Installing SpiceDB on Kubernetes

This document outlines how to install SpiceDB for systems running Kubernetes.

SpiceDB runs great in many environments, but our recommendation is to use Kubernetes in production deployments. The SpiceDB developers have deep experience with Kubernetes and can offer the best support in this environment. Additionally, SpiceDB has some additional logic for things such as peer discovery that make the experience a bit more seamless when using Kubernetes.

Installing SpiceDB using the SpiceDB Operator

The SpiceDB Operator is the best way to deploy SpiceDB in production.

To install the latest version of the SpiceDB Operator you can run the following command:

kubectl apply --server-side -f https://github.com/authzed/spicedb-operator/releases/latest/download/bundle.yaml

After installation, you can create an example deployment of SpiceDB by applying a SpiceDBCluster Custom Resource:

kubectl apply --server-side -f - <<EOF
apiVersion: authzed.com/v1alpha1
kind: SpiceDBCluster
metadata:
  name: dev
spec:
  config:
    datastoreEngine: memory
  secretName: dev-spicedb-config
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
  name: dev-spicedb-config
stringData:
  preshared_key: "averysecretpresharedkey"
EOF

To learn more about the SpiceDB Operator, you can read its documentation.

Installing SpiceDB using kubectl

If you prefer writing your own Kubernetes manifests from scratch and are looking for a starting place with SpiceDB, you can install an example deployment using the following command:

kubectl apply --server-side -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/authzed/examples/main/kubernetes/example.yaml

You should read through these example manifests  as it contains comments for quickly configuring certain features.

If you’re looking for something production-ready, install the SpiceDB Operator.

Installing SpiceDB using Helm

There is a community maintained Chart  by the folks over at Bushel . As per their instructions, you can install it like this:

helm repo add spicedb-operator-chart https://bushelpowered.github.io/spicedb-operator-chart/
helm repo update
helm repo upgrade --install ... $RELEASE spicedb-operator-chart/spicedb-operator