<p>I'm very new to kubernetes and trying to conceptualize it as well as set it up locally in order to try developing something on it.</p>

<p>There's a confound though that I am running on a windows machine.</p>

<p>Their "getting started" documentation in github says you have to run Linux to use kubernetes.</p>

<p>As docker runs on windows, I was wondering if it was possible to create a kubernetes instance as a container in windows docker and use it to manage the rest of the cluster in the same windows docker instance.</p>

<p>From reading the setup instructions, it seems like docker, kubernetes, and something called etcd all have to run "in parallel" on a single host operating system... But part of me thinks it might be possible to</p>

<ol>
<li>Start docker, boot 'default' machine.  </li>
<li>Create kubernetes container - configure to communicate with the existing docker 'default' machine</li>
<li>Use kubernetes to manage existing docker.  </li>
</ol>

<p>Pipe dream? Wrongheaded foolishness? I see there are some options around running it in a vagrant instance. Does that mean docker, etcd, &amp; kubernetes together in a single VM (which in turn creates a cluster of virtual machines inside it?)</p>

<p>I feel like I need to draw a picture of what this all looks like in terms of physical hardware and "memory boxes" to really wrap my head around this.</p>

<p>With Windows, you need <strong><a href="https://docs.docker.com/machine/" rel="nofollow">docker-machine</a></strong> and boot2docker VMs to run anything docker related.<br>
There is no (not yet) "docker for Windows".</p>

<p>Note that <a href="https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/issues/7428" rel="nofollow">issue 7428</a> mentioned "Can't run kubernetes within boot2docker".<br>
So even when you <a href="https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/blob/master/docs/getting-started-guides/docker.md" rel="nofollow">follow instructions</a> (from a default VM created with docker-machine), you might still <a href="https://gist.github.com/acroca/dac7cdc196b26c6ae65d" rel="nofollow">get errors</a>:</p>

<pre><code>➜  workspace  docker run --net=host -d -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock  gcr.io/google_containers/hyperkube:v0.14.2 /hyperkube kubelet --api_servers=http://localhost:8080 --v=2 --address=0.0.0.0 --enable_server --hostname_override=127.0.0.1 --config=/etc/kubernetes/manifests
ee0b490f74f6bc9b70c1336115487b38d124bdcebf09b248cec91832e0e9af1d

➜  workspace  docker logs -f ee0b490f74f6bc9b70c1336115487b38d124bdcebf09b248cec91832e0e9af1d
W0428 09:09:41.479862       1 server.go:249] Could not load kubernetes auth path: stat : no such file or directory. Continuing with defaults.
I0428 09:09:41.479989       1 server.go:168] Using root directory: /var/lib/kubelet
</code></pre>

<p>The alternative would be to try on a full-fledge Linux VM (like the latest Ubuntu), instead of a boot2docker-like VM (based on a <a href="http://tinycorelinux.net/" rel="nofollow">TinyCore distro</a>).</p>
