Installing from the Command Line

This topic describes how to install an application with Replicated KOTS, Replicated Embedded Cluster, or Replicated kURL from the command line.

Overview

You can use the command line to install an application with Replicated KOTS, Replicated Embedded Cluster, or Replicated kURL. A common use case for installing from the command line is to automate installation, such as performing headless installations as part of CI/CD pipelines.

To install from the command line, you provide all the necessary installation assets, such as the license file and the application config values, with the installation command rather than through the Admin Console UI. Any preflight checks defined for the application run automatically during headless installations from the command line rather than being displayed in the Admin Console.

Prerequisite

Create a ConfigValues YAML file to define the configuration values for the application release. You will pass the ConfigValues file with the installation command. For air-gapped environments, ensure that the ConfigValues file can be accessed from the installation environment.

For more information, see Generating a ConfigValues File.

Example:

apiVersion: kots.io/v1beta1
kind: ConfigValues
spec:
  values:
    text_config_field_name:
      default: Example default value
      value: Example user-provided value
    boolean_config_field_name:
      value: "1"
    password_config_field_name:
      valuePlaintext: examplePassword

Install

Embedded Cluster

To install with Embedded Cluster in an online environment:

Follow the steps provided in the Vendor Portal to download and untar the Embedded Cluster installation assets. For more information, see Online Installation with Embedded Cluster.
Run the following command to install:
```
sudo ./APP_SLUG install --license-file PATH_TO_LICENSE \
  --config-values PATH_TO_CONFIGVALUES \
  --admin-console-password ADMIN_CONSOLE_PASSWORD
```
Replace:
- APP_SLUG with the unique slug for the application.
- LICENSE_FILE with the customer license.
- ADMIN_CONSOLE_PASSWORD with a password for accessing the Admin Console.
- PATH_TO_CONFIGVALUES with the path to the ConfigValues file. See Generating a ConfigValues File.

KOTS in an Existing Cluster

To install with KOTS in an existing cluster:

Install the KOTS CLI:
```
curl https://kots.io/install | bash
```
For more installation options, see Installing the KOTS CLI.
Install the application:
```
kubectl kots install APP_NAME \
  --shared-password PASSWORD \
  --license-file PATH_TO_LICENSE \
  --config-values PATH_TO_CONFIGVALUES \
  --namespace NAMESPACE \
  --no-port-forward
```
Replace:
- APP_NAME with a name for the application. This is the unique name that KOTS will use to refer to the application that you install.
- PASSWORD with a shared password for accessing the Admin Console.
- PATH_TO_LICENSE with the path to your license file. See Downloading Customer Licenses. For information about how to download licenses with the Vendor API v3, see Download a customer license file as YAML in the Vendor API v3 documentation.
- PATH_TO_CONFIGVALUES with the path to the ConfigValues file. See Generating a ConfigValues File.
- NAMESPACE with the namespace where you want to install both the application and KOTS.
The following shows an example of the output from the kots install command:
```
• Deploying Admin Console
  • Creating namespace ✓
  • Waiting for datastore to be ready ✓
• Waiting for Admin Console to be ready ✓
• Waiting for installation to complete ✓
• Waiting for preflight checks to complete ✓

• Press Ctrl+C to exit
• Go to http://localhost:8800 to access the Admin Console

• Go to http://localhost:8888 to access the application
```

kURL

When you use the KOTS CLI to install an application in a kURL cluster, you first run the kURL installation script to provision the cluster and automatically install KOTS in the cluster. Then, you can run the kots install command to install the application.

To install with kURL on a VM or bare metal server:

Create the kURL cluster:

curl -sSL https://k8s.kurl.sh/APP_NAME | sudo bash

Install the application in the cluster:
```
kubectl kots install APP_NAME \
  --shared-password PASSWORD \
  --license-file PATH_TO_LICENSE \
  --config-values PATH_TO_CONFIGVALUES \
  --namespace default \
  --no-port-forward
```
Replace:
- APP_NAME with a name for the application. This is the unique name that KOTS will use to refer to the application that you install.
- PASSWORD with a shared password for accessing the Admin Console.
- PATH_TO_LICENSE with the path to your license file. See Downloading Customer Licenses. For information about how to download licenses with the Vendor API v3, see Download a customer license file as YAML in the Vendor API v3 documentation.
- PATH_TO_CONFIGVALUES with the path to the ConfigValues file. See Generating a ConfigValues File.
- NAMESPACE with the namespace where Replicated kURL installed Replicated KOTS when creating the cluster. By default, kURL installs KOTS in the default namespace.

