Installation

Keptn must be installed onto each Kubernetes cluster you want to monitor. Additionally, Keptn needs to be enabled on your namespaces. This gives you flexibility in how and where you want to use Keptn.

Note By default, Keptn monitors all namespaces in the cluster except for those reserved for major components. See Namespaces and Keptn to learn how to limit the namespaces that Keptn monitors.

Keptn is installed using Helm.

After you install Keptn, you are ready to Integrate Keptn with your applications.

Supported Kubernetes versions

Keptn requires Kubernetes v1.24.0 or later.

Run the following to ensure that both client and server versions are running Kubernetes versions greater than or equal to v1.24. In this example, both client and server are at v1.24.0 so Keptn will work.

kubectl version --short

Client Version: v1.24.0
Kustomize Version: v4.5.4
Server Version: v1.24.0

Keptn makes use of a custom scheduler when running on Kubernetes v1.26 and earlier. For Kubernetes v1.27 and later, scheduling is implemented using Kubernetes scheduling gates, unless the schedulingGatesEnabled Helm value is set to false. See Keptn integration with Scheduling for details.

If Keptn is installed on a vCluster with Kubernetes v1.26 or earlier, some extra configuration needs to be added for full compatibility. See Running Keptn with vCluster for more information.

If you want to deploy Keptn via ArgoCD, refer to the Deploying Keptn via ArgoCD section for more information.

Basic installation

Keptn is installed onto an existing Kubernetes cluster using a Helm chart. To modify the Keptn configuration, you must modify the values.yaml file of the chart.

The command sequence to fetch and install the latest release of Keptn is:

helm repo add keptn https://charts.lifecycle.keptn.sh
helm repo update
helm upgrade --install keptn keptn/keptn \
   -n keptn-system --create-namespace --wait

If you want to use Keptn to observe your deployments or to enhance them with lifecycle management you must enable Keptn in your Namespace via annotations. For example, for the testy-test namespace:

apiVersion: v1
kind: Namespace
metadata:
  name: testy-test
  annotations:
    keptn.sh/lifecycle-toolkit: "enabled" # this tells Keptn to watch the namespace

Some helpful hints:

Use the --version <version> flag on the helm upgrade --install command to specify a different Keptn Helm chart version.

To get the appropriate chart version for the Keptn version you want, use the following command:
```
helm search repo keptn --versions
```
You see that the "CHART VERSION" for keptn/keptn v0.9.0 is 0.3.0 so use the following command to explicitly installs Keptn v0.9.0:
```
helm upgrade --install keptn keptn/keptn --version 0.3.0 \
-n keptn-system --create-namespace --wait
```
To view which Keptn components are installed in your cluster and verify that they are the correct ones, run the following command:
```
kubectl get pods -n keptn-system
```
The output shows all Keptn components that are running on your cluster.

Alternative installation methods

Install Keptn via Glasskube

Glasskube is a package manager for Keptn that simplifies the installation process and can be used to automatically upgrade Keptn to the latest version. For more information on how to install Glasskube, see Glasskube Installation.

To install Keptn via Glasskube after Glasskube is installed, run the following command:

glasskube install keptn

After that, Keptn is installed on your cluster and will be automatically upgraded to the latest version.

Keptn Helm configuration

The Keptn configuration is controlled by a set of Helm value files, summarized in the following table. The Keptn Helm chart is an umbrella chart that contains subcharts for all components of Keptn. Each component has its own Helm values file (documented in its own README file), that defines configurations specific to that component.

All configuration changes for all components can be made in one values.yaml file. This is discussed more in Customizing the configuration of components below.

The following table summarizes the Keptn values.yaml files.

The "Component" column leads you to the README files for each component where all Helm values are documented
The "Configuration file" column leads you to the Helm values files for each component

Component	Used for	Configuration file
Keptn	Installs subcharts, global configuration	keptn/values.yaml
lifecycle-operator	Observability, Release Lifecycle Management	keptn-lifecycle-operator/values.yaml
metrics-operator	Keptn metrics, Analysis	keptn-metrics-operator/values.yaml
cert-manager	TLS Certificate management for all Keptn components	keptn-cert-manager/values.yaml

Customizing the configuration of components

To modify configuration of the subcomponents of Keptn, use the corresponding Helm values in your values.yaml file. Use the subcomponent's parent value as the root for your configuration.

Here is an example values.yaml altering global and metrics operator values:

global:
  # change all installed operator registries
  # e.g. the metrics operator image will be localhost:5000/keptn/metrics-operator:v0.0.0
  imageRegistry: "localhost:5000"
  commonLabels:
    app.kubernetes.io/version: myversion # this label will be added to all installed resources

certManager:
  enabled: true
lifecycleOperator:
  enabled: false   # lifecycle operator won't be installed
metricsOperator:
  enabled: true
  image:
    tag: v0.0.0 # metrics operator will use this image tag
  imagePullPolicy: Never

Note the additional values that are specified in the metricsOperator section. These are documented in the README file for that operator, which is linked from the metrics-operator item under "Component" in the table above. To implement this:

Go into the values.yaml file linked under "Configuration file"
Copy the lines for the values you want to modify
Paste those lines into your values.yaml file and modify their values in that file.

Modify Helm values

To modify Helm values:

Download a copy of the Helm values file:

helm show values keptn/keptn > values.yaml

Edit your local copy to modify some values
Add the following string to your helm upgrade command to install Keptn with your configuration changes:
```
--values=values.yaml
```
For example, if you create a my.values.yaml and modify some configuration values, use the following command to apply your configuration:
```
helm upgrade --install keptn keptn/keptn \
--values my.values.yaml \
-n keptn-system --create-namespace --wait
```
You can also use the --set flag to specify a value change for the helm upgrade --install command. Helm values are specified using the format:
```
--set key1=value1 \
--set key2=value2 ...
```

Control what components are installed

By default, all components are included when you install Keptn. To specify the components that are included, you need to modify the Keptn values.yaml file to disable the components you do not want to install.

Note that the Keptn Helm chart is quite flexible. You can install all Keptn components on your cluster, then modify the configuration to exclude some components and update your installation. Conversely, you can exclude some components when you install Keptn then later add them in.

Disable Keptn Certificate Manager (Certificates)

If you wish to use your custom certificate manager, you can disable Keptn cert-manager by setting the certificateManager.enabled Helm value to false:

certManager:
  enabled: false

For more information on using cert-manager with Keptn, see Use Keptn with cert-manager.io.

For the full list of Helm values, see the keptn-cert-manager Helm chart README.

Uninstalling Keptn

To uninstall Keptn from your cluster, please follow the steps on the Uninstall page.