Getting Started

Quick Start Guide

Get Optral up and running in your Kubernetes cluster in under 5 minutes.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, make sure you have the following

A Kubernetes cluster (1.25 or later)
kubectl configured to access your cluster
Helm 3.x installed
A Optral account (sign up at optral.ai)

1Create a Cluster in Optral

First, create a cluster entry in the Optral dashboard to get your registration token.

Navigate to Clusters in the dashboard
Click the "Add Cluster" button
Enter a name for your cluster and select the environment type
Copy the installation command provided

2Install the Optral Agent

Run the Helm command in your cluster to install the Optral agent.

# Add the Optral Helm repository
helm repo add optral https://charts.optral.ai
helm repo update

# Install the agent
helm install optral-agent \
  oci://registry.optral.ai/charts/optral-agent \
  --set token=YOUR_REGISTRATION_TOKEN \
  --namespace optral-system \
  --create-namespace

Secure Connection

The agent establishes a secure gRPC tunnel to the control plane using your registration token. All traffic is encrypted with mTLS. No inbound ports are required in your cluster.

3Verify Installation

Verify that the agent is running and connected.

# Check agent pod status
kubectl get pods -n optral-system

# Check agent logs
kubectl logs -n optral-system -l app=optral-agent

Within a few seconds, your cluster should appear as "Connected" in the dashboard. The agent maintains a persistent gRPC tunnel for real-time communication.

Outbound-Only Connection

The Optral agent only makes outbound connections to our control plane. This means you don't need to open any inbound ports or configure firewall rules. All data is transmitted over an encrypted gRPC tunnel with mutual TLS authentication.

What's Next?

Now that your cluster is connected, explore these features

View Issues

See AI-detected issues and analysis

Create Runbooks

Automate issue remediation

API Integration

Connect with your tools

Troubleshooting

Agent not connecting?

Ensure your cluster has outbound internet access and the token is correct. Check the agent logs for specific errors.

Resources not appearing?

The agent needs RBAC permissions to read cluster resources. Verify the ClusterRole was created correctly.