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Installing BEL
Installing BEL on any Kubernetes cluster is easy. In this guide, we’ll show you how to do just that.
Step 0: Get your license key
BEL requires a valid license key to run. Log into the Buoyant portal and follow the instructions there. You should end up with an environment variable like this:
export BUOYANT_LICENSE=[LICENSE]
Step 1: Get the CLI tool
Once you have your license key, the next step is to download and install the BEL CLI:
curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSfL https://enterprise.buoyant.io/install | sh
Follow the instructions to add the BEL linkerd
CLI to your system path.
Verify that the CLI is installed and running the expected version with:
linkerd version --client
You should see:
Client version: enterprise-2.16.1
Finally, validate that your Kubernetes cluster is ready for installation:
linkerd check --pre
Step 2: Install BEL
At this point, we’re ready to install BEL on your cluster. You can do this directly with the CLI or by using Helm.
Using the CLI to install BEL is quick and easy, but note that the TLS certificates generated by this installation will expire in a year. If you expect your Linkerd installation to run for more than a year, please use the Helm instructions instead.
To install BEL, run:
linkerd install --crds | kubectl apply -f -
linkerd install | kubectl apply -f -
If you are on GKE 1.29+, you need to set a custom clusterNetworks
value. Learn more
--set clusterNetworks=34.118.224.0/20\,10.0.0.0/8\,100.64.0.0/10\,172.16.0.0/12\,192.168.0.0/16\,fd00::/8
For more information see the GKE docs.
Using Helm to install BEL requires that you generate TLS credentials ahead of
time. To do this, please follow the
Linkerd Trust Root CA & Identity Certificates & Keys
docs. You will need the resulting ca.crt
, issuer.crt
, and issuer.key
files.
Then, run these commands:
helm repo add linkerd-buoyant https://helm.buoyant.cloud
helm repo update
helm install linkerd-crds \
--create-namespace \
--namespace linkerd \
linkerd-buoyant/linkerd-enterprise-crds
helm install linkerd-control-plane \
--namespace linkerd \
--set license=$BUOYANT_LICENSE \
--set-file linkerd-control-plane.identityTrustAnchorsPEM=ca.crt \
--set-file linkerd-control-plane.identity.issuer.tls.crtPEM=issuer.crt \
--set-file linkerd-control-plane.identity.issuer.tls.keyPEM=issuer.key \
linkerd-buoyant/linkerd-enterprise-control-plane
If you are on GKE 1.29+, you need to set a custom clusterNetworks
value. Learn more
--set linkerd-control-plane.clusterNetworks=34.118.224.0/20\,10.0.0.0/8\,100.64.0.0/10\,172.16.0.0/12\,192.168.0.0/16\,fd00::/8
For more information see the GKE docs.
Step 3: Verify your installation
After the installation is complete, you can verify the health and configuration
of Linkerd by running the linkerd check
command:
linkerd check
That’s it!
Congratulations! You have successfully installed BEL onto your cluster. Note that your installation is optimized for non-production traffic such as demos and experiments. For production installs, please see our production-grade BEL installation guide.
Happy meshing!