Air Gap Install

Embedded Cluster

To install with Embedded Cluster in an air-gapped environment:

Follow the steps provided in the Vendor Portal to download and untar the Embedded Cluster air gap installation assets. For more information, see Air Gap Installation with Embedded Cluster.
Ensure that the Embedded Cluster installation assets are available on the air-gapped machine, then run the following command to install:
```
sudo ./APP_SLUG install --license-file PATH_TO_LICENSE \
  --config-values PATH_TO_CONFIGVALUES \
  --admin-console-password ADMIN_CONSOLE_PASSWORD \
  --airgap-bundle PATH_TO_AIRGAP_BUNDLE
```
Replace:
- APP_SLUG with the unique slug for the application.
- LICENSE_FILE with the customer license.
- PATH_TO_CONFIGVALUES with the path to the ConfigValues file. See Generating a ConfigValues File.
- ADMIN_CONSOLE_PASSWORD with a password for accessing the Admin Console.
- PATH_TO_AIRGAP_BUNDLE with the path to the Embedded Cluster .airgap bundle for the release.

KOTS in an Existing Cluster

To install with KOTS in an air-gapped existing cluster:

Install the KOTS CLI. See Manually Download and Install in Installing the KOTS CLI.
Download the kotsadm.tar.gz air gap bundle from the Releases page in the kots repository in GitHub. Ensure that you can access the downloaded bundle from the environment where you will install the application.

note
The version of the kotsadm.tar.gz air gap bundle used must be compatible with the version of the .airgap bundle for the given application release.

note
The versions of the KOTS CLI and the kotsadm.tar.gz bundle must match. You can check the version of the KOTS CLI with kubectl kots version.
Extract the KOTS Admin Console container images from the kotsadm.tar.gz bundle and push the images to your private registry:
```
kubectl kots admin-console push-images ./kotsadm.tar.gz REGISTRY_HOST \
  --registry-username RW_USERNAME \
  --registry-password RW_PASSWORD
```
Replace:
- REGISTRY_HOST with the hostname for the private registry. For example, private.registry.host or my-registry.example.com/my-namespace.
- RW_USERNAME and RW_PASSWORD with the username and password for an account that has read and write access to the private registry.
  
  note
  KOTS does not store or reuse these read-write credentials.
Install the application:
```
kubectl kots install APP_NAME \
  --shared-password PASSWORD \
  --license-file PATH_TO_LICENSE \
  --config-values PATH_TO_CONFIGVALUES \
  --airgap-bundle PATH_TO_AIRGAP_BUNDLE \
  --namespace NAMESPACE \
  --kotsadm-registry REGISTRY_HOST \
  --registry-username RO_USERNAME \
  --registry-password RO_PASSWORD \
  --no-port-forward
```
Replace:
- APP_NAME with a name for the application. This is the unique name that KOTS will use to refer to the application that you install.
- PASSWORD with a shared password for accessing the Admin Console.
- PATH_TO_LICENSE with the path to your license file. See Downloading Customer Licenses. For information about how to download licenses with the Vendor API v3, see Download a customer license file as YAML in the Vendor API v3 documentation.
- PATH_TO_CONFIGVALUES with the path to the ConfigValues file. See Generating a ConfigValues File.
- PATH_TO_AIRGAP_BUNDLE with the path to the .airgap bundle for the application release. You can build and download the air gap bundle for a release in the Vendor Portal on the Release history page for the channel where the release is promoted.
  
