodePort service we can send a http GET request to any of the cluster nodes over this port.
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```bash
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❯ curl -6 http://\[fc00:f853:ccd:e793::3\]:30368
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<!DOCTYPE html>
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<html>
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<head>
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<title>Welcome to nginx!</title>
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<style>
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html { color-scheme: light dark; }
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body { width: 35em; margin: 0 auto;
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font-family: Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; }
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</style>
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</head>
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<body>
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<h1>Welcome to nginx!</h1>
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<p>If you see this page, the nginx web server is successfully installed and
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working. Further configuration is required.</p>
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<p>For online documentation and support please refer to
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<a href="http://nginx.org/">nginx.org</a>.<br/>
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Commercial support is available at
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<a href="http://nginx.com/">nginx.com</a>.</p>
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<p><em>Thank you for using nginx.</em></p>
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</body>
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</html>
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```
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Voila!🍾 our application is running on Kubernetes and is accessible over IPv6!
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### Conclusion
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Running an IPv6 capable Kubernetes cluster is absolutely possible on a MacOS and developers can leverage this setup to develop and test their applications in a IPv6 native environment.

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