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Installation

Creating your kube.tf file and the OpenSUSE MicroOS snapshot​

  1. Create a project in your Hetzner Cloud Console, and go to Security > API Tokens of that project to grab the API key, it needs to be Read & Write. Take note of the key! ✅

  2. Generate a passphrase-less ed25519 SSH key pair for your cluster; take note of the respective paths of your private and public keys. Or, see our detailed SSH options. ✅

  3. Now navigate to where you want to have your project live and execute the following command, which will launch an interactive script to guide you through creating a new project folder, generating your kube.tf file, and optionally creating the required MicroOS snapshot. ✅

    Terminal
    tmp_script=$(mktemp) && curl -sSL -o "${tmp_script}" https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kube-hetzner/terraform-hcloud-kube-hetzner/master/scripts/create.sh && chmod +x "${tmp_script}" && "${tmp_script}" && rm "${tmp_script}"

    Or for fish shell:

    Terminal
    set tmp_script (mktemp); curl -sSL -o "{tmp_script}" https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kube-hetzner/terraform-hcloud-kube-hetzner/master/scripts/create.sh; chmod +x "{tmp_script}"; bash "{tmp_script}"; rm "{tmp_script}"

    Optionally, for future usage, save that command as an alias in your shell preferences, like so:

    alias createkh='tmp_script=$(mktemp) && curl -sSL -o "${tmp_script}" https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kube-hetzner/terraform-hcloud-kube-hetzner/master/scripts/create.sh && chmod +x "${tmp_script}" && "${tmp_script}" && rm "${tmp_script}"'

    Or for fish shell:

    alias createkh='set tmp_script (mktemp); curl -sSL -o "{tmp_script}" https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kube-hetzner/terraform-hcloud-kube-hetzner/master/scripts/create.sh; chmod +x "{tmp_script}"; bash "{tmp_script}"; rm "{tmp_script}"'

    The interactive script will:

    • Prompt you for your Hetzner Cloud API token
    • Ask if you want to create a new MicroOS snapshot (recommended for new users)
    • Generate a customized kube.tf file based on your inputs
    • Set up the necessary Packer configuration if creating a snapshot
    • Create the project directory and initialize it

  4. In the newly created project folder, you'll find your kube.tf file, which has been pre-configured with your settings. Review and customize it further as needed. ✅

    A complete reference of all inputs, outputs, modules etc. can be found in the terraform.md file.

Installation​

Now that you have your kube.tf file, along with the OS snapshot in Hetzner project, you can start the installation process:

Terminal
cd <your-project-folder>
terraform init --upgrade
terraform validate
terraform apply -auto-approve

It will take around 5 minutes to complete, and then you should see a green output confirming a successful deployment.

Once you start with Terraform, it's best not to change the state of the project manually via the Hetzner UI; otherwise, you may get an error when you try to run terraform again for that cluster (when trying to change the number of nodes for instance). If you want to inspect your Hetzner project, learn to use the hcloud cli.