Unable to use external files for jobs through mounting

[mor619dx]

I'm using:
minikube start --driver=docker

I have a kubernetes yaml that runs a job that runs a pod which suppose to load data to a postgres database (another pod).

I'm running everything inside wsl 2.
The yaml is defined to use /mnt/AppData path on the local machine, when trying to use it I see that the pods are accessing the minikube vm /mnt/AppData instead of the local machine one.

Usually we put a file (for our new system installation) in that path and the script is accessing this file and using that file,
So I the pods can't access the local machine (wsl 2) storage for persistent or load of files.

I can't change the yaml files as this is our production files and we're using minikube for development purposes.

I saw some documentation on minikube mount command but it doesn't seem to work (returns an error):
stderr:
mount: /mnt: mount(2) system call failed: Connection refused.

How can I make my pods use and save files on my local machine? (through their defined volumes)

[andriyDev]

Persistent Volumes and Persistent Volume Claims may work. I'm not too well versed in them, but they should mount a directory in your pods that is persistent across restarts or whatnot.

I'm not entirely sure why you want to mount stuff to the guest, since pods shouldn't be able to access the guest's directories. minikube mount is meant for more Kubernetes config stuff from what I've seen.

That said, failing to mount in WSL is not ideal and should be fixed. I need to look into it some more.

[andriyDev]

@mor619dx Ok so I've done some playing around - minikube mount will not work by default. HOWEVER, it can work with the right args.

In your WSL, run ip addr and find the eth0 link's address. Let's say mine is 172.31.30.30. If you run minikube mount --ip 172.31.30.30, the files are indeed mounted on the guest. I'll look into making this the default behavior, but if your production files really need to access the host like that, it can.

Edit: These instructions were written for Ubuntu. I'm not sure what distrib you're using, but any distrib will have similar instructions. You just need to find the primary IP of WSL.

[mor619dx]

Indeed it does fix it, the mounting goes out of sync if the pod is started before you call the mounting and so I used to mount when starting minikube:
minikube start --mount --mount-string="/mnt/AppData:/mnt/AppData" --driver=docker

it actually works without the --ip when I use it through the start command (so only required when calling minikube mount)