Project: Gloo (Orchestration & Management / API Gateway)
File: preparation.md

title: Preparation weight: 10 Installing Gloo Edge in your environment and walking through the step-by-step guides requires the installation of utilities on your local system and the selection of a deployment model. This document outlines the common utilities that you should have on your local system, and a brief discussion of deployment options for Gloo Edge. Below is a list of all the required components and common utilities for use with Gloo Edge as you work through the concepts and guides. kubectl - Command line utility for Kubernetes glooctl - Command line utility for Gloo Edge jq - Utility for manipulating JSON git - Utility for working with a versioned source control system curl - Utility for transferring data to/from a server, especially with HTTP/S helm - Utility for managing charts and deploying applications on Kubernetes openssl - Cryptography toolkit for working with SSL and TLS You will also want some type of text editor that understands YAML. For real, there is going to be a lot of YAML and getting the spacing wrong is a huge pain. There are many great tools out there including, but not limited to Visual Studio Code, Sublime Text, and the venerable Vim. {{< readfile file="installation/glooctl_setup.md" markdown="true" >}} You must provide the license key during the installation process. . {{% notice tip %}}You can also request a instead. Note that each trial license key is typically valid for 30 days. When the license key expires, you can request a new license key by contacting your account representative or filling out . For more information, see .{{% /notice %}} Decide how you want to provide your license keys during installation. Provide license key directly*: When you install Gloo Edge, you can provide the license key string directly as the value for the `license_key` field in your Helm values file, or provide the `--license-key` flag in your `glooctl install` command. A Kubernetes secret is created for you to store the license key. Provide license key in a secret*: You can specify your license key by creating a secret before you install Gloo Edge. Create a secret with your license key in the `gloo-system` namespace of your

```yaml cat << EOF | kubectl apply -n gloo-system -f - apiVersion: v1 kind: Secret type: Opaque metadata: name: license-key namespace: gloo-system data: license-key: "" EOF ``` When you install Gloo Edge, specify the secret name and disable default secret generation in your Helm values file or the `glooctl install` command. Helm*: In your Helm values file, provide the secret name as the value for the `gloo.licensesecretname` field, and set `createlicensesecret` to `false`. glooctl*: In your `glooctl install` command, include the `--set gloo.licensesecretname=<license>` and `--set createlicensesecret=false` flags. There are a number of options when it comes to installing Gloo Edge. The requirements for each deployment model are described below. Not sure how you will deploy Gloo Edge? This is for you. Gloo Edge deploys as a set of containers, and is usually deployed on a Kubernetes cluster. In order to install Gloo Edge, you will need access to a Kubernetes deployment. That could be a local cluster using minikube or minishift. It could be a hosted cluster on one of the public clouds such as Google Kubernetes Engine, Elastic Kubernetes Service, or Azure Kubernetes Service. You could even host your own Kubernetes cluster in your datacenter! As long as you can run kubectl and have cluster-admin permissions, you're all set. A less common option is to use Docker Compose to deploy the Gloo Edge components locally and store the configuration and secrets data in the Gloo Edge containers. This will require that docker and docker-compose are installed on your local machine. Further instructions for setup can be found . Similar to the Docker Compose option, this option leverages HashiCorp Consul for configuration data and HashiCorp Vault for secrets data instead of storing the values directly in the Gloo Edge containers. This will require that docker and docker-compose are installed locally. Further instructions for setup can be found . Nomad is a workload scheduler that can be used in place of Docker Compose or Kubernetes. It integrates with Consul and Vault, using them to store configuration and secrets data. Using Nomad will require Levant to be installed locally, and access to a system running Docker, Consul, Vault, and Nomad. Further instructions for setup can be found . The most common starting point is to . Once Gloo Edge is installed, is likely your go-to destination. Otherwise, here are some common paths to learning. Do you need a Kubernetes cluster? Start . Need to install the Gloo Edge? Start . Want to know more about Gloo Edge Routing? Start . Concerned about security? Start . (Enterprise Gloo Edge only) Monitoring your thing? Start . (Enterprise Gloo Edge only)