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Installing the kots CLI

The Replicated app manager uses the kots CLI, which is a kubectl-based plugin, to help manage Kubernetes Off-The-Shelf software. This plugin runs locally on any computer that has kubectl installed.

Prerequisite

Before you install the kots CLI, install kubectl on your machine.

note

If you are using an embedded Kubernetes installer-created cluster, both tools are already pre-installed.

Install

To install the latest version of the kots CLI, run:

curl https://kots.io/install | bash

To install a specific version of the kots CLI, run:

curl https://kots.io/install/<version> | bash

To verify your installation, run:

kubectl kots --help

Install without Root Access

For computers without root access or computers that cannot write to the /usr/local/bin directory, the kots CLI can be downloaded using the following steps:

  1. Download the release for your operating system from https://github.com/replicatedhq/kots/releases/latest (Linux and MacOS are supported).
  2. Unpack the release.
  3. Rename the kots executable to kubectl-kots.
  4. Copy the renamed kubectl-kots to anywhere on the PATH.

Uninstall

The kots CLI is a plugin for the Kubernetes kubectl command line tool. The kots CLI plugin is named kubectl-kots.

For more information about working with kubectl, see Command line tool (kubectl) in the Kubernetes documentation.

To uninstall the kots CLI:

  1. Find the location where the kubectl-kots plugin is installed on your PATH:

    kubectl plugin list kubectl-kots cli

  2. Delete kubectl-kots:

    sudo rm PATH_TO_KOTS

    Replace PATH_TO_KOTS with the location where kubectl-kots is installed.

    Example:

    sudo rm /usr/local/bin/kubectl-kots