Installing and Managing Packages with the Tanzu CLI

The topics in this section explain how to install and manage packages with the Tanzu CLI. The sections below list CLI-managed packages that you can deploy to Tanzu Kubernetes Grid (TKG) workload clusters and the package repositories where they are published. To learn more about packages, see Packages in About Tanzu Kubernetes Grid.

To use Helm charts to install in-cluster services that are not packaged as Tanzu packages, see Helm Charts below.

Overview

CLI-managed packages extend Kubernetes clusters created by TKG. After creating a cluster, you can install packages from the tanzu-standard package repository or from package repositories that you add to the cluster. TKG manages the lifecycle of the tanzu-standard package repository.

Note

VMware supports the packages listed below when deployed to TKG clusters. Custom package configurations, modifications, and updates for non-TKG clusters is not supported.

Packages and Package Repositories

A CLI-managed package is an optional component of a Kubernetes cluster that you can install and manage with the Tanzu Command Line Interface (CLI). These packages are installed after cluster creation.

CLI-managed packages are distributed via package repositories. To install and manage package repositories and the packages they contain, you use the tanzu package plugin of the Tanzu CLI. For information about how to use the tanzu package plugin, see Install and Manage Packages.

Tanzu Standard Repository Contents

In most cases, when you install a CLI-managed package from the tanzu-standard package repository, you install it in a workload or a shared services cluster. If the package depends on other packages in the package repository, you must install them first. After you prepare your Tanzu Kubernetes Grid environment as described in Preparing to Install CLI-Managed Packages below, follow the links in the Installation procedure column. These topics provide step-by-step instructions on how to configure and install each of the packages in the tanzu-standard package repository. For information about how to use the tanzu package plugin, see Packages in Installing and Managing Packages with the Tanzu CLI.

For information about support for the optional packages that are provided in the VMware Tanzu Standard Repository, see Tanzu Standard Repository Package Support in About Tanzu Kubernetes Grid.

Package Function Dependencies Installation location Installation procedure
cert-manager Certificate management n/a Workload or shared services cluster Install cert-manager
contour Container networking Requires cert-manager Workload or shared services cluster Implement Ingress Control with Contour
external-dns Container registry Requires cert-manager
Requires external-dns if you want to create DNS records for Contour HTTPProxy resources		 Workload or shared services cluster Implement Service Discovery with External DNS
fluent-bit Log forwarding n/a Workload cluster Implement Log Forwarding with Fluent Bit
flux-source-controller Continuous delivery (CD) n/a Workload cluster flux-source-controller Readme
grafana Monitoring Requires cert-manager, contour, and prometheus Workload cluster Implement Monitoring with Prometheus and Grafana
harbor Image registry Requires cert-manager
Requires contour or NSX ALB for ingress
Recommends external-dns on infrastructure platforms with load balancing such as AWS, Azure, and vSphere with NSX Advanced Load Balancer, especially in production or other environments in which Harbor availability is important		 Workload or shared services cluster Install Harbor for Service Registry
helm-controller Continuous delivery (CD) Requires flux-source-controller Workload cluster helm-controller Readme
kustomize-controller Continuous delivery (CD) Requires flux-source-controller Workload cluster kustomize-controller Readme
multus-cni Container networking Requires cert-manager Workload cluster Deploy Multus on Workload Clusters
prometheus Monitoring Requires cert-manager Workload cluster Implement Monitoring with Prometheus and Grafana
whereabouts Container networking Requires multus-cni Workload cluster Deploy Multus with Whereabouts on Workload Clusters
Note

vSphere with Tanzu does not support deploying packages to a shared services cluster. Workload clusters deployed by vSphere with Tanzu can only use packaged services deployed to the workload clusters themselves.

Tanzu Application Platform Repository

The Tanzu Application Platform (TAP) repository contains CLI-managed packages useful for developers, such as Tanzu Application Platform, Tanzu Build Service, Cloud Native Runtimes, Application Accelerator for VMware Tanzu, and Cartographer.

For a list of packages that the TAP repository contains and how to install them in workload clusters, see the topics that cover package installation under Install Tanzu Application Platform in the Tanzu Application Platform documentation.

Package Versions

You can run different versions of the CLI-managed packages in different workload clusters. In a workload cluster, you can run either the latest supported version of a CLI-managed package or the versions that are released with the last two TKG releases. For example, if the latest supported version of Contour is v1.24.4 and the last two TKG releases had the Contour versions 1.23.5 and v1.22.3, you can run version v1.24.4, v1.23.5, or v1.22.3 of Contour in a workload cluster.

Helm Charts

You can use Helm charts to install and manage the following in-cluster services that are not packaged as Tanzu packages:

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