Quick Start Guide

Meshery runs as a set of containers on either a Kubernetes cluster or a Docker host. This guide installs Meshery’s command line interface, mesheryctl, and uses it to start Meshery Server, then walks you through signing in and connecting your clusters.

Quick Start Assumptions

This guide downloads, installs, and runs Meshery with a single command, and assumes that your current kubeconfig context points at the cluster you want to use. For instructions specific to your environment, see all supported platforms.

1. Download, install, and run Meshery

On macOS or Linux, run the following command to download and install mesheryctl and then deploy Meshery Server to the Kubernetes cluster in your current kubeconfig context.

  
  curl -L https://meshery.io/install | PLATFORM=kubernetes bash -

To run Meshery on your local Docker host instead, replace PLATFORM=kubernetes with PLATFORM=docker. If you omit PLATFORM, the script prompts you to choose a platform.

On Windows, add the Meshery bucket to Scoop, install mesheryctl, and start Meshery:

  
  scoop bucket add mesheryctl https://github.com/meshery/scoop-bucket.git
scoop install mesheryctl
mesheryctl system start

mesheryctl system start deploys to the platform set in your current mesheryctl context, which defaults to kubernetes. Add --platform docker to deploy to Docker instead.

Meshery CLI

You can install mesheryctl in several ways: with Bash, Brew, or Scoop, or by direct download from the latest release.

2. Access Meshery

When Meshery is ready, mesheryctl opens Meshery UI in your default browser. On Docker, Meshery UI listens at http://localhost:9081. On Kubernetes, mesheryctl opens the address of the meshery service in the meshery namespace. If your browser cannot reach that address, run mesheryctl system dashboard --port-forward to forward Meshery UI to http://localhost:9081. To skip opening the browser, pass --skip-browser to mesheryctl system start.

Accessing Meshery Server with Meshery UI

Meshery Server serves Meshery UI, so the UI is available as soon as Meshery starts. The address and port depend on how you deployed Meshery. See accessing Meshery UI for deployment-specific details.

Accessing Meshery Server with Meshery CLI

Like Meshery UI, mesheryctl is a client of Meshery Server’s REST API. Use whichever client suits the task at hand.

3. Select a Provider

Choose one of the listed Providers and sign in with it.

4. Configure Connections to your Kubernetes Clusters

Out-of-Cluster Deployments If you deployed Meshery out-of-cluster, Meshery Server automatically tries to connect to the Kubernetes clusters in your kubeconfig ($HOME/.kube/config) and in any kubeconfig files you upload through Meshery UI. By default, MeshSync runs embedded inside Meshery Server and nothing is installed into your cluster. Only when a connection uses operator mode does Meshery Server deploy Meshery Operator, MeshSync, and Broker into the meshery namespace. To switch a connection between the two, see MeshSync deployment modes.

In-Cluster Deployments If you deployed Meshery in-cluster, Meshery Server automatically connects to the API server of the cluster it runs in.

Visit Settings:

If Meshery did not detect your kubeconfig, upload one or more kubeconfig files yourself. Meshery tries to connect to each reachable context in the uploaded files, using embedded mode unless you set that context’s connection to operator mode. For more information, see Kubernetes connection lifecycle.

5. Verify Deployment

Run connectivity tests to verify the health of your Meshery deployment. To check Meshery’s connection to a Kubernetes cluster, click its connection chip. Meshery runs a quick connectivity test and tells you whether it can reach and authenticate to that cluster’s control plane. Every connection chip works the same way, whether it represents one of Meshery’s own components, like Meshery Adapters, or other managed infrastructure. From the command line, run mesheryctl system check for pre- and post-deployment health checks.

If Meshery Operator does not reach a healthy status, its status card and the connection’s Diagnostics show the reason. Deploying the Operator requires outbound access to the Meshery chart repository. Meshery retries the chart lookup on each deploy, so if the repository was briefly unreachable, redeploy the Operator. See Meshery Operator and MeshSync troubleshooting.