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 Colima 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").

Creating the config file¶

To configure robusta, the Robusta CLI is required. Choose one of the installation methods below.

Installation Methods

PIP

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

Docker

For Windows please use WSL.

Download robusta script and give it executable permissions:

curl -fsSL -o robusta https://docs.robusta.dev/master/_static/robusta
chmod +x robusta

Use the script, for example:

./robusta version

Common Errors

Docker daemon is required.

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.

If you’d like to send Robusta messages to additional destinations (Discord, Telegram etc.). See Sink configuration.

 robusta gen-config

Robusta on Minikube

We don't recommend installing Robusta on Minikube because of a recent issue with minikube. More details here.

Robusta not in PATH

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

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

Installing on multiple clusters

Use the same generated_values.yaml for all your clusters (dev, prod, etc..). There's no need to run gen-config again.

Standard Installation¶

Add Robusta's chart repository:

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

Specify your cluster's name and install Robusta using Helm. On some clusters this can take a while 2, so don't panic if it appears stuck:

Standard

helm install robusta robusta/robusta -f ./generated_values.yaml \
    --set clusterName=<YOUR_CLUSTER_NAME>

Test clusters (e.g Kind, Colima)

helm install robusta robusta/robusta -f ./generated_values.yaml \
    --set clusterName=<YOUR_CLUSTER_NAME> \
    --set isSmallCluster=true

Test clusters tend to have fewer resources. To lower the resource requests of Robusta, --set isSmallCluster=true is included.

GKE Autopilot

helm install robusta robusta/robusta -f ./generated_values.yaml \
    --set clusterName=<YOUR_CLUSTER_NAME> \
    --set kube-prometheus-stack.coreDns.enabled=false \
    --set kube-prometheus-stack.kubeControllerManager.enabled=false \
    --set kube-prometheus-stack.kubeDns.enabled=false \
    --set kube-prometheus-stack.kubeEtcd.enabled=false \
    --set kube-prometheus-stack.kubeProxy.enabled=false \
    --set kube-prometheus-stack.kubeScheduler.enabled=false \
    --set kube-prometheus-stack.nodeExporter.enabled=false \
    --set kube-prometheus-stack.prometheusOperator.kubeletService.enabled=false

With GKE Autopilot restrictions, some components must be disabled when installing Robusta bundled with kube-prometheus-stack.

Note

Sensitive configuration values can be stored in Kubernetes secrets. See Configuration secrets guide.

Verify the two Robusta pods and running with no errors in the logs:

kubectl get pods -A | grep robusta
robusta logs

Seeing Robusta in action¶

By default, Robusta sends notifications when Kubernetes pods crash.

Create a crashing pod:

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

Verify that the pod is actually crashing:

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

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

Example Slack Message

Open the Robusta UI (if you enabled it) and look for the same message there.
Clean up the crashing pod:

kubectl delete deployment crashpod

Installing a second cluster¶

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

Using your existing generated_values.yaml and the new clusterName run:

 helm install robusta robusta/robusta -f ./generated_values.yaml --set clusterName=<YOUR_CLUSTER_NAME> # --set isSmallCluster=true

Where is my generated_values.yaml?

If you have lost your generated_values.yaml file, you can extract it from any cluster running Robusta.

In that case, clusterName and isSmallCluster may be already in generated_values.yaml. Make sure to remove them before installing on the new cluster.

helm get values -o yaml robusta | grep -v clusterName: | grep -v isSmallCluster: > generated_values.yaml

Next Steps¶

Define your first automation
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!

Installation¶

Creating the config file¶

Standard Installation¶

Seeing Robusta in action¶

Installing a second cluster¶

Next Steps¶

Additional Installation Methods¶