---
title: Installing Kubernetes On-premises/Cloud Providers with Kubespray
---

## Overview

This quickstart helps to install a Kubernetes cluster hosted on GCE, Azure, OpenStack, AWS, or Baremetal with [Kubespray](https://github.com/kubernetes-incubator/kubespray).

Kubespray is a composition of [Ansible](http://docs.ansible.com/) playbooks, [inventory](https://github.com/kubernetes-incubator/kubespray/blob/master/docs/ansible.md), provisioning tools, and domain knowledge for generic OS/Kubernetes clusters configuration management tasks. Kubespray provides:

* a highly available cluster
* composable attributes
* support for most popular Linux distributions
* continuous integration tests

To choose a tool which best fits your use case, read [this comparison](https://github.com/kubernetes-incubator/kubespray/blob/master/docs/comparisons.md) to [kubeadm](/docs/admin/kubeadm/) and [kops](../kops).

## Creating a cluster

### (1/5) Meet the underlay [requirements](https://github.com/kubernetes-incubator/kubespray#requirements)

Provision servers with the following requirements:

* `Ansible v2.3` (or newer)
* `Jinja 2.9` (or newer)
* `python-netaddr` installed on the machine that running Ansible commands
* Target servers must have access to the Internet in order to pull docker images
* Target servers are configured to allow IPv4 forwarding
* Target servers have SSH connectivity ( tcp/22 ) directly to your nodes or through a bastion host/ssh jump box
* Target servers have a privileged user
* Your SSH key must be copied to all the servers that are part of your inventory
* Firewall rules configured properly to allow Ansible and Kubernetes components to communicate
* If using a cloud provider, you must have the appropriate credentials available and exported as environment variables

Kubespray provides the following utilities to help provision your environment:

* [Terraform](https://www.terraform.io/) scripts for the following cloud providers:
  * [AWS](https://github.com/kubernetes-incubator/kubespray/tree/master/contrib/terraform/aws)
  * [OpenStack](https://github.com/kubernetes-incubator/kubespray/tree/master/contrib/terraform/openstack)
* [kubespray-cli](https://github.com/kubernetes-incubator/kubespray/blob/master/docs/getting-started.md)

**Note:** kubespray-cli is no longer actively maintained.
{. :note}

### (2/5) Compose an inventory file

After you provision your servers, create an [inventory file for Ansible](http://docs.ansible.com/ansible/intro_inventory.html). You can do this manually or via a dynamic inventory script. For more information, see "[Building your own inventory](https://github.com/kubernetes-incubator/kubespray/blob/master/docs/getting-started.md#building-your-own-inventory)".

### (3/5) Plan your cluster deployment

Kubespray provides the ability to customize many aspects of the deployment:

* CNI (networking) plugins
* DNS configuration
* Choice of control plane: native/binary or containerized with docker or rkt)
* Component versions
* Calico route reflectors
* Component runtime options
* Certificate generation methods

Kubespray customizations can be made to a [variable file](http://docs.ansible.com/ansible/playbooks_variables.html). If you are just getting started with Kubespray, consider using the Kubespray defaults to deploy your cluster and explore Kubernetes.

### (4/5) Deploy a Cluster

Next, deploy your cluster with one of two methods:

* [ansible-playbook](https://github.com/kubernetes-incubator/kubespray/blob/master/docs/getting-started.md#starting-custom-deployment).
* [kubespray-cli tool](https://github.com/kubernetes-incubator/kubespray/blob/master/docs/getting-started.md)

**Note:** kubespray-cli is no longer actively maintained.
{: .note}

Both methods run the default [cluster definition file](https://github.com/kubernetes-incubator/kubespray/blob/master/cluster.yml).

Large deployments (100+ nodes) may require [specific adjustments](https://github.com/kubernetes-incubator/kubespray/blob/master/docs/large-deployments.md) for best results.

### (5/5) Verify the deployment

Kubespray provides a way to verify inter-pod connectivity and DNS resolve with [Netchecker](https://github.com/kubernetes-incubator/kubespray/blob/master/docs/netcheck.md). Netchecker ensures the netchecker-agents pods can resolve DNS requests and ping each over within the default namespace. Those pods mimic similar behavior of the rest of the workloads and serve as cluster health indicators.

## Cluster operations

Kubespray provides additional playbooks to manage your cluster: _scale_ and _upgrade_.

### Scale your cluster

You can scale your cluster by running the scale playbook. For more information, see "[Adding nodes](https://github.com/kubernetes-incubator/kubespray/blob/master/docs/getting-started.md#adding-nodes)".

### Upgrade your cluster

You can upgrade your cluster by running the upgrade-cluster playbook. For more information, see "[Upgrades](https://github.com/kubernetes-incubator/kubespray/blob/master/docs/upgrades.md)".

## What's next

Check out planned work on Kubespray's [roadmap](https://github.com/kubernetes-incubator/kubespray/blob/master/docs/roadmap.md).

## Cleanup

You can reset your nodes and wipe out all components installed with Kubespray via the [reset playbook](https://github.com/kubernetes-incubator/kubespray/blob/master/reset.yml).

**Caution:** When running the reset playbook, be sure not to accidentally target your production cluster!
{: .caution}

## Feedback

* Slack Channel: [#kubespray](https://kubernetes.slack.com/messages/kubespray/)
* [GitHub Issues](https://github.com/kubernetes-incubator/kubespray/issues)
