FAQ

General

What is Kipper?

Kipper is an open source Kubernetes platform that takes you from zero to production in one command. You get a production-ready cluster on standard Linux infrastructure, with a web console, automatic SSL, and one-command app deployments, without needing Kubernetes expertise on your team.

Who is Kipper for?

Kipper is for small and mid-sized teams, agencies, SaaS products, internal platforms, and independent operators who want production Kubernetes without enterprise platform complexity. You don't need a Kubernetes specialist on staff. If you have one, Kipper handles the boring 80% so they can focus on the parts that matter to your business.

How is Kipper different from managed Kubernetes (EKS, GKE)?

Managed Kubernetes gives you the cluster but leaves you to figure out ingress, TLS, storage, auth, and deployment workflows. Kipper handles all of that with opinionated defaults. It also runs on any server you own, so you are not locked into a cloud provider.

Is Kipper production-ready?

Kipper is in active development. The core install, deploy, and management commands work on real infrastructure, and we use it for staging environments and early-stage production workloads. It has not been battle-tested at scale.

Does kip work on Windows?

Yes. The kip CLI runs natively on Windows for all commands: deploying apps, managing secrets, viewing logs, scaling, rollbacks, etc. The only exception is kip install, which uses SSH to connect to a Linux server. For that command, use WSL or Git Bash. Download kip-windows-amd64.exe from the releases page.

Installation

What servers are supported?

Any Linux server with root SSH access running Ubuntu 20.04, 22.04, 24.04, or Debian 11 or 12. Minimum 2GB RAM and 20GB disk.

Can I install on a cloud VM?

Yes. Any cloud provider that gives you a Linux VM with a public IP and root SSH access will work.

Can I install on ARM?

The kip CLI itself runs fine on ARM client machines (Linux arm64 and Apple Silicon). The cluster nodes you install onto need to be x86/amd64 today, because a few of the bundled component images are pinned to linux/amd64.

What other Linux distributions are supported?

Ubuntu and Debian. RHEL, Rocky Linux, AlmaLinux, Fedora, openSUSE, and Alpine Linux are not currently supported. The difference is small (just the package manager command for open-iscsi), so a contribution adding one is a good first PR.

I lost my admin password

Run kip auth reset-password to generate a new one.

Can I re-run kip install?

Yes. The install is idempotent. Re-running it will update existing components without breaking anything.

Apps

What can I deploy?

Any application packaged as a Docker container image. If it listens on a port, Kipper can deploy it.

How do I update a deployed app?

Use kip app update to change the image and trigger a rolling update:

kip app update api --image ghcr.io/acme/api:v2.1.0

You can also update the image from the web console using the package icon in the app detail panel.

Where are my secrets stored?

In Kubernetes Secrets, encrypted at rest by k3s. They are scoped to the project namespace and never returned in API responses unless explicitly requested.

How do I scale an app?

kip app scale api --replicas 3

The READY column in kip app list shows scaling progress. You can also scale via the web console's Scale tab.

Can I run multiple services under one domain?

Yes, use the --route flag to group services by path:

kip app deploy --name frontend --image img --port 80 --route myapp/
kip app deploy --name api --image img --port 3000 --route myapp/api

Both share myapp-<cluster>.kipper.run.

I accidentally set the wrong secret value

Run kip app secret rollback api SECRET_KEY to restore the previous value. Kipper automatically keeps the previous version of every secret.

Can I use a private container registry?

Yes. You need to create an image pull secret on the cluster. This is a manual step for now. Automated registry configuration is planned.

How do I add a database?

kip service add postgres --name mydb

This creates a PostgreSQL instance with persistent storage and auto-generated credentials. See Stateful Services.

How do I upgrade Kipper?

kip upgrade

This pulls the latest console images and restarts system components. Your apps and services are not affected.

What does "stopped" mean?

An app scaled to 0 replicas. It still exists (deployment, service, ingress are preserved) but no pods are running. Start it again with kip app scale <name> --replicas 1.

Networking

How do subdomains work?

A wildcard DNS record points *.kipper.run to the Kipper Gateway. The gateway looks up which cluster owns the subdomain and proxies the request. Your app gets a URL like myapp-203-0-113-10.kipper.run automatically.

Can I use my own domain?

Yes. The cleanest path is to pass kip install --domain yourdomain.com at install time. That makes the cluster's wildcard (*.yourdomain.com) the default for new app routes. Without --domain, clusters use a generated *.kipper.run subdomain.

After install, kip cluster domain yourdomain.com only changes the console host. Per-app custom domains are set on each route from the Routes panel. See the Domains page for the full DNS setup.

Is traffic encrypted?

Yes. For *.kipper.run routes, TLS is terminated at the kipper.run gateway using a Let's Encrypt wildcard certificate, and the gateway-to-cluster hop also uses HTTPS. For routes on a custom domain, traffic goes directly to your cluster and cert-manager terminates TLS in-cluster with a per-host Let's Encrypt certificate.