Kata Containers installation user guides

May 4, 2021 · View on GitHub

Prerequisites
Packaged installation methods
Build from source installation
Installing on a Cloud Service Platform
Further information

The following is an overview of the different installation methods available. All of these methods equally result in a system configured to run Kata Containers.

Prerequisites

Kata Containers requires nested virtualization or bare metal. See the hardware requirements to see if your system is capable of running Kata Containers.

Packaged installation methods

Notes:

Packaged installation methods uses your distribution's native package format (such as RPM or DEB).

Installation method	Description	Distributions supported
Automatic	Run a single command to install a full system	see table
Using snap	Easy to install and automatic updates	any distro that supports snapd
Using official distro packages	Kata packages provided by Linux distributions official repositories	see table
Scripted	Generates an installation script which will result in a working system when executed	see table
Manual	Allows the user to read a brief document and execute the specified commands step-by-step	see table

Supported Distributions

Kata is packaged by the Kata community for:

Distribution (link to installation guide)	Versions	Notes
Debian	9
Ubuntu	16.04, 18.04	Snap is the preferred way for using kata-containers on Ubuntu

Official packages

Kata packages are provided by official distribution repositories for:

Distribution (link to installation guide)	Versions	Contacts
CentOS	8
Fedora	33, 34, Rawhide
SUSE Linux Enterprise (SLE)	SLE 15 SP1, 15 SP2
openSUSE	Leap 15.1 Leap 15.2, Tumbleweed

Automatic Installation

Use kata-manager to automatically install Kata packages.

Snap Installation

Use snap to install Kata Containers from https://snapcraft.io.

Scripted Installation

Use kata-doc-to-script to generate installation scripts that can be reviewed before they are executed.

Manual Installation

Manual installation instructions are available for these distributions and document how to:

Add the Kata Containers repository to your distro package manager, and import the packages signing key.
Install the Kata Containers packages.
Install a supported container manager.
Configure the container manager to use kata-runtime as the default OCI runtime. Or, for Kata Containers 1.5.0 or above, configure the io.containerd.kata.v2 to be the runtime shim (see containerd runtime v2 (shim API) and How to use Kata Containers and CRI (containerd plugin) with Kubernetes).

Notes on upgrading:

If you are installing Kata Containers on a system that already has Clear Containers or runv installed, first read the upgrading document.

Notes on releases:

This download server hosts the Kata Containers packages built by OBS for all the supported architectures. Packages are available for the latest and stable releases (more info here).

The following guides apply to the latest Kata Containers release (a.k.a. master release).

When choosing a stable release, replace all master occurrences in the URLs with a stable-x.y version available on the download server.

Notes on packages source verification:

The Kata packages hosted on the download server are signed with GPG to ensure integrity and authenticity.

The public key used to sign packages is available at this link; the fingerprint is 9FDC0CB6 3708CF80 3696E2DC D0B37B82 6063F3ED.

Only trust the signing key and fingerprint listed in the previous bullet point. Do not disable GPG checks, otherwise packages source and authenticity is not guaranteed.

Build from source installation

Notes:

Power users who decide to build from sources should be aware of the implications of using an unpackaged system which will not be automatically updated as new releases are made available.

Building from sources allows power users who are comfortable building software from source to use the latest component versions. This is not recommended for normal users.