kpkg

kpkg

A tool to install various K8s ecosystem related binaries.

I needed a tool to solve my problem of installing a bunch of different binaries that are either necessary, helpful, or both while working with the Kubernetes ecosystem. Although some tools can be installed using package managers, many tools cannot be installed using something like apt, yum, scoop, etc. I wanted something that was easy to use, and easy to remove. All tools are installed in the $HOME/.kpkg directory, so all installed tools can be removed by deleting the folder. I wanted something that could install multiple versions of tools. This is especially useful; for example, installing the right version of the kubectl cli for your cluster.

What this tool is not

This tool does not download nor keep track of dependencies. However, this should not be a problem, as the tools installed usually do not have any dependencies in the first place.

Installation

kpkg can be installed by running go get github.com/spachava753/kpkg, or you can run the installation script curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/spachava753/kpkg/0.4.1/install.sh | sh. Optionally, you can just download the zip file from releases: https://github.com/spachava753/kpkg/releases/latest

Goals

CLI tool management

• download the latest version of a binary
• download a specific version of a binary
• remove a specific version of binary
• purge all versions of binary
• show installed versions
• show installed tools
• show binary installation candidates
• easy to uninstall
• complete parity with arkade (meaning all binaries supported by arkade is also supported by kpkg)
• add support for detecting if running on arm{5,6,7}
• add support for checking checksum
• add progress bar

UX

The experience of the CLI should look something like this:

For getting a list of all possible binary installs

kpkg list
# or 
kpkg get

For installing the latest version

kpkg get linkerd2

For installing a specific version

kpkg get linkerd2 latest
kpkg get linkerd2 2.9.2

You might have multiple versions installed. To set to different version, use the same command

kpkg get linkerd2 2.9.2

To force a re-installation:

kpkg get linkerd2 2.9.2 --force

For listing installed binaries.

kpkg list -i

For listing possible versions of a binary.

kpkg list linkerd2

For listing only installed versions of a binary

kpkg list linkerd2 --installed
# or
kpkg list linkerd2 -i

For removing a version(s) of a binary. The command will fail if the current version installed points to version you are removing. This prevents broken symlinks.

kpkg rm linkerd2 2.9.2

For removing all versions of a binary. This completely removes any traces of the binary.

kpkg rm linkerd2 --purge

Binary List

  argocd           Declarative continuous deployment for Kubernetes
  argocd-autopilot The Argo-CD Autopilot is a tool which offers an opinionated way of installing Argo-CD and managing GitOps repositories
  buildx           Docker CLI plugin for extended build capabilities with BuildKit
  civo             Civo CLI is a tool to manage your Civo.com account from the terminal
  clairctl         Vulnerability Static Analysis for Containers
  copilot          The AWS Copilot CLI is a tool for developers to build, release and operate production ready containerized applications on Amazon ECS and AWS Fargate
  dive             A tool for exploring each layer in a docker image
  docker-compose   Define and run multi-container applications with Docker
  doctl            The official command line interface for the DigitalOcean API
  eksctl           The official CLI for Amazon EKS
  faas-cli         openfaas CLI plugin for extended build capabilities with BuildKit
  flux             The GitOps Kubernetes operator
  fzf              🌸 A command-line fuzzy finder
  gh               GitHub’s official command line tool
  golangci-lint    Fast linters Runner for Go
  goreleaser       Deliver Go binaries as fast and easily as possible
  helm             The Kubernetes Package Manager
  helmfile         Deploy Kubernetes Helm Charts
  hugo             The world’s fastest framework for building websites
  inletsctl        The fastest way to create self-hosted exit-servers
  istioctl         Connect, secure, control, and observe services
  k3d              Little helper to run Rancher Lab's k3s in Docker
  k3s              Lightweight Kubernetes
  k3sup            bootstrap Kubernetes with k3s over SSH < 1 min 🚀
  k9s              🐶 Kubernetes CLI To Manage Your Clusters In Style!
  kail             kubernetes log viewer
  kind             Kubernetes IN Docker - local clusters for testing Kubernetes
  kops             Kubernetes Operations (kops) - Production Grade K8s Installation, Upgrades, and Management
  kpkg             A binary to install various K8s ecosystem related binaries
  krew             📦 Find and install kubectl plugins
  kube-bench       Checks whether Kubernetes is deployed according to security best practices as defined in the CIS Kubernetes Benchmark
  kube-prompt      An interactive kubernetes client featuring auto-complete
  kubebuilder      SDK for building Kubernetes APIs using CRDs
  kubectl          kubectl is a cli to communicate k8s clusters
  kubectx          Faster way to switch between clusters in kubectl
  kubens           Faster way to switch between namespaces in kubectl
  kubeseal         A Kubernetes tool for one-way encrypted Secrets
  kustomize        Customization of kubernetes YAML configurations
  linkerd2         linkerd2 is a cli to install linkerd2 service mesh
  mc               MinIO Client (mc) provides a modern alternative to UNIX commands like ls, cat, cp, mirror, diff, find etc
  minikube         Run Kubernetes locally
  nats             The NATS Command Line Interface
  nerdctl          Docker-compatible CLI for containerd
  opa              An open source, general-purpose policy engine
  osm              Open Service Mesh (OSM) is a lightweight, extensible, cloud native service mesh that allows users to uniformly manage, secure, and get out-of-the-box observability features for highly dynamic microservice environments
  pack             CLI for building apps using Cloud Native Buildpacks
  packer           Packer is a tool for creating identical machine images for multiple platforms from a single source configuration
  polaris          Validation of best practices in your Kubernetes clusters
  popeye           👀 A Kubernetes cluster resource sanitizer
  stern            ⎈ Multi pod and container log tailing for Kubernetes
  terraform        Write infrastructure as code using declarative configuration files
  terrascan        Detect compliance and security violations across Infrastructure as Code to mitigate risk before provisioning cloud native infrastructure
  tkn              A CLI for interacting with Tekton!
  trivy            A Simple and Comprehensive Vulnerability Scanner for Container Images, Git Repositories and Filesystems. Suitable for CI
  vagrant          Vagrant is a tool for building and distributing development environments
  virtctl          Kubernetes Virtualization API and runtime in order to define and manage virtual machines
  yq               yq is a portable command-line YAML processor

Other alternatives:

• arkade
• ubi