Install k0rdent#
This section assumes that you already have a kubernetes cluster installed. If you need to setup a cluster you can follow the Create and prepare a Kubernetes cluster with k0s to create a test cluster, or Create and prepare a production grade Kubernetes cluster with EKS to create something more substantial.
The actual management cluster is a Kubernetes cluster with the k0rdent application installed. The simplest way to install k0rdent is through its Helm chart. You can find the latest release here, and from there you can deploy the Helm chart, as in:
helm install kcm oci://ghcr.io/k0rdent/kcm/charts/kcm --version 1.0.0 -n kcm-system --create-namespace
Pulled: ghcr.io/k0rdent/kcm/charts/kcm:1.0.0
Digest: sha256:d01dd2b6a8aec60670cde301ebdaac6c949644121161b709af6c6470291d77fc
NAME: kcm
LAST DEPLOYED: Sun May 25 14:42:29 2025
NAMESPACE: kcm-system
STATUS: deployed
REVISION: 1
TEST SUITE: None
Note
Make sure to specify the correct release version number.
The helm chart deploys the KCM operator and prepares the environment, and KCM then proceeds to deploy the various subcomponents, including CAPI. The entire process takes a few minutes.
Cleanup: Uninstall k0rdent#
And of course when you need to clean up, you can use helm as well. Follow these steps:
-
Remove any
ClusterDeployment
objects in the cluster. -
Delete the
Management
object:kubectl delete management.k0rdent kcm
-
Remove the kcm Helm release:
helm uninstall kcm -n kcm-system
-
Finally, remove the kcm-system namespace:
kubectl delete ns kcm-system