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Installation

Get hetzner-k3s running on your system in under a minute.

Prerequisites

Before installing hetzner-k3s, you'll need:

Requirement Description
Hetzner Cloud account Sign up here if you don't have one
API token Create one in Cloud Console → Security → API Tokens (read & write permissions)
SSH key pair For accessing cluster nodes
kubectl For interacting with your cluster (installation guide)
Helm For installing applications (installation guide)

macOS

brew install vitobotta/tap/hetzner_k3s

Homebrew also works on Linux — see the Linux section below.

Binary Installation

If you prefer not to use Homebrew, install the required dependencies first:

  • libevent
  • bdw-gc
  • libyaml
  • pcre
  • gmp

Apple Silicon: 

wget https://github.com/vitobotta/hetzner-k3s/releases/download/v2.4.5/hetzner-k3s-macos-arm64
chmod +x hetzner-k3s-macos-arm64
sudo mv hetzner-k3s-macos-arm64 /usr/local/bin/hetzner-k3s

Intel: 

wget https://github.com/vitobotta/hetzner-k3s/releases/download/v2.4.5/hetzner-k3s-macos-amd64
chmod +x hetzner-k3s-macos-amd64
sudo mv hetzner-k3s-macos-amd64 /usr/local/bin/hetzner-k3s

Linux

Homebrew works on Linux as well as macOS.

brew install vitobotta/tap/hetzner_k3s

amd64 (x86_64)

wget https://github.com/vitobotta/hetzner-k3s/releases/download/v2.4.5/hetzner-k3s-linux-amd64
chmod +x hetzner-k3s-linux-amd64
sudo mv hetzner-k3s-linux-amd64 /usr/local/bin/hetzner-k3s

arm64 (ARM)

wget https://github.com/vitobotta/hetzner-k3s/releases/download/v2.4.5/hetzner-k3s-linux-arm64
chmod +x hetzner-k3s-linux-arm64
sudo mv hetzner-k3s-linux-arm64 /usr/local/bin/hetzner-k3s

Fedora and Similar Distributions

Some distributions (like Fedora) may have OpenSSL compatibility issues. If you encounter errors, set these environment variables before running hetzner-k3s:

export OPENSSL_CONF=/dev/null
export OPENSSL_MODULES=/dev/null

For convenience, add a wrapper function to your ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc:

hetzner-k3s() {
    OPENSSL_CONF=/dev/null OPENSSL_MODULES=/dev/null command hetzner-k3s "$@"
}

Windows

Use the Linux binary with WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux).

After installing WSL, follow the Linux installation instructions above.

Verify Installation

Check that hetzner-k3s is installed correctly:

hetzner-k3s --version

You should see the version number displayed.

Next Steps

Now that hetzner-k3s is installed:

  1. Create your first cluster — Configuration reference and detailed options
  2. Set up a complete stack — Tutorial with ingress, TLS, and a sample application

Updating

To update to the latest version:

Homebrew: 

brew upgrade vitobotta/tap/hetzner_k3s

Binary installations: Download and replace the binary using the same steps as the initial installation.

Check the releases page for the latest version and changelog.