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Downloading Air Gap Bundles

This topic describes how to download air gap bundles for your application, the Replicated KOTS admin console, and the Replicated kURL installer.

Overview​

Air gap bundles are required to install applications in air gap environments with Replicated KOTS. Air gap bundles include the images needed to install and run applications in an environment that has no outbound internet access.

Air gap installations with KOTS require an air gap bundle with the application assets, as well as an air gap bundle for the KOTS or kURL installer depending on the installation method. The following describes the contents of each type of air gap bundle:

  • .airgap: Assets for a specific release of the application, such as Kubernetes YAML files and Docker images.
  • kotsadm.tar.gz: Container images for the Replicated KOTS admin console. Required for existing cluster installations in air gap environments.
  • kURL .tar.gz: Open source components to run the cluster, including the container runtime, Kubernetes, the KOTS admin console, the kURL image registry and a number of other kURL add-ons. Required for embedded cluster installations with kURL in air gap environments.

Build and Download the Application Bundle​

This section describes how to build and download the application .airgap bundle from the Vendor Portal. For information about building and downloading .airgap bundles with the Vendor API v3, see Trigger airgap build for a channel's release and Get airgap bundle download URL for the active release on the channel in the Vendor API v3 documentation.

For information about how to download the .airgap bundle from the Replicated download portal, see Download Air Gap Bundles from the Download Portal below.

To build and download the .airgap bundle for a release:

  1. In the Vendor Portal, go to Channels. On the target channel, click Release history.

    Release history link on a channel card

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  2. On the Release history page, click Build to build the .airgap bundle.

    note

    By default, the Stable and Beta channels automatically build .airgap bundles on new releases. To edit this functionality on any channel, enable or disable the Automatically create airgap builds for all releases in this channel toggle in the channel settings.

    Build button on the Release history page

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  3. After the .airgap bundle is built, click Download Bundle.

  4. (Optional) View the contents of the downloaded bundle:

    tar -zxvf AIRGAP_BUNDLE

    Where AIRGAP_BUNDLE is the filename for the .airgap bundle that you downloaded.

Download the KOTS Admin Console Bundle​

Air gap installations in existing clusters require the kotsadm.tar.gz air gap bundle, which includes the images for the KOTS admin console. The version of the kotsadm.tar.gz air gap bundle used must be compatible with the version of the application .airgap bundle.

The kotsadm.tar.gz air gap bundle for each version of KOTS is available for download on the Releases page in the kots repository in GitHub.

You can also download the kotsadm.tar.gz air gap bundle from the Replicated download portal to ensure its compatibility with the application .airgap bundle. For more information, see Download Air Gap Bundles from the Download Portal below.

Download the kURL Bundle​

Air gap installations in embedded clusters created with kURL require the kURL .tar.gz air gap bundle, which includes the components needed to run the cluster and install the application with KOTS.

The kURL bundle is kept separate from the .airgap bundle for the following reasons:

  • The kURL bundle can get quite large, so this method lets you update your application with a smaller bundle size.
  • Whereas air gap bundles for an application often need to be rebuilt with each new release, kURL air gap bundles only need to be built when the underlying cluster components or add-ons must be updated.

kURL air gap bundles are specific to channels. The kURL air gap bundle used for installation must be downloaded from the same channel where the target release is promoted to ensure its compatibility with the application .airgap bundle.

You can also download the kURL air gap bundle from the Replicated download portal. For more information, see Download Air Gap Bundles from the Download Portal below.

Download the kURL Bundle for the Stable Channel​

To download the kURL air gap bundle for the Stable channel:

export REPLICATED_APP=APP_SLUG
curl -LS https://k8s.kurl.sh/bundle/$REPLICATED_APP.tar.gz -o $REPLICATED_APP.tar.gz

Where APP_SLUG is the unqiue slug for the application. You can find the slug on the Application Settings page in the Vendor Portal. For more information, see Get the Application Slug in Managing Applications.

Download the kURL Bundle for Other Channels​

To download the kURL bundle for channels other than Stable:

  1. Run the following command to get the air gap URL:

    replicated channel inspect CHANNEL

    Replace CHANNEL with the exact name of the target channel, which can include uppercase letters or special characters, such as Unstable or my-custom-channel.

    The output shows valid URLs for existing cluster, embedded kURL cluster, and air gap installations. For example:

    ID: 2cQZqq44qwTH
    NAME: Beta
    DESCRIPTION:
    RELEASE:
    VERSION:
    EXISTING:

        curl -fsSL https://kots.io/install | bash
        kubectl kots install gitea/beta

    EMBEDDED:

        curl -fsSL https://k8s.kurl.sh/gitea-beta | sudo bash

    AIRGAP:

        curl -fSL -o gitea-beta.tar.gz https://k8s.kurl.sh/bundle/gitea-beta.tar.gz
        # ... scp or sneakernet gitea-beta.tar.gz to airgapped machine, then
        tar xvf gitea-beta.tar.gz
        sudo bash ./install.sh airgap

  2. In the output of the command, copy the curl command with the air gap URL.

Download Air Gap Bundles from the Download Portal​

The Replicated Download Portal can be used to share license files, air gap bundles, and other assets with customers. A unique Download Portal link is available for each customer. The Download Portal uses information from the customer's license to make the relevant assets available for download, such as:

  • The license file
  • .airgap bundles for the application releases that the customer has access to based on their channel assignment
  • The Replicated KOTS Admin Console kotsadm.tar.gz air gap bundle
  • The Replicated kURL .tgz air gap bundle
  • Preflight, support bundle, and KOTS CLI kubectl plugins

To download air gap bundles from the download portal:

  1. In the Vendor Portal, on the Customers page, click on the name of the target customer.

    note

    The Airgap Download Enabled option must be enabled for the customer on the Manage customer page to download air gap bundles from the download portal.

  2. In the Download portal section, click Generate new password. Copy the password to your clipboard.

    download portal link

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  3. Click Visit download portal and log in using the password that you copied.

    The following is an example of the download portal for an air gap customer:

    download portal for existing cluster air gap installs

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  4. On the left side of the screen, select one of the following:

    • Bring my own cluster: View the air gap bundles for existing cluster installations.
    • Embedded cluster: View the air gap bundles for embedded cluster installations with kURL.

  5. Under Select application version, use the dropdown to select the target application release version. The download portal automatically makes the correct air gap bundles available for download based on the selected application version.

  6. Click the download button to download each air gap bundle.