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Install

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.

Mode 1: Local Agent Mode

To install Sveltos in mode 1, run the commands below.

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

$ kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/projectsveltos/sveltos/main/manifest/default-classifier.yaml

Mode 2: Centralised Agent Mode

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/main/manifest/agents_in_mgmt_cluster_manifest.yaml

$ kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/projectsveltos/sveltos/main/manifest/default-classifier.yaml

Sveltos uses the git-flow branching model. The base branch is dev. If you are looking for latest features, please use the dev branch. If you are looking for a stable version, please use the main branch or tags labeled as v0.x.x.

Warning

Both deployments will perform the Sveltos installation in the projectsveltos namespace.

Tip

For production environments, using a release tag instead of the 'main' branch is recommended to ensure a smooth upgrade process for Sveltos applications.

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. This is a requirement.

Helm Installation

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

$ helm repo update

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

$ helm list -n projectsveltos

Note

When deploying Sveltos with Helm, the helm upgrade command won't automatically update Sveltos's Custom Resource Definitions (CRDs). To ensure CRDs are updated, run this command before upgrading Sveltos. 

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

Kustomize Installation

Mode 1: Local Agent Mode

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

$ kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/projectsveltos/sveltos/main/manifest/default-classifier.yaml

Mode 2: Centralised Agent Mode

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

$ kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/projectsveltos/sveltos/main/manifest/default-classifier.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

Sveltos Dashboard

The Sveltos Dashboard is an optional component of Sveltos. To include it in the deployment, follow the instructions found in the dashboard section.

Note

v0.38.4 is the first Sveltos release that includes the dashboard and it is compatible with Kubernetes v1.28.0 and higher.

Grafana Dashboard

Sveltos also offers a Grafana dashboard to help users track and visualize a number of operational metrics. Instructions on setting up the Grafana dashboard can be found in the sveltos-grafana dashboard section.

dashboard

v1alpha1 CRDs

The current version of Sveltos CRD is v1beta1. If you're still using v1alpha1, you'll need to deploy Sveltos conversion webhook. This webhook requires cert-manager to be installed and running in your management cluster. Without cert-manager, Sveltos may not function correctly.

To install Sveltos conversion webhook, run the commands below.

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

To install cert-manager:

General information about cert-manager, have a look here.

Next Steps

Contiunue with the Sveltoctl command-line interface (CLI) definition and installation here.

  1. 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. ↩

  2. 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/main/manifest/manifest.yaml": no matches for kind "ServiceMonitor" in version "monitoring.coreos.com/v1" ↩