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KubeStellar has multiple documentation versions to match its multiple releases.
Please make sure you are viewing the docs version which matches the release version of the code you are using!

KubeStellar Prerequisites#

The following prerequisites are required. You can use the check-pre-req script, to validate if all needed prerequisites are installed.

Infrastructure (clusters)#

Because of its multicluster architecture, KubeStellar requires that you have the necessary privileges and infrastructure access to create and/or configure the necessary Kubernetes clusters. These are the following; see the architecture document for more details.

  • One cluster to serve as the KubeFlex hosting cluster.
  • Any additional Kubernetes clusters that are not created by KubeFlex but you will use as a WDS or ITS.
  • Your WECs.

Our documentation has remarks about using the following sorts of clusters:

  • kind
  • k3s
  • openshift

Software Prerequisites: for Using KubeStellar#

  • kubeflex version 0.7.1 or higher. To install kubeflex go to https://github.com/kubestellar/kubeflex/blob/main/docs/users.md#installation. To upgrade from an existing installation, follow these instructions. At the end of the install make sure that the kubeflex CLI, kflex, is in your $PATH.

  • OCM CLI (clusteradm) version >= 0.7. To install OCM CLI use:

    curl -L https://raw.githubusercontent.com/open-cluster-management-io/clusteradm/main/install.sh | bash

    Note that the default installation of clusteradm will install in /usr/local/bin which will require root access. If you prefer to avoid root, you can specify an alternative installation location using the INSTALL_DIR environment variable, as follows:

    mkdir -p ocm
export INSTALL_DIR="$PWD/ocm"
curl -L https://raw.githubusercontent.com/open-cluster-management-io/clusteradm/main/install.sh | bash
export PATH=$PWD/ocm:$PATH

    At the end of the install make sure that the OCM CLI, clusteradm, is in your $PATH.

  • helm version >= 3 - to deploy the Kubestellar and kubeflex charts

  • kubectl version >= 1.27 - to access the kubernetes clusters

Additional Software for the Getting Started setup#

  • kind version >= 0.20
  • docker (or compatible docker engine that works with kind) (client version >= 20)

Additional Software for monitoring#

The setup in montoring/ additional uses the following.

  • yq (also available from Homebrew) version >= 1.5

Additional Software For Running the Examples#

  • argocd version >= 2 - for the examples that use it

Additional Software For Building KubeStellar from Source and Testing#

  • go version 1.21 or higher - to build Kubestellar
  • GNU make version >= 3.5 - to build Kubestellar and create the Kubestellar container images
  • ko version >= 0.15 - to create some of the Kubestellar container images
  • docker (or equivalent that implements docker buildx) (client version >= 20) - to create other KubeStellar container images

To build and test KubeStellar properly, you will also need

  • kind version >= 0.20
  • OCP, if you are testing a scenario involving OCP
  • ginkgo, if you will run the ginkgo-based end-to-end test
  • yq (also available from Homebrew) version >= 4 - for running tests

Automated Check of Prerequisites for KubeStellar#

The check_pre_req script offers a convenient way to check for the prerequisites needed for KubeStellar deployment and use.

This script is self-contained, so it is suitable for "curl-to-bash" style usage. The latest development version is at https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kubestellar/kubestellar/refs/heads/main/hack/check_pre_req.sh. To check the prerequisites for using a particular release of KubeStellar, you will want to use the script from that release.

The script checks for a prerequisite presence in the $PATH, by using the which command, and it can optionally provide version and path information for prerequisites that are present, or installation information for missing prerequisites.

We envision that this script could be useful for user-side debugging as well as for asserting the presence of prerequisites in higher-level automation scripts.

The script accepts a list of optional flags and arguments.

Supported flags:#

  • -A|--assert: exits with error code 2 upon finding the first missing prerequisite
  • -L|--list: prints a list of supported prerequisites
  • -V|--verbose: displays version and path information for installed prerequisites or installation information for missing prerequisites
  • -X: enable set -x for debugging the script

Supported arguments:#

The script accepts a list of specific prerequisites to check, among the list of available ones:

$ check_pre_req.sh --list
argo brew docker go helm jq kflex kind ko kubectl make ocm yq

Examples#

For example, list of prerequisites required by KubeStellar can be checked with the command below (add the -V flag to get the version of each program and a suggestions on how to install missing prerequisites):

$ hack/check_pre_req.sh
Checking pre-requisites for using KubeStellar:
✔ Docker (Docker version 27.2.1-rd, build cc0ee3e)
✔ kubectl (v1.29.2)
✔ KubeFlex (Kubeflex version: v0.6.3.672cc8a 2024-09-23T16:15:47Z)
✔ OCM CLI (:v0.9.0-0-g56e1fc8)
✔ Helm (v3.16.1)
Checking additional pre-requisites for running the examples:
✔ Kind (kind v0.22.0 go1.22.0 darwin/arm64)
✔ ArgoCD CLI (v2.10.1+a79e0ea)
Checking pre-requisites for building KubeStellar:
✔ GNU Make (GNU Make 3.81)
✔ Go (go version go1.23.2 darwin/arm64)
✔ KO (0.16.0)

In another example, a specific list of prerequisites could be asserted by a higher-level script, while providing some installation information, with the command below (note that the script will terminate upon finding a missing prerequisite):

$ check_pre_req.sh --assert --verbose helm argo docker kind
Checking KubeStellar pre-requisites:
✔ Helm
  version (unstructured): version.BuildInfo{Version:"v3.14.0", GitCommit:"3fc9f4b2638e76f26739cd77c7017139be81d0ea", GitTreeState:"clean", GoVersion:"go1.21.5"}
     path: /usr/sbin/helm
X ArgoCD CLI
  how to install: https://argo-cd.readthedocs.io/en/stable/cli_installation/; get at least version v2