  Alternatively, for information about building and downloading air gap bundles with the Vendor API v3, see Trigger airgap build for a channel's release and Get airgap bundle download URL for the active release on the channel in the Vendor API v3 documentation.
- NAMESPACE with the namespace where you want to install both the application and KOTS.
- REGISTRY_HOST with the same hostname for the private registry where you pushed the Admin Console images.
- RO_USERNAME and RO_PASSWORD with the username and password for an account that has read-only access to the private registry.
  
  note
  KOTS stores these read-only credentials in a Kubernetes secret in the same namespace where the Admin Console is installed.
  KOTS uses these credentials to pull the images. To allow KOTS to pull images, the credentials are automatically created as an imagePullSecret on all of the Admin Console Pods.

kURL

To install in an air-gapped kURL cluster:

Download the kURL .tar.gz air gap bundle:

export REPLICATED_APP=APP_SLUG
curl -LS https://k8s.kurl.sh/bundle/$REPLICATED_APP.tar.gz -o $REPLICATED_APP.tar.gz

Where APP_SLUG is the unqiue slug for the application.

In your installation environment, extract the contents of the kURL .tar.gz bundle that you downloaded:
```
tar -xvzf $REPLICATED_APP.tar.gz
```
Create the kURL cluster:
```
cat install.sh | sudo bash -s airgap
```
Install the application:
```
kubectl kots install APP_NAME \
  --shared-password PASSWORD \
  --license-file PATH_TO_LICENSE \
  --config-values PATH_TO_CONFIGVALUES \
  --airgap-bundle PATH_TO_AIRGAP_BUNDLE \
  --namespace default \
  --no-port-forward
```
Replace:
- APP_NAME with a name for the application. This is the unique name that KOTS will use to refer to the application that you install.
- PASSWORD with a shared password for accessing the Admin Console.
- PATH_TO_LICENSE with the path to your license file. See Downloading Customer Licenses. For information about how to download licenses with the Vendor API v3, see Download a customer license file as YAML in the Vendor API v3 documentation.
- PATH_TO_CONFIGVALUES with the path to the ConfigValues file. See Generating a ConfigValues File.
- PATH_TO_AIRGAP_BUNDLE with the path to the .airgap bundle for the application release. You can build and download the air gap bundle for a release in the Vendor Portal on the Release history page for the channel where the release is promoted.
  
  Alternatively, for information about building and downloading air gap bundles with the Vendor API v3, see Trigger airgap build for a channel's release and Get airgap bundle download URL for the active release on the channel in the Vendor API v3 documentation.
- NAMESPACE with the namespace where Replicated kURL installed Replicated KOTS when creating the cluster. By default, kURL installs KOTS in the default namespace.

(Optional) Access the Admin Console

When you install an application in an existing cluster or when you provision a cluster with the kURL installer, you also install KOTS in the cluster. KOTS deploys the Admin Console. The Admin Console is a user interface where you can manage and upgrade your application instances.

By default, during installation, KOTS automatically opens localhost port 8800 to provide access to the Admin Console. The --no-port-forward flag in the kots install command prevents KOTS from creating a port forward to the Admin Console.

After you install with the --no-port-forward flag, you can optionally create a port forward so that you can log in to the Admin Console in a browser window.

To access the Admin Console:

If you installed in a VM where you cannot open a browser window, forward a port on your local machine to localhost:8800 on the remote VM using the SSH client:
```
ssh -L LOCAL_PORT:localhost:8800 USERNAME@IP_ADDRESS
```
Replace:
- LOCAL_PORT with the port on your local machine to forward. For example, 9900 or 8800.
- USERNAME with your username for the VM.
- IP_ADDRESS with the IP address for the VM.
Example:

The following example shows using the SSH client to forward port 8800 on your local machine to localhost:8800 on the remote VM.
```
ssh -L 8800:localhost:8800 user@ip-addr
```
Run the following KOTS CLI command to open localhost port 8800, which forwards to the Admin Console service:
```
kubectl kots admin-console --namespace NAMESPACE
```
Replace NAMESPACE with the namespace where the Admin Console was installed.

For more information about the kots admin-console command, see admin-console in the KOTS CLI documentation.
Open a browser window and go to https://localhost:8800.
Log in to the Admin Console using the password that you created as part of the kots install command.

Overview​

Prerequisite​

Install​

Embedded Cluster​

KOTS in an Existing Cluster​

kURL​

Air Gap Install​

Embedded Cluster​

KOTS in an Existing Cluster​

kURL​

(Optional) Access the Admin Console​

Overview

Prerequisite

Install

Embedded Cluster

KOTS in an Existing Cluster

kURL

Air Gap Install

Embedded Cluster

KOTS in an Existing Cluster

kURL

(Optional) Access the Admin Console