Akeyless Gateway with Kubernetes Quickstart

This Quickstart guides you through deploying the Akeyless Gateway on a Kubernetes cluster using the official Helm chart and configuring it to authenticate to your Akeyless account with an API Key.

By the end, you will have:

• A running Gateway deployment on Kubernetes
• The Gateway connected to your Akeyless account using API Key authentication

Prerequisites

You will need:

• An active Akeyless account
• A Kubernetes cluster (v1.21 or later)
• kubectl installed and configured
• Helm installed
• Network connectivity from the Kubernetes cluster to Akeyless
• Kubernetes Metrics Server installed and working
• 1 vCPU and 2 GB RAM free in the cluster
• An Akeyless API Key (Access ID + Access Key) with an appropriate Role associated

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We have created a [Setup K to assist you if you're unfamiliar with setting up a Kubernetes cluster.

Step 1: Create Namespace

1. Launch a Terminal or Command Prompt.
2. Run the following command to create a new namespace in the Kubernetes cluster:

kubectl create namespace akeyless

Sample Output:

namespace/akeyless created

Step 2: Add Helm Repo

Run the following commands to add the official Akeyless Helm repository to your local Helm environment:

helm repo add akeyless https://akeylesslabs.github.io/helm-charts
helm repo update 

Sample Output:

"akeyless" has been added to your repositories
Hang tight while we grab the latest from your chart repositories...
...Successfully got an update from the "akeyless" chart repository
Update Complete. ⎈Happy Helming!⎈

Step 3: Fetch values.yaml

Run the following command to save the default configuration values of the Akeyless Gateway Helm chart to your current directory as a new file called values.yaml:

helm show values akeyless/akeyless-gateway --version "1.13.1" > values.yaml

There should be no command output.

Step 4: Create Secret for Access Key

1. Replace <Access-Key> in the command below with the Access Key value of your API Key.
2. Run the command to create a new Secret object in your Kubernetes cluster:

kubectl create secret generic access-key   --namespace akeyless   --from-literal=gateway-access-key=<Access-Key>

Step 5: Edit values.yaml

1. Using your text editor of choice, edit the values.yaml file you created earlier. Below we show the path to and the values that need to be added (gatewayAccessId, gatewayAccessType, gatewayCredentialsExistingSecret, clusterName, and initialClusterDisplayName).

globalConfig:
  gatewayAuth:
    gatewayAccessId: <Access ID of your API Key>
    gatewayAccessType: access_key
    gatewayCredentialsExistingSecret: access-key

  clusterName: quickstart-gateway
  initialClusterDisplayName: Quickstart Gateway

2. Save the file.

Step 6: Install the Gateway

Run the following command to install the Akeyless Gateway Helm chart using the values.yaml file that you edited:

helm install gw akeyless/akeyless-gateway --namespace akeyless -f values.yaml --version "1.13.1"

Sample Output:

NAME: gw
LAST DEPLOYED: Thu Nov 20 13:52:33 2025
NAMESPACE: akeyless
STATUS: deployed
REVISION: 1
DESCRIPTION: Install complete
TEST SUITE: None

Step 7: Verify Pods

1. Wait for the Akeyless Gateway's pods to be ready. This may take up to ten minutes.
2. Run the following command to check that the pods are ready:

kubectl get pods -n akeyless

Sample Output:

NAME                                           READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
gw-akeyless-gateway-cache-7bc7c7556b-rdwzx     1/1     Running   0          7m44s
unified-gw-akeyless-gateway-695dbb7f67-bflsz   1/1     Running   0          7m44s
unified-gw-akeyless-gateway-695dbb7f67-n6kbx   1/1     Running   0          7m44s

Step 8: View the Gateway in the Akeyless Console

1. Open the Akeyless Console.
2. Sign in to your existing Akeyless account.

You will be taken to the Akeyless Console homepage.

3. In the left navigation menu, select Gateways.

You should see Quickstart Gateway available with a Status of Healthy.

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We did not configure access to the Akeyless Gateway's local console in the Quickstart and attempts to access it are expected to fail.

You have now deployed the Akeyless Gateway on Kubernetes using Helm and authenticated it using an API Key.