Installation¶

This guide will walk you through two approaches to install Reactor, the CLI tool for Kubernetes development and management. Depending on your environment and preferences, you can either install Reactor as a Kubectl Krew plugin or as a local script library that you can add to your system PATH.

Option 1: Install Reactor as a Kubectl Krew Plugin¶

Krew is a plugin manager for kubectl that makes it easy to discover and install kubectl plugins. Installing Reactor as a Krew plugin integrates it seamlessly with kubectl, allowing you to develop your Kubernetes cluster applications using the familiar Kubernetes CLI.

Prerequisites¶

You must have kubectl installed and configured.
Krew must be installed on your system. Follow the Krew installation instructions here: https://krew.sigs.k8s.io/docs/user-guide/setup/install/.

Note: We have plans to add reactor to the official Krew plugin registry but until we complete that process we have created a custom plugin registry in the Zimagi GitHub organization.

Installation Steps¶

Install Reactor using Krew by running the following command:

# Copy, paste, and run the following command sequence into your terminal
(
  kubectl krew index add reactor https://github.com/kube-reactor/krew-index.git &&
  kubectl krew install reactor/reactor
)

Once the installation is complete, verify that Reactor is installed:
```
kubectl reactor --help
```

Reactor is now installed as a kubectl plugin and can be accessed using the kubectl reactor command. For more information on how to use Reactor with kubectl, refer to the usage section in this documentation.

Option 2: Install Reactor as a Local Script Library¶

Alternatively, you can install Reactor as a standalone script library and add it to your system PATH for direct usage. This method provides flexibility for those who prefer managing tools outside of kubectl and want to use Reactor as a standalone CLI.

Prerequisites¶

Ensure that you have curl installed for downloading the Reactor CLI.
Ensure that your system PATH is properly configured to include additional binaries or scripts.

Installation Steps¶

Download the Reactor CLI scripts to a location on your machine:

# Copy, paste, and run the following command sequence into your terminal
# You can find the latest reactor release here: https://github.com/kube-reactor/core/releases
(
  REACTOR_VERSION=0.1.2 &&
  set -x && mkdir -p "${HOME}/reactor" && cd "${HOME}/reactor" &&
  curl -fsSLO https://github.com/kube-reactor/core/releases/download/${REACTOR_VERSION}/reactor.tar.gz &&
  tar -zxvf reactor.tar.gz
)

Add the installation bin directory to your system PATH (if not already done):

# Add the following line to your ~/.bashrc or ~/.profile
export PATH="${HOME}/reactor/bin:${PATH}"

Verify the installation by checking the Reactor CLI version:
```
reactor --version
```

Reactor is now installed as a standalone CLI tool and can be run using the reactor command from any terminal session.

Core Environment Variables¶

LOG_LEVEL: Logging level 1 _(alerts only)_ - 7 _(debugging)_

REACTOR_ENVIRONMENT: Environment name _(default local)_

REACTOR_PROJECT_NAME: Reactor project name _(when in core or template development modes)_

DEFAULT_REACTOR_TEMPLATE_URL: Default template to use in create command _(git url)_

DEFAULT_REACTOR_TEMPLATE_REMOTE: Default template to use in create command _(git remote)_

DEFAULT_REACTOR_TEMPLATE_REFERENCE: Default template to use in create command _(get branch or tag)_

PROJECT_TEMPLATE_DIRECTORY: Specific template directory _(used in test command)_

REACTOR_DOCKER_SOCKET_FILE: Docker socket file location if different than default for Linux or Mac

REACTOR_RUNTIME_IMAGE: Runtime image name and version for reactor image command

REACTOR_DOCKER_RUN_ARGS: Array of optional arguments to pass to docker run command execution

HOME_SHARES: Array of directories and files to share with Docker runtime container