# Software Requirements

This page describes the requirements that should be fulfilled by the user when installing or managing an Akamas installation on Kubernetes. The software below is usually installed on the user's workstation or laptop.

### Kubectl

Kubectl must be installed and configured to interact with the desired cluster. Refer to the [official kubectl documentation](https://kubernetes.io/docs/tasks/tools/#kubectl) to set up the client.

To interact with the Kubernetes APIs, you will need [kubectl](https://kubernetes.io/docs/tasks/tools/), preferably with a version matching the cluster. To check both the client and cluster versions, run the following:

```bash
kubectl version --short
```

### Helm

Installing Akamas requires [Helm 3.0](https://helm.sh/docs/intro/install/) or higher. To check the version, run the following:

```bash
helm version --short
```

### Privileged access

Akamas uses Elasticsearch to store logs and time series. When running Akamas on Kubernetes, Elasticsearch is installed automatically using the official Elasticsearch helm chart. This chart required running an init container with privileged access to set up a configuration on the Elasticsearch pod host. If running such a container is not permitted in your environment, you can add the following snippet to the `akamas.yaml` file when installing Akamas to disable this feature.

```yaml
# Disable ES privileged initialization container.
elasticsearch:
  sysctlInitContainer:
    enabled: false
```