Working Around Docker Desktop’s Outdated Kubernetes Version
As of the time that I published this blog post in early July 2020, Docker Desktop for macOS was at version 2.2.0.4 (for the “stable” channel). That version includes a relatively recent version of the Docker engine (19.03.8, compared to 19.03.12 on my Fedora 31 box), but a quite outdated version of Kubernetes (1.15.5, which isn’t supported by upstream). Now, this may not be a problem for users who only use Kubernetes via Docker Desktop. For me, however, the old version of Kubernetes—specifically the old version of kubectl—causes problems. Here’s how I worked around the old version that Docker Desktop supplies.
First, you’ll note that Docker Desktop automatically symlinks its version of kubectl into your system path at /usr/local/bin. You can verify the version of Docker Desktop’s kubectl by running this command:
/usr/local/bin/kubectl version --client=true
On my macOS 10.14.6-based system, this returned a version of 1.15.5. According to GitHub, v1.15.5 was released in October of 2019. Per the Kubernetes version skew policy, this version of kubectl would work with with 1.14, 1.15, and 1.16. What if I need to Continue reading





