Managing Multiple Services and Port-Forwards Efficiently in Minikube

3 minute read

Running tons of kubectl port-forward or minikube service commands manually gets painful fast (one terminal per forward, easy to lose, conflicts, etc.). Here are practical ways to handle many at once without going insane.

Use Minikube Service List

Before you start working with services, it is helpful to see the state of all your services in one view. You don’t need to run a command for each just to check the status:

minikube service list --namespace cld-streaming

Notice the following output:

┌───────────────┬────────────────────────────────┬──────────────────┬─────┐
│   NAMESPACE   │              NAME              │   TARGET PORT    │ URL │
├───────────────┼────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────┼─────┤
│ cld-streaming │ cloudera-surveyor-service      │ http/8080        │     │
│ cld-streaming │ flink-operator-webhook-service │ No node port     │     │
│ cld-streaming │ my-cluster-kafka-bootstrap     │ No node port     │     │
│ cld-streaming │ my-cluster-kafka-brokers       │ No node port     │     │
│ cld-streaming │ schema-registry-service        │ application/9090 │     │
│ cld-streaming │ ssb-mve                        │ No node port     │     │
│ cld-streaming │ ssb-postgresql                 │ No node port     │     │
│ cld-streaming │ ssb-session-admin              │ No node port     │     │
│ cld-streaming │ ssb-session-admin-rest         │ No node port     │     │
│ cld-streaming │ ssb-sse                        │ No node port     │     │
└───────────────┴────────────────────────────────┴──────────────────┴─────┘

This generates a clean table showing the current running services.

Run In Background With &

For minikube service:

minikube service cloudera-surveyor-service -n cld-streaming --url &
minikube service schema-registry-service -n cld-streaming --url & minikube service ssb-sse -n cld-streaming --url &

use & to chain multiple commands
use & on end to run in the background
use --url to just return the url w/o opening the browser

For kubectl port-forward:

   kubectl port-forward svc/qdrant 6333:6333 &
   kubectl port-forward svc/vllm-service 8000:8000 &
   kubectl port-forward svc/embedding-service 8080:8080 &
   kubectl port-forward svc/mynifi-web 8443:443 &

Add disown after each to detach completely: & disown
Check running: ps aux | grep port-forward
Kill: pkill -f "port-forward.*qdrant" (or by PID)

Use Bash Scripts

Create a file like minikube-services.sh:

#!/usr/bin/env bash

# List your services here
SERVICES=(
  "cloudera-surveyor-service"
  "schema-registry-service"
  "ssb-sse"
)
NAMESPACE="cld-streaming"

case $1 in
  start)
    for svc in "${SERVICES[@]}"; do
      # Use --url to prevent browser pop-up spam if preferred
      minikube service $svc --namespace $NAMESPACE & 
      echo "Starting tunnel for: $svc"
    done
    ;;
  stop)
    echo "Stopping all minikube service tunnels..."
    pkill -f "minikube service"
    ;;
  list)
    minikube service list -n $NAMESPACE
    ;;
  *)
    echo "Usage: ./streaming-ui.sh {start|stop|list}"
    ;;
esac

Then: ./minikube-services.sh start / stop / status

Create a file like port-forwards.sh:

   #!/usr/bin/env bash
   forwards=(
     "svc/qdrant 6333:6333"
     "svc/vllm-service 8000:8000"
     "svc/embedding-service 8080:8080"
     "svc/mynifi-web 8443:443"
     # add more
   )

   case $1 in
     start)
       for f in "${forwards[@]}"; do
         kubectl port-forward $f &> /dev/null &
         echo "Started: $f"
       done
       ;;
     stop)
       pkill -f "kubectl port-forward"
       ;;
     status)
       ps aux | grep port-forward | grep -v grep
       ;;
   esac

Then: ./port-forwards.sh start / stop / status

Summary: Choosing the Right Method

While both minikube service and kubectl port-forward allow you to access your cluster, they serve slightly different purposes in a development workflow:

Use minikube service when you need to access Web UIs (like the Cloudera Surveyor or SSB) and want Minikube to automatically handle the URL generation. Use the --url flag to keep your terminal clean and prevent excessive browser pop-ups.
Use kubectl port-forward for more granular control, such as connecting to specific databases (Qdrant) or backend APIs (vLLM) on static local ports.
Use Scripts once your stack grows beyond two or three services. Automating the start, stop, and status of your tunnels ensures your local environment remains performant and organized.

By moving these processes to the background, you can keep your focus on developing your streaming applications rather than managing network plumbing.