Install the Pinniped Supervisor

This guide shows you how to install the Pinniped Supervisor, which allows seamless login across one or many Kubernetes clusters.

In the examples below, you can replace v0.36.0 with your preferred version number. You can find a list of Pinniped releases on GitHub.

Prerequisites

You should have a Kubernetes cluster with working HTTPS ingress or load balancer capabilities. Unlike the Concierge app, which can only run on supported Kubernetes cluster types, the Supervisor app can run on almost any Kubernetes cluster.

The Supervisor app controls authentication to Kubernetes clusters, so access to its settings and internals should be protected carefully. Typically, the Supervisor is installed on a secure Kubernetes cluster which is only accessible by administrators, separate from the clusters for which it is providing authentication services which are accessible by application developers or devops teams.

With default options

Using kapp

1. Install the latest version of the Supervisor into the pinniped-supervisor namespace with default options using kapp:

   • kapp deploy --app pinniped-supervisor --file https://get.pinniped.dev/v0.36.0/install-pinniped-supervisor.yaml

Using kubectl

1. Install the latest version of the Supervisor into the pinniped-supervisor namespace with default options:

   • kubectl apply -f https://get.pinniped.dev/v0.36.0/install-pinniped-supervisor.yaml

With custom options

Pinniped uses ytt from Carvel as a templating system.

1. Install the ytt and kapp command-line tools using the instructions from the Carvel documentation.

2. Clone the Pinniped GitHub repository and visit the deploy/supervisor directory:

   • git clone git@github.com:vmware-tanzu/pinniped.git
   • cd pinniped/deploy/supervisor

3. Decide which release version you would like to install. All release versions are listed on GitHub.

4. Checkout your preferred version tag, e.g. v0.36.0:

   • git checkout v0.36.0

5. Customize configuration parameters:

   • See the default values for documentation about individual configuration parameters. For example, you can change the number of Supervisor pods by setting replicas or install into a non-default namespace using into_namespace.

   • In a different directory, create a new YAML file to contain your site-specific configuration. For example, you might call this file site/dev-env.yaml.

     In the file, add the special ytt comment for a values file and the YAML triple-dash which starts a new YAML document. Then add custom overrides for any of the parameters from values.yaml.

     Override the image_tag value to match your preferred version tag, e.g. v0.36.0, to ensure that you use the version of the server which matches these templates.

     Here is an example which overrides the image tag, the default logging level, and the number of replicas:

     #@data/values
     ---
     image_tag: v0.36.0
     log_level: debug
     replicas: 1
     

   • Parameters for which you would like to use the default value should be excluded from this file.

   • If you are using a GitOps-style workflow to manage the installation of Pinniped, then you may wish to commit this new YAML file to your GitOps repository.

6. Render templated YAML manifests:

   • ytt --file . --file site/dev-env.yaml

   By putting the override file last in the list of --file options, it will override the default values.

7. Deploy the templated YAML manifests:

   ytt --file . --file site/dev-env.yaml | kapp deploy --app pinniped-supervisor --file -

Supported Node Architectures

The Pinniped Supervisor can be installed on Kubernetes clusters with available amd64 or arm64 linux nodes.

Other notes

Important: Configure Kubernetes authorization policies (i.e. RBAC) to prevent non-admin users from reading the resources, especially the Secrets, in the Supervisor’s namespace.

Next steps

Next, configure the Supervisor as an OIDC issuer!