Prerequisites

Prerequisites

Before you can deploy your first Edka cluster, you’ll need a few things set up. This guide will walk you through each prerequisite.

Hetzner Cloud Account

Edka deploys your infrastructure on Hetzner Cloud, which offers excellent performance at competitive prices (often 80-90% less than AWS or GCP).

1. Visit Hetzner Cloud and create an account
2. Provide payment information (credit card or PayPal)
3. Create a new project for your Edka-managed resources

Hetzner API Token

Edka needs an API token to provision and manage resources in your Hetzner account:

1. Log in to the Hetzner Cloud Console
2. Select your project
3. Navigate to Security > API Tokens
4. Click Generate API Token
5. Select Read & Write permissions
6. Copy the generated token (you’ll only see it once)

Git Repository

Edka uses GitOps for deployment, so you’ll need a Git repository:

GitHub

1. Create a GitHub account if you don’t have one
2. Create a new repository for your application
3. Push your application code and Kubernetes manifests to this repository

GitLab (Coming Soon)

Support for GitLab is coming soon.

Container Registry

You’ll need a container registry to store your application images. Edka supports:

• GitHub Container Registry (recommended with GitHub repositories)
• Docker Hub
• AWS ECR
• Google Artifact Registry

GitHub Container Registry Setup

1. Enable GitHub Container Registry for your account
2. Generate a Personal Access Token with write:packages permission
3. Log in to the registry with docker login ghcr.io

Secrets Management (Optional)

For secure handling of secrets, and hybrid environments, Edka integrates with several external secrets providers thru External Secrets Operator as an add-on. This allows you to sync secrets from your external provider directly into your Kubernetes cluster.:

• Doppler (recommended for ease of use)
• 1Password
• HashiCorp Vault
• AWS Secrets Manager
• Full List of Supported Providers

Domain Name (Optional)

If you want to expose your applications to the internet with custom domains:

1. Register a domain with any domain registrar
2. Set up a DNS provider (Cloudflare recommended)
3. Be prepared to configure DNS records to point to your Edka-managed infrastructure

Next Steps

Once you have all the prerequisites in place, you’re ready to create your first cluster!