--- title: "Quickstart for Calico on K3s" description: "Quickstart that installs Calico Open Source on a single-node K3s cluster in roughly 5 minutes for testing or development." product: "Calico Open Source" version: "3.32 (latest)" section: "Installing and upgrading" canonical_url: "https://docs.tigera.io/calico/latest/getting-started/kubernetes/k3s/quickstart" --- # Quickstart for Calico on K3s ## Big picture This quickstart gets you a single-node K3s cluster with Calico in approximately 5 minutes. You can use this cluster for testing and development. ## Value Use this quickstart to quickly and easily try Calico features. To deploy a cluster suitable for production, refer to [Multi-node install](https://docs.tigera.io/calico/latest/getting-started/kubernetes/k3s/multi-node-install.md). The geeky details of what you get: | Policy | IPAM | CNI | Overlay | Routing | Datastore | | ------ | ------ | ------ | ------- | ------- | ---------- | | Calico | Calico | Calico | VXLAN | Calico | Kubernetes | ? ## Before you begin - Make sure you have a linux host that meets the following requirements - x86-64 processor - 1CPU - 1GB Ram - 10GB free disk space - Ubuntu 18.04 (amd64), Ubuntu 20.04 (amd64) > **SECONDARY:** K3s supports ARM processors too, this quickstart was tested against x86-64 processor environment. For more detail please visit [this link](https://rancher.com/docs/k3s/latest/en/installation/installation-requirements/#operating-systems). ## How to ### Create a single-node K3s cluster - Initialize the control plane using the following command: ```bash curl -sfL https://get.k3s.io | K3S_KUBECONFIG_MODE="644" INSTALL_K3S_EXEC="--flannel-backend=none --cluster-cidr=192.168.0.0/16 --disable-network-policy --disable=traefik" sh - ``` > **SECONDARY:** > > - If 192.168.0.0/16 is already in use within your network you must select a different pod network CIDR by replacing 192.168.0.0/16 in the above command. > > - K3s installer generates `kubeconfig` file in `etc` directory with limited permissions, using `K3S_KUBECONFIG_MODE` environment you are assigning necessary permissions to the file and make it accessible for other users. ### Install Calico **Tab: Operator** 1. Install the Calico operator and custom resource definitions. ```bash kubectl create -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/projectcalico/calico/v3.32.1/manifests/v1_crd_projectcalico_org.yaml kubectl create -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/projectcalico/calico/v3.32.1/manifests/tigera-operator.yaml ``` > **SECONDARY:** Due to the large size of the CRD bundle, `kubectl apply` might exceed request limits. Therefore, it is recommended to use `kubectl create` or `kubectl replace`. 2. Install Calico by creating the necessary custom resource. For more information on configuration options available in this manifest, see [the installation reference](https://docs.tigera.io/calico/latest/reference/installation/api.md). ```bash kubectl create -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/projectcalico/calico/v3.32.1/manifests/custom-resources.yaml ``` > **SECONDARY:** Before creating this manifest, read its contents and make sure its settings are correct for your environment. For example, you may need to change the default IP pool CIDR to match your pod network CIDR. **Tab: Manifest** Install Calico by using the following command. ```bash kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/projectcalico/calico/v3.32.1/manifests/calico.yaml ``` > **SECONDARY:** You can also [view the YAML in a new tab](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/projectcalico/calico/v3.32.1/manifests/calico.yaml). You should see the following output. ```text configmap/calico-config created customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/bgpconfigurations.crd.projectcalico.org created customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/bgppeers.crd.projectcalico.org created customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/blockaffinities.crd.projectcalico.org created customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/clusterinformations.crd.projectcalico.org created customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/felixconfigurations.crd.projectcalico.org created customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/globalnetworkpolicies.crd.projectcalico.org created customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/globalnetworksets.crd.projectcalico.org created customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/hostendpoints.crd.projectcalico.org created customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/ipamblocks.crd.projectcalico.org created customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/ipamconfigs.crd.projectcalico.org created customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/ipamhandles.crd.projectcalico.org created customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/ippools.crd.projectcalico.org created customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/kubecontrollersconfigurations.crd.projectcalico.org created customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/networkpolicies.crd.projectcalico.org created customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/networksets.crd.projectcalico.org created clusterrole.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/calico-kube-controllers created clusterrolebinding.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/calico-kube-controllers created clusterrole.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/calico-node created clusterrolebinding.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/calico-node created daemonset.apps/calico-node created serviceaccount/calico-node created deployment.apps/calico-kube-controllers created serviceaccount/calico-kube-controllers created ``` ### Final checks 1. Confirm that all of the pods are running using the following command. ```bash watch kubectl get pods --all-namespaces ``` 2. Wait until each pod shows the `STATUS` of `Running`. **Tab: Operator** ```text NAMESPACE NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE tigera-operator tigera-operator-c9cf5b94d-gj9qp 1/1 Running 0 107s calico-system calico-typha-7dcd87597-npqsf 1/1 Running 0 88s calico-system calico-node-rdwwz 1/1 Running 0 88s kube-system local-path-provisioner-6d59f47c7-4q8l2 1/1 Running 0 2m14s kube-system metrics-server-7566d596c8-xf66d 1/1 Running 0 2m14s kube-system coredns-8655855d6-wfdbm 1/1 Running 0 2m14s calico-system calico-kube-controllers-89df8c6f8-7hxc5 1/1 Running 0 87s ``` **Tab: Manifest** ```text NAMESPACE NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE kube-system calico-node-9hn9z 1/1 Running 0 23m kube-system local-path-provisioner-6d59f47c7-drznc 1/1 Running 0 38m kube-system calico-kube-controllers-789f6df884-928lt 1/1 Running 0 23m kube-system metrics-server-7566d596c8-qxlfz 1/1 Running 0 38m kube-system coredns-8655855d6-blzl5 1/1 Running 0 38m ``` 3. Press CTRL+C to exit `watch`. 4. Confirm that you now have a node in your cluster with the following command. ```bash kubectl get nodes -o wide ``` It should return something like the following. ```text NAME STATUS ROLES AGE VERSION INTERNAL-IP EXTERNAL-IP OS-IMAGE KERNEL-VERSION CONTAINER-RUNTIME k3s-master Ready master 40m v1.18.2+k3s1 172.16.2.128 Ubuntu 18.04.3 LTS 4.15.0-101-generic containerd://1.3.3-k3s2 ``` Congratulations! You now have a single-node K3s cluster equipped with Calico. ## Next steps - Try running the [Kubernetes Network policy demo](https://docs.tigera.io/calico/latest/network-policy/get-started/kubernetes-policy/kubernetes-demo.md) to see live graphical view of network policy in action