Go binary called ‘ketchup’ SSHes into any Linux VM, installs k3s, and fetches kubeconfig to your laptop in under 60 seconds.
Key Takeaways
k3sup install + k3sup join cover single-node and multi-node setups; a Pro tier adds plan/apply for parallel, GitOps-style HA etcd clusters.
Works on bare-metal, Raspberry Pi, AWS EC2, DigitalOcean, Linode, Civo, Scaleway, and any SSH-accessible VM; cross-compiled for Linux, macOS, Windows, ARM.
Pro tier ($25+/mo GitHub Sponsorship) adds exec (run commands cluster-wide), get-config, parallel uninstall, and a --predownload flag for near-airgapped installs.
Plan files are plain YAML, committable to Git, and drive reproducible multi-server installs with configurable parallelism via --parallel.
k3sup install --local bypasses SSH entirely for single-node local installs.
Hacker News Comment Review
One commenter notes that the official k3s Ansible collection (ansible-playbook k3s.orchestration.site -i inventory.yml) achieves the same SSH-based install and kubeconfig merge in comparable time, positioning k3sup as one of several viable approaches rather than uniquely fast.
