Installation

What is Sveltos?

Sveltos is a set of Kubernetes controllers deployed in the management cluster. From the management cluster, it can manage add-ons and applications to multiple clusters.

Installation Modes

Sveltos supports two modes: Mode 1 and Mode 2.

Mode 1: Will deploy up to two agents, sveltos-agent and drift-detection-manager¹, in each managed cluster.
Mode 2: Sveltos agents will be created, per managed cluster, in the management cluster². The agents, while centrally located, will still monitor their designated managed cluster’s API server. Sveltos leaves no footprint on managed clusters in this mode.

Mode 1: Local Agent Mode (Manifest)

Execute the below commands.

$ kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/projectsveltos/sveltos/v0.52.3/manifest/manifest.yaml

$ kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/projectsveltos/sveltos/v0.52.3/manifest/default-instances.yaml

Mode 2: Centralised Agent Mode (Manifest)

If you do not want to have any Sveltos agent in any managed cluster, run the commands below.

$ kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/projectsveltos/sveltos/v0.52.3/manifest/agents_in_mgmt_cluster_manifest.yaml

$ kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/projectsveltos/sveltos/v0.52.3/manifest/default-instances.yaml

Warning

Both deployment methods install Sveltos in the projectsveltos namespace.

Deployment Options

Sveltos can be installed as a Helm Chart or with Kustomize. By default, Mode 1 will get deployed unless otherwise specified.

Warning

Ensure Sveltos is deployed in the projectsveltos namespace.

Helm Installation

Helm Chart Upgrade Notes

When deploying Sveltos with Helm, the helm upgrade command will not automatically update Sveltos's Custom Resource Definitions (CRDs) if they have changed in the new chart version. This is a standard Helm behavior to prevent accidental changes to CRDs that might disrupt existing resources. Manually update of the CRDs before upgrading Sveltos is required.

$ kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/projectsveltos/sveltos/v0.52.3/manifest/crds/sveltos_crds.yaml

Sveltos offers a dedicated Helm chart for managing its CRDs, which is the recommended and most reliable approach.

$ helm install projectsveltos/sveltos-crds projectsveltos/sveltos-crds

Retrieve Latest Helm Chart

$ helm repo add projectsveltos https://projectsveltos.github.io/helm-charts

$ helm repo update

Mode 1: Local Agent Mode

$ helm install projectsveltos projectsveltos/projectsveltos -n projectsveltos --create-namespace

$ helm list -n projectsveltos

Mode 2: Centralised Agent Mode

$ helm install projectsveltos projectsveltos/projectsveltos -n projectsveltos --create-namespace --set agent.managementCluster=true

$ helm list -n projectsveltos

Kustomize Installation

Mode 1: Local Agent Mode

$ kustomize build https://github.com/projectsveltos/sveltos.git//kustomize/base\?timeout\=120\&ref\=v0.52.3 |kubectl apply -f -

$ kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/projectsveltos/sveltos/v0.52.3/manifest/default-instances.yaml

Mode 2: Centralised Agent Mode

$ kustomize build https://github.com/projectsveltos/sveltos.git//kustomize/overlays/agentless-mode\?timeout\=120\&ref\=v0.52.3 |kubectl apply -f -

$ kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/projectsveltos/sveltos/v0.52.3/manifest/default-instances.yaml

Sveltos Verification

Get the Sveltos status and verify that all pods are Up and Running.

projectsveltos access-manager-69d7fd69fc-7r4lw         2/2     Running   0  40s
projectsveltos addon-controller-df8965884-x7hp5        2/2     Running   0  40s
projectsveltos classifier-manager-6489f67447-52xd6     2/2     Running   0  40s
projectsveltos hc-manager-7b6d7c4968-x8f7b             2/2     Running   0  39s
projectsveltos sc-manager-cb6786669-9qzdw              2/2     Running   0  40s
projectsveltos event-manager-7b885dbd4c-tmn6m          2/2     Running   0  40s

Optional Components

Sveltos Dashboard

To include the Sveltos Dashboard, follow the instructions found in the dashboard section.

Grafana Dashboard

Sveltos also offers a Grafana dashboard to help users track and visualize a number of operational metrics. More can be found in the Sveltos Grafana Dashboard section.

Next Steps

Continue with the sveltoctl command-line interface (CLI) definition and installation here.

sveltos-agent will be deployed if there is at least one Classifier instance in the management cluster. Drift detection manager will be deployed if there is a ClusterProfile instance with SyncMode set to ContinuousWithDriftDetection. ↩
If Prometheus operator is not present in your management cluster, you will see (and can ignore) following error: error: unable to recognize "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/projectsveltos/sveltos/v0.52.3/manifest/manifest.yaml": no matches for kind "ServiceMonitor" in version "monitoring.coreos.com/v1" ↩
Sveltos collects minimal, anonymised data. That includes the version information alognside cluster management data (number of managed SveltosClusters, CAPI clusters, number of ClusterProdiles/Profiles and ClusterSummaries). To opt-out, for Helm-based installations use helm install projectsveltos projectsveltos/projectsveltos -n projectsveltos --create-namespace --set telemetry.disabled=true and for manual deployment use the --disable-telemetry=true flag in the Sveltos addon-controller configuration. ↩