In this article we will cover the installation of open source Kyma on a local development system using Rancher Desktop as alternative to Docker Desktop.
The Rancher Desktop project status is beta and using Rancher Desktop with open source Kyma is neither documented nor supported. However, with some configuration, Kyma deploys successfully and could be used for further experimentation. For information about deploying Kyma on Docker (and k3d), see For some background information about container engines, orchestration, Kubernetes, Kyma open source and the SAP Business Technology Platform Kyma runtime, see For the video tutorial series covering the SAP BTP Kyma runtime, see Questions? Post as comment. Useful? Give us a like and share on social media. Thanks! |
Kyma 2.0
Deploying Kyma
Installing open source Kyma on a local computer for learning, evaluation, development, and test is easy.
Open source Rancher Desktop makes this even easier as it provides a Kubernetes cluster (k3d) without any (cluster) installation or configuration requirements.
About Minikube and Docker
For many years, minikube has been the standard sandbox environment to run a Kubernetes locally, i.e. on a developer computer running Linux, macOS, or Windows. Minikube uses a local hypervisor and a virtual machine, which adds overhead (although configurable).
More recently, lightweight alternatives like k3d and kind (kubernetes-in-docker) have grown in popularity.
For many years, Docker Desktop has been the standard environment to build, share, and run Docker containers. As of August 2021, a subscription is required.
About Rancher Desktop
Recently, SUSE release Rancher Desktop. It’s an open source app for desktop Kubernetes and container management on Mac, Windows and Linux.
For the docs, see
Preparation
The prerequisites for a Kyma deployment are a local Kubernetes cluster and the Kyma CLI.
Install Rancher
To download, go to
The installation takes no parameters. Depending on the operating system a reboot may be required.
Install Kyma CLI
You can install the Kyma CLI directly from GitHub or use a package manager
- Homebrew for macOS
- Chocolatey for Windows
Installing the CLI takes a few seconds.
# macOS
brew install kyma-cli
# Windows
choco install kyma-cli
Deploy
Kubernetes Settings
Change the Kubernetes version to a supported version, set the runtime to dockerd, and allocate enough resources.
Minimal resource requirements are not documented but you can take a hint from the SAP BTP Kyma runtime minimal virtual machine configuration: 8 vCPU and 32GB memory.
For the supported Kubernetes version, see
- Install Kyma | Project Kyma
Deploy Kyma
Now that we have a (local) Kuberneter cluster, we can deploy the Kyma runtime. For the (limited) options, see
- Install Kyma | Project Kyma
For the online help, run
kyma deploy -h
With limited resources, i.e. when using a lap- or desktop, you can include the evaluation parameter.
kyma deploy -p evaluation
Kyma deploys to the current context. To set the context, you can use the kubectl command.
- kubectl Cheat Sheet | Kubernetes
For information about kubectl, see Tools below.
For more information about the components, see
Tools
Kubectl
The kubectl CLI is not required to deploy Kyma but will be needed to access the cluster. See for example
As with the Kyma CLI, you can install kubectl using a package manager.
# macOS
brew install kubernetes-cli
# Windows
choco install kubernetes-cli
Note that according to the Kubernetes documentation, you must use a kubectl version that is within one minor version difference of your cluster.
With the current Kyma default settings, a Kubernetes v1.20 cluster is deployed and hence the most recent kubectl we can use is v1.21 (and not 1.22 or latest 1.23). The Homebrew and Chocolatey package managers typically install the latest version and getting an earlier version might be challenging. For the latest four stable versions, see Alternatively, use curl. |
New to kubectl?
Rancher Desktop
For Rancher Desktop support, see the General and Troubleshooting screens.
Images shows the downloaded Kyma components.
Share and Connect
Questions? Please post as comment.
Useful? Give us a like and share on social media.
Thanks!
If you would like to receive updates, connect with me on
- LinkedIn > linkedin.com/in/dvankempen
- Twitter > @dvankempen
For the author page of SAP PRESS, visit
Over the years, for the SAP HANA Academy, SAP’s Partner Innovation Lab, and à titre personnel, I have written a little over 300 posts here for the SAP Community. Some articles only reached a few readers. Others attracted quite a few more.For your reading pleasure and convenience, here is a curated list of posts which somehow managed to pass the 10k-view mile stone and, as sign of current interest, still tickle the counters each month. |