Installation & updating

Get up and running in minutes

Before installing groundcover, please make sure your cluster meets the requirements.

Sign up to groundcover

The first thing you need to do to start using groundcover is sign up using your email address (no credit card required for the free tier account). Signing up is only possible using a computer and will not be possible using a mobile phone or tablet. It is highly recommended you use your corporate email address, as it will make it easier to use other features such as inviting your colleagues to your workspace. However, signing up using Gmail, Outlook or any other public domains is also possible.

After signing up, you can install groundcover using any one of these methods:

Install using our UI

Install using a CLI

Install using Helm

Installing using our UI

• After logging in to the groundcover platform for the first time, you will see the installation screen.

• Copy and execute the displayed command line

  • Make sure your kubectl context is pointing on the desired cluster

  • The command line will install the groundcover CLI, and start the installation process

Note: the key embedded in the generated command is not your api key.

• Shortly after the installations completes, your cluster should appear in your workspace.

Installing using a CLI

Use groundcover CLI to automate the installation process. The main advantages of using this installation method are:

• Auto-detection of cluster incompatibility issues

• Tolerations setup automation

• Tuning of resources according to cluster size

• It supports passing helm overrides

• Automated detection of new versions and upgrades suggestions

Read more here.

Installing groundcover CLI

# Install the groundcover CLI
sh -c "$(curl -fsSL <https://groundcover.com/install.sh>)"

Deploying groundcover using the CLI

# Login to your groundcover account
groundcover auth login

# deploy groundcover
groundcover deploy

Installing using Helm

groundcover can be installed using the official helm chart.

If you’re interested in installing the helm chart using a CI/CD solution, such as ArgoCD, make sure you read our CI/CD installation section as well.

# Make sure you have groundcover CLI installed

# (1) Login to your groundcover account
groundcover auth login

# (2) Fetch your api key
groundcover auth print-api-key

# (3) Make sure groundcover Helm repoistory is present (once)
helm repo add groundcover <https://helm.groundcover.com>

# (4) Update groundcover Helm repository to fetch latest charts
helm repo update groundcover

# (5) Deploy groundcover release
helm upgrade \\
    groundcover \\
    groundcover/groundcover \\
    -i \\
    --create-namespace \\
    -n groundcover \\
    --set global.groundcover_token={api-key from step (2)},clusterId={a cluster name}

What can you do next?

• Set up your first alert

• Set up your first dashboard

• Invite your colleagues

• Installing groundcover on additional clusters

Adding more clusters

groundcover can monitor multiple clusters, and new clusters can be added at any given time. You can add new clusters using the UI.

Click on the cluster picker in the top right corner and then on the + Add Cluster option.

Note: Our free plan limits the use of groundcover on only one cluster. Check out our Team and Enterprise plans to install on an unlimited number of clusters.

Updating groundcover

To update the groundcover agent to the latest version, run:

Using CLI

# List deployment options
groundcover deploy --help

# if you have helm overrides file, you can pass it using `-f <overrides>.yaml`
groundcover deploy

Using Helm

# (1) Fetch groundcover api-key
groundcover auth print-api-key

# (2) Add groundcover Helm repoistory (once)
helm repo add groundcover https://helm.groundcover.com

# (3) Update groundcover Helm repository to fetch latest charts
helm repo update groundcover

# (4) Deploy groundcover release
helm upgrade \
    groundcover \
    groundcover/groundcover \
    -i \
    --create-namespace \
    -n groundcover \
    --set global.groundcover_token=<api-key from step (1)>,clusterId=my_cluster

Modifying release mode

groundcover can be deployed in one of three modes:

• stable (default)

• experimental - nightly features

• legacy - previous generation agent, relevant on per-customer basis or for linux kernels < 5.3

In case you want to change the release mode, follow these instructions:

Using CLI

groundcover deploy --mode=[stable|experimental|legacy]

Using Helm

# In your overrides.yaml
mode: #[stable|experimental|legacy]

MODE=#[stable|experimental|legacy]
helm get values -n groundcover groundcover -o yaml | helm upgrade groundcover groundcover/groundcover -n groundcover --set mode="${MODE}" -f -

Uninstalling

Using CLI

groundcover delete

Using Helm

helm uninstall groundcover -n groundcover

# delete the namespace in order to remove the PVCs as well
kubectl delete ns groundcover