Install by using the Knative Operator CLI Plugin¶

Knative provides the Operator CLI Plugin to install, configure and manage Knative on the command line. This plugin helps you configure the Knative cluster, without interacting with the complexities of the custom resources.

This topic describes how to install the Knative Operator and the Serving and Eventing components using a CLI. The version flag selects the Operator release or component release, not the CLI plugin's release. The plugin is independently versioned: its v1.21.0 install implementation accepts these version arguments and uses the v1beta1 Operator API. The v1.24 examples below match the verified Operator bundle; they are not a claim that a knative-v1.24.0 plugin release exists or that this CLI route has been runtime-tested.

This installation requires the following prerequisites:

The CLI Tools are installed.
An existing cluster meeting the installation capacity recommendations and component Kubernetes requirements.
Administrator permissions for the target cluster and component namespaces.

For information on other Knative installs, see the Installation Roadmap.

Install the Knative Operator¶

You can install Knative Operator of any specific version under any specific namespace. By default, the namespace is default, and the version is the latest.

To install the latest version of Knative Operator, run:

kn operator install

To install Knative Operator under a certain namespace, e.g. knative-operator, run:

kn operator install -n knative-operator

To install Knative Operator of a specific version, e.g. 1.24.0, run:

kn operator install -v 1.24.0

Install the Knative Serving component¶

Select a Knative Serving version from the installed Operator's supported bundle and use the intended component namespace. By default, the namespace is knative-serving, and the version is the latest.

To install the latest version of Knative Serving, run:

kn operator install --component serving

To install Knative Serving under a certain namespace, e.g. knative-serving, run:

kn operator install --component serving -n knative-serving

To install Knative Serving of a specific version, e.g. 1.24, run:

kn operator install --component serving -n knative-serving -v "1.24"

To install the ingress plugin, e.g Kourier, together with the install command, run:

kn operator install --component serving -n knative-serving -v "1.24" --kourier

If you do not specify the ingress plugin, istio is used as the default. However, you need to make sure you install Istio first.

Install the networking layer¶

You can configure the network layer option via the Operator CLI Plugin. Click on each of the following tabs to see how you can configure Knative Serving with different ingresses:

Kourier (Choose this if you are not sure)Istio (default)Contour

The following steps install Kourier and enable its Knative integration:

To configure Knative Serving to use Kourier, run the command as follows:
```
kn operator enable ingress --kourier -n knative-serving
```

The following steps install Istio to enable its Knative integration:

Install Istio.
To configure Knative Serving to use Istio, run the command as follows:
```
kn operator enable ingress --istio -n knative-serving
```

The following steps install Contour and enable its Knative integration:

Install a properly configured Contour:

kubectl apply --filename https://storage.googleapis.com/knative-nightly/net-contour/latest/contour.yaml

To configure Knative Serving to use Contour, run the command as follows:
```
kn operator enable ingress --contour -n knative-serving
```

Install the Knative Eventing component¶

Select a Knative Eventing version from the installed Operator's supported bundle and use the intended component namespace. By default, the namespace is knative-eventing, and the version is the latest.

To install the latest version of Knative Eventing, run:

kn operator install --component eventing

To install Knative Eventing under a certain namespace, e.g. knative-eventing, run:

kn operator install --component eventing -n knative-eventing

To install Knative Eventing of a specific version, e.g. 1.24, run:

kn operator install --component eventing -n knative-eventing -v "1.24"

Install Knative Eventing with event sources¶

Knative Operator can configure the Knative Eventing component with different event sources. Click on each of the following tabs to see how you can configure Knative Eventing with different event sources:

CephGitHubGitLabApache KafkaRabbitMQRedis

To install the eventing source Ceph, run the following command:

kn operator enable eventing-source --ceph --namespace knative-eventing

To install the eventing source Github, run the following command:

kn operator enable eventing-source --github --namespace knative-eventing

To install the eventing source Gitlab, run the following command:

kn operator enable eventing-source --gitlab --namespace knative-eventing

To install the eventing source Kafka, run the following command:

kn operator enable eventing-source --kafka --namespace knative-eventing

To install the eventing source RabbitMQ, run the following command:

kn operator enable eventing-source --rabbitmq --namespace knative-eventing

To install the eventing source Redis, run the following command:

kn operator enable eventing-source --redis --namespace knative-eventing