Install Overview

Prerequisites

Before you create a DKP image and deploy the initial DKP cluster, the operator's machine is required to be either an OSX or Linux based machine of a supported version.

For DKP and Konvoy Image Builder to run, the operator machine requires:

Version 20.10.0 of Docker or higher
CLI tooling of the cloud provider being used to deploy DKP commands:
Version of kubectl that is within one minor version difference of the Kubernetes installed by this release.
Konvoy Image Builder

DKP requires permissions for the cloud provider that is being used. See Advanced Konvoy Configuration for more information on your provider permissions needed. Also see the Supported Operating Systems page for further setup requirements.

Prepare Your Environment for Install:

Follow the steps below to install the basic package requirements. Then install DKP and finally you can begin any custom configuration based on your environment.

Install required packages. In most cases, you can install the required software using your preferred package manager. For example, on a macOS computer, you can use Homebrew to install kubectl and the aws command-line utility by running the following command:
CODE
```
brew install kubernetes-cli awscli
```
Check the Kubernetes client version. Many important Kubernetes functions do not work if your client is outdated. You can verify that the version of kubectl you have installed is supported by running the following command:
CODE
```
kubectl version --short=true
```
For air-gapped, create a bastion host for the cluster nodes to use within the air-gapped network. This bastion host needs access to a Docker registry in lieu of an Internet connection for pulling Docker images. The recommended template naming pattern is ../folder-name/dkp-e2e-bastion-template or similar. Each infrastructure provider has its own set of bastion host instructions. Refer to your provider’s site for details - Azure, AWS, GCP, or vSphere.
For creating DKP machine images, you need to download Konvoy Image Builder as mentioned in the prerequisites above and extract it.
To download DKP, see the Download topic for information. You will need to download and extract the DKP binary package tarball.
Verify you have valid cloud provider security credentials to deploy the cluster on that platform.

NOTE: This step regarding provider security credentials is not required if you are installing DKP on an on-premises environment. For information about installing in an on-premises environment, see Install on-premises.
Install Konvoy depending on which infrastructure you have. Consult the Advanced Konvoy Configuration section of the documentation for further steps on creating a cluster with the Konvoy component of DKP on your infrastructure provider listed in that section.
Now that you have a basic Kubernetes cluster installed through Konvoy, configure the Kommander component.
Lastly, continue with install configuration through sections of documentation under the Kommander component of DKP.

Next Step

Deploy a Cluster with Konvoy

You may also want to test operations by deploying a simple, sample application, customizing the cluster configuration, or checking the status of cluster components.

For more details, see the following topics: