Installation

The standard installation uses Helm 3 and the robusta-cli, but alternative methods are described below.

Configuring and installing Robusta takes 97.68 seconds on a 10 node cluster 1. You can also install on minikube or KIND. Uninstalling takes one command, so go ahead and try!

Have questions?

Ask us on Slack or open a GitHub issue

We will now configure Robusta in your cluster. For this we need to install Robusta, and also connect at least one destination ("sink"), and at least one source ("triggers").

Standard Installation

1. Download the Helm chart and install Robusta-CLI:

helm repo add robusta https://robusta-charts.storage.googleapis.com && helm repo update
pip install -U robusta-cli --no-cache

Common Errors

• Python 3.7 or higher is required

• If you are using a system such as macOS that includes both Python 2 and Python 3, run pip3 instead of pip.

• Errors about tiller mean you are running Helm 2, not Helm 3

2. Generate a Robusta configuration. This will setup Slack and other integrations. We highly recommend enabling the cloud UI so you can see all features in action.

 robusta gen-config

Robusta not in PATH

if you get "command not found: robusta", see Common errors

3. Save generated_values.yaml, somewhere safe. This is your Helm values.yaml file.

4. Install Robusta using Helm. On some clusters this can take a while 2, so don't panic if it appears stuck:

 helm install robusta robusta/robusta -f ./generated_values.yaml

5. Verify that Robusta is running two pods and there are no errors in the logs:

kubectl get pods
robusta logs

Seeing Robusta in action

By default, Robusta sends notifications when Kubernetes pods crash.

1. Create a crashing pod:

kubectl apply -f https://gist.githubusercontent.com/robusta-lab/283609047306dc1f05cf59806ade30b6/raw

2. Verify that the pod is actually crashing:

$ kubectl get pods -A
NAME                            READY   STATUS             RESTARTS   AGE
crashpod-64d8fbfd-s2dvn         0/1     CrashLoopBackOff   1          7s

3. Once the pod has reached two restarts, check your Slack channel for a message about the crashing pod.

Example Slack Message

4. Open the Robusta UI (if you enabled it) and look for the same message there.

5. Clean up the crashing pod:

kubectl delete deployment crashpod

Next Steps

1. Define your first automation

2. Add your first Prometheus enrichment

Footnotes

1

See this great video on YouTube where a community member installs Robusta with a stopwatch. If you beat his time by more than 30% and document it, we'll send you a Robusta mug too.

2

AWS EKS, we're looking at you!

Additional Installation Methods

Installing with GitOps

Follow the instructions above to generate generated_values.yaml. Commit it to git and use ArgoCD or your favorite tool to install.

Installing without the Robusta CLI

Using the cli is totally optional. If you prefer, you can skip the CLI and fetch the default values.yaml:

helm repo add robusta https://robusta-charts.storage.googleapis.com && helm repo update
helm show values robusta/robusta

Most values are documented in the Configuration Guide

Do not use the values.yaml file in the GitHub repo. It has some empty placeholders which are replaced during our release process.

Installing in a different namespace

Create a namespace robusta and install robusta in the new namespace using:

helm install robusta robusta/robusta -f ./generated_values.yaml -n robusta --create-namespace

Verify that Robusta installed two deployments in the robusta namespace:

 kubectl get pods -n robusta

Installing on OpenShift

You will need to run one additional command:

 oc adm policy add-scc-to-user anyuid -z robusta-runner-service-account

It's possible to reduce the permissions more. Please feel free to open a PR suggesting something more minimal

Installing a second cluster

When installing a second cluster on the same account, there is no need to run robusta gen-config again.

Just change clusterName in values.yaml. It can have any value as long as it is unique between clusters.