How to Install OpenShift Local on Ubuntu (Beginner's Guide)

Want to run a real Red Hat OpenShift cluster on your own laptop, without paying for a cloud account? You can. OpenShift Local (also called CRC, short for CodeReady Containers) runs a full single-node OpenShift 4 cluster inside one virtual machine on your computer, so you can learn, test and build before anything goes near production.

This beginner's guide shows you how to install OpenShift Local on Ubuntu, one plain step at a time. You get the first two steps here, free. The complete 11-page PDF, with every command, a troubleshooting table and a first deployment, is a free download below.

Quick answer: how to install OpenShift Local on Ubuntu

Installing OpenShift Local on Ubuntu takes seven steps and about 45 to 60 minutes, most of it spent waiting for downloads.

1. Check your laptop: CPU virtualization, free memory and disk space.
2. Install KVM, libvirt and NetworkManager.
3. Download the crc tool and your pull secret from Red Hat, then install crc.
4. Set CPU, memory and disk with crc config.
5. Run crc setup, then crc start.
6. Log in with the oc command or the web console.
7. Deploy your first application.

What is OpenShift Local?

OpenShift Local is Red Hat's tool for running OpenShift 4 on a laptop or desktop. It used to be called CodeReady Containers, which is why the command is still crc. You only need a free Red Hat account to download it.

Inside one virtual machine you get the web console, the oc command line, Routes and builds from Git. The control plane and the worker are the same single node, so it is built for learning, development and testing, not for production.

Ubuntu is not on Red Hat's official Linux support list (that is RHEL, CentOS and Fedora), but it works once libvirt and NetworkManager are installed. crc setup may print a warning about the distribution. That is expected.