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Installing Knative

This page provides guidance for Kubernetes administrators on how to install Knative on an existing Kubernetes cluster. Knative has three components: Eventing, Serving, and Functions. Serving and Eventing are installed into clusters. Functions is not installed into clusters given that the client func CLI tool builds and deploys stateless functions as standard containers.

A Knative installation assumes you are familiar with the following:

  • Kubernetes and Kubernetes administration.
  • The kubectl CLI tool. You can use existing Kubernetes management tools (policy, quota, etc) to manage Knative workloads.
  • Using cluster-admin permissions or equivalent to install software and manage resources in all clusters in the namespace. For information about permissions, see Using RBAC Authorization.
  • Familiarity is recommended with Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) projects such as Prometheus, Istio, and Strimzi, many of which can be used alongside Knative.

You can install the Serving and Eventing components independently of one another. You can also add and remove plugins at any time, as well as optional integration tools that span observability, security, and testing. Plugins are described in the Extensibility section.

Installation roadmap

Use the following table to determine your installation method. If you just want to get an understanding of Knative functionality at this time, install the quickstart.

Quickstart YAML-based Knative Operator
Purpose local production production
Kubernetes deployment local, either kind or Minikube existing existing
Hardware 3 CPU, 3 GB RAM One node:
6 CPUs, 6 GB memory, 30 GB disk storage.
Multiple nodes:
2 CPUs each, 4 GB memory, 20 GB disk storage.		 same as YAML-based

Supported platforms are Linux, MacOS, and Windows.

The Knative Operator is a custom controller that extends the Kubernetes API to install Knative components. For more information about YAML-based and installations with the Knative Operator, see YAML and Knative Operator installations compared.

Use the following steps to install Knative depending on your installation method:

Quickstart:

  1. Install the CLI Tools.
  2. Install the Knative Quickstart plugin.

YAML-based:

Install using all YAML files. This option is the most useful if you're using GitOps tools such as Flux or ArgoCD to apply manifests checked into a Git repository. This is the lowest common denominator approach, giving you granular control of the process and resource definitions.

  1. Install the CLI Tools.
  2. Install either or both components:

Knative Operator:

Install using the Knative Operator as using manifests or Helm, or install using the Knative Operator that is installed with the Knative Operator CLI plugin.

  1. Install the CLI Tools including the Knative Operator CLI plugin.
  2. Install the Serving and Eventing components, by either of the following:

All installations require a supported Kubernetes version. System requirements provided are recommendations only. The requirements for your installation may vary depending on which plugin components you use.

For a list of commercial Knative products, see Knative offerings.

YAML and Knative Operator installations compared

You install Knative using YAML files and other resources either aided or not by the Knative Operator. The Knative Operator allows you to automate applying, patching, and customizing the content.

The Knative Operator alleviates installation complexities and is compatible with a GitOps approach. It also gives you a separation of the core Knative application definition and the ConfigMap and other changes you make. You install the Knative Operator either by using the Knative CLI Operator Plugin or by using Kubernetes Manifests or by Helm.

Here are the considerations for installing using YAML or the Knative Operator:

YAML-based install Knative Operator install
You can see exactly what you get. You specify choices at a higher level.
You can adjust any parameters by editing them directly. Not every setting is exposed.
If you make changes, you have to keep track of what you changed when you want to upgrade. It's easy to separate your customizations from the base installation.
Version and audit control as YAML files are stored in a GitHub repository. Manage custom resources using command-line tools or manifests.

Extensibility

Knative utilizes the existing infrastructure installed on your cluster and provides a developer-facing interface between similar components. The Serving and Eventing components support multiple underlying transports plugins within the same cluster. Serving supports pods with pluggable network ingress routes; and Eventing supports pods with pluggable message transports such as Kafka and RabbitMQ.

For LLM deployments, consider the KServe platform. KServe is a Kubernetes-native model serving platform built on Knative Serving designed for production LLM deployments.

Knative supports installing additional plugins after the initial installation, so your initial choices don't lock you in. For example, you can migrate from one message transport or network ingress to another without losing messages.

Networking plugins

If you don't have an ingress that meets the requirements, Knative provides net-kourier, a default lightweight HTTP routing implementation. Plugins include:

Messaging plugins

Knative has default lightweight in-memory messaging implementation if you don't already have a solution.

Integration plugins

These plugins facilitate Knative operations.

Installation resources

Use the following links to maintain your installations.

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