Overview
Use the Install section to plan and complete an 4.4 installation.
The installation deploys Core and the required Aligned Extensions on the global cluster. Core provides the platform management plane, cluster management, users and roles, and Extension management frameworks. The required Aligned Extensions provide the Web Console and other platform-facing capabilities. For the platform architecture and definitions of global cluster and workload cluster, see Architecture and Glossary.
The Core Package and the required Aligned Extension packages are separate downloads. Before starting the installer, copy the eight required Extension packages listed in Download into the plugins/ directory of the extracted Core Package. Other Extensions are installed after the platform installation through the Extend workflow.
Core installation does not support direct installation of the global cluster into an existing Kubernetes environment. Prepare new nodes that meet the hardware, network, storage, and OS requirements before you start installation.
Installation Scope
The installation provides the platform management plane and the required Aligned Extensions. After the installation is verified, you can create or connect workload clusters and install additional Extensions according to your platform scenario.
The procedure described in this section installs the global cluster onto a traditional operating system such as Ubuntu or RHEL. If the global cluster uses Alauda OS, see Installing the global Cluster on Immutable Infrastructure instead.
The following work is outside this installation flow:
- Creating workload clusters.
- Connecting existing Kubernetes clusters.
- Uploading and installing Extensions other than the eight required Aligned Extensions.
- Installing optional Operators or Cluster Plugins.
- Configuring optional platform capabilities such as storage, monitoring, backup, registry, or identity integrations.
Installation Workflow
The installation follows this high-level path:
- Plan. Choose the deployment architecture and confirm decisions that cannot be changed safely after installation.
- If required, read Global Cluster Disaster Recovery before preparing resources. DR affects addresses, certificates, load balancing, registry selection, and the consistency of both installations.
- Prepare for installation. Meet the hardware, storage, network, and node requirements.
- Download. Download the matching Core Package and the required Aligned Extension packages.
- If selected, prepare the external platform image registry and upload the complete target-version payload.
- Installing. Extract the Core Package, stage the required packages, start the installer, and complete the Web UI workflow.
- Use Installer Parameters while reviewing the values entered in the installer.
- Validation. Accept the installation only after the Web UI, Core, required Aligned Extensions, image source, artifacts, and Pods are healthy.
- If the installer stalls or validation fails, use Installation Troubleshooting.
- Next Steps. Install the Product Docs plugin and continue with scenario-specific configuration.
The Customer Portal is the official source for installation packages. For download requirements and package architecture options, see Download.
The Core Package does not contain the required Aligned Extension packages. Download them separately and manually copy only the eight packages listed in Download into the plugins/ directory of the extracted Core Package before starting the installer.