Getting Started with Cozystack: Deploying Private Cloud from Scratch on Cozystack

Requirements and Toolchain

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Toolchain

You will need the following tools installed on your workstation:

talosctl, the command line client for Talos Linux.
kubectl, the command line client for Kubernetes.

Talm, Cozystack’s own configuration manager for Talos Linux:

curl -sSL https://github.com/cozystack/talm/raw/refs/heads/main/hack/install.sh | sh -s

Hardware Requirements

To run this tutorial, you will need the following setup:

Cluster nodes: three bare-metal servers or virtual machines. Hardware requirements depend on your usage scenario:

Here are the baseline requirements for running a small installation. The minimum recommended configuration for each node is as follows:

1. Install Talos Linux

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Before you begin

Make sure that you have nodes (bare-metal servers or VMs) that fit the hardware requirements.

Objectives

On this step of the tutorial you will install Talos Linux on bare-metal servers or VMs running some other Linux distribution.

The tutorial is using boot-to-talos, a simple-to-use CLI app made by Cozystack team for users and teams adopting Cozystack. There are multiple ways to install Talos Linux for Cozystack, not used here and covered in separate guides.

2. Install and Bootstrap a Kubernetes cluster

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Objectives

We start this step of the tutorial, having three nodes with Talos Linux installed on them.

As a result of this step, we will have a Kubernetes cluster installed, configured, and ready to install Cozystack. We will also have a kubeconfgig for this cluster, and will have performed basic checks on the cluster.

Installing Kubernetes

Install and bootstrap a Kubernetes cluster using Talm, a declarative CLI configuration tool with ready configuration presets for Cozystack.

3. Install and Configure Cozystack

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Objectives

In this step of the tutorial, we’ll install Cozystack on top of a Kubernetes cluster, prepared in the previous step.

The tutorial will guide you through the following stages:

Prepare a Cozystack configuration file
Install Cozystack by applying configuration
Configure storage
Configure networking
Deploy etcd, ingress and monitoring stack in the root tenant
Finalize deployment and access Cozystack dashboard

1. Prepare a Configuration File

We will start installing Cozystack by making a configuration file. Take the example below and write it in a file cozystack.yaml:

4. Create a User Tenant and Configure Access

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Objectives

At this step of the tutorial, you will create a user tenant — a space for users to deploy applications and VMs. You will also get tenant credentials and log in as a user with access to this tenant.

Prerequisites

Before you begin:

Complete the previous steps of the tutorial to get a Cozystack cluster running, with storage, networking, and management dashboard configured.
Make sure you can access the dashboard, as described in the previous step of the tutorial.

5. Deploy Managed Applications, VMs, and tenant Kubernetes cluster

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Objectives

This guide will walk you through setting up the environment needed to run a typical web application with common service dependencies—PostgreSQL and Redis—on Cozystack, a Kubernetes-based PaaS framework.

You’ll learn how to:

Deploy managed applications in your tenant: a PostgreSQL database and Redis cache.
Create a managed Kubernetes cluster, configure DNS, and access the cluster.
Deploy a containerized application to the new cluster.

You don’t need in-depth Kubernetes knowledge to complete this tutorial—most steps are done through the Cozystack web interface.