The easiest way to get a production Kubernetes cluster up and running.

We like to think of it as kubectl for clusters.

kops lets you deploy production grade (and HA) Kubernetes clusters in the cloud from the command line.

Check out our tutorial on launching a Kubernetes cluster in AWS.

• Automated Kubernetes cluster CRUD for the cloud (AWS)
• HA (Highly Available) Kubernetes clusters
• Uses a state-sync model for dry-run and automatic idempotency
• Custom support for kubectl add-ons
• Kops can generate Terraform configuration
• Based on a simple meta-model defined in a directory tree
• Easy command line syntax
• Community support

Download the latest release, then:

chmod +x kops-linux-amd64                 # Add execution permissions
ln -s ./kops-linux-amd64 /usr/bin/kops    # optional, makes kops available from any path

View our changelog

brew update && brew install kops

brew update && brew install --HEAD kops

go get -d k8s.io/kops
cd ${GOPATH}/src/k8s.io/kops/
git checkout release
make

See building notes for more information.

Want to contribute to kops? We would love the extra help from the community. We have a quickstart guide on adding a feature.

Kops also has time set aside every other week to offer help and guidance to the community. Kops maintainers have agreed to set aside time specifically dedicated to working with newcomers, helping with PRs, and discussing new features.

We recommend letting us know beforehand if you plan on attending so we can have time to prepare for the call.

Reach out to us on kubernetes slack. A great place to get involved or ask questions is #sig-cluster-lifecycle

• Create kubecfg settings for kubectl
• Set up add-ons, to add important functionality to Kubernetes
• Learn about InstanceGroups, which let you change instance types, cluster sizes etc..
• Read about networking options, including a 50 node limit in the default configuration.
• Look at our other interesting modes.

If you think you have found a bug :

• Set --v=8 and save the log output
• Open a new issue
• Feel free to reach out to the kops community on kubernetes slack