Kubernetes Development with Red Hat OpenShift Local

Developing for OpenShift doesn't require a cloud cluster anymore. Red Hat OpenShift Local (formerly CodeReady Containers) runs a single-node OpenShift cluster on your laptop in minutes. This guide shows you how to get it running and use it for realistic local development against an OpenShift environment.

What Is OpenShift Local?

Red Hat OpenShift Local is a tool that creates a minimal OpenShift cluster running inside a single virtual machine on your development machine. It includes the OpenShift API server, etcd, kubelet, and key cluster operators. The cluster is pre-configured with developer and kubeadmin users, a built-in image registry, and OpenShift's standard security defaults (Security Context Constraints).

This makes it an excellent tool for developing and testing applications that will run on production OpenShift clusters where SCCs, RBAC, and other OpenShift-specific behaviors apply. Catching SCC compatibility issues locally is far faster than debugging them in a shared dev environment.

Installation

System requirements: macOS 12+, Windows 10+, or Linux (RHEL, Fedora, CentOS Stream). Minimum specs: 4 vCPUs, 9 GB RAM, 35 GB storage. The cluster uses your machine's resources, so performance improves significantly with more RAM allocated (16+ GB recommended for comfortable development).

• Download CRC from cloud.redhat.com/openshift/create/local (requires free Red Hat account)
• Download your pull secret from the same page (authenticates the cluster to Red Hat registries)
• Run: crc setup (installs virtualization drivers and configures the hypervisor)
• Run: crc start --pull-secret-file pull-secret.txt (starts the VM and boots the cluster — takes 10-15 minutes first run)
• Run: eval $(crc oc-env) to configure oc and kubectl to point at the local cluster

Accessing the Cluster

OpenShift Local provides two pre-configured users. The developer user (oc login -u developer) is for application workloads — it has project creation rights but limited cluster access. The kubeadmin user (credentials shown by crc console --credentials) has full cluster-admin access for configuring SCCs, inspecting cluster operators, and debugging platform issues.

Access the web console with: crc console. This opens the OpenShift web console in your browser — identical to the production OpenShift UI. Use it to explore operator status, review cluster events, and access the Developer perspective for application workload management.

Local Development Workflow

The most common issue when moving applications to OpenShift: containers that run fine on standard Kubernetes fail due to SCC restrictions. OpenShift Local replicates these restrictions locally. Before pushing changes to a shared dev cluster, test your Deployment manifests locally to catch: containers expecting to run as root, hostPath volume mounts, containers needing specific UIDs, and images from public registries not mirrored to the internal registry.

Use the built-in image registry (default-route-openshift-image-registry.apps-crc.testing) to push images locally without pulling from Docker Hub. This also tests your image pull configuration for production environments that use an internal registry.

Resource Allocation and Performance Tips

• Increase memory allocation: crc config set memory 12288 (12GB) for better developer experience
• Increase CPU: crc config set cpus 6 for faster build and deployment times
• Stop the cluster when not in use: crc stop saves system resources between development sessions

THNKBIG's OpenShift practice helps organizations establish developer-friendly local development workflows that mirror production OpenShift environments. Contact us to discuss OpenShift development environment setup and training for your engineering team.