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I have been getting kubernetes setup on my laptop via minikube and I followed all the examples to the T, especially the part about creating a new external network and referencing that when you create the minikube (go search for a tutorial on setting up minikube on windows and they all say “create an external networkin hyper-v and reference that).

The problem is, if you already have a default external network (or another external network) that also uses the same physical network card then when the minikube virtual machine starts up, hyper-v behaves “erratically”. I setup a ping to my local router and started minikube and the network kept dropping out and generally being a bit rubbish.

It took me a few attempts of playing around with the network settings to get a vm that minikube could connect to and it sort of comes down to this:

• only have 1 external network per nic
• set the minikube vm to use that network, if it is the default one then specify that
• you can shut down and start the vm outside of minikube and it seems to be fine
• you can change the network on a vm and restart and it should be fine
• unless you have a particular sweet spot for your minikube vm, run minikube delete and recreate it with the correct switch (one and only external per nic) and all should be fine

Hope it helps someone else, minikube is pretty awesome!