Installing rpk

Redpanda Keeper (rpk) is a single binary application that provides a way to interact with your Redpanda clusters from the command line.

You can install rpk as part of a bundle that includes redpanda (see the Install Redpanda for instructions), or you can install the rpk binary separately.

If you are preparing to deploy a BYOC cluster using the Redpanda Cloud UI, for example, you only need to install the rpk binary.

For a list of all rpk commands and their syntax, refer to rpk documentation.

To install the rpk binary as a standalone application, follow the instructions for your operating system.

  • Linux

  • macOS

Download the rpk archive for Linux:

curl -LO https://github.com/redpanda-data/redpanda/releases/latest/download/rpk-linux-amd64.zip

Ensure that you have the folder ~/.local/bin:

mkdir -p ~/.local/bin

Add it to your $PATH:

export PATH="~/.local/bin:$PATH"

Unzip the rpk files to your ~/.local/bin/ directory:

unzip rpk-linux-amd64.zip -d ~/.local/bin/
  • Intel macOS

  • Apple Silicon

Download the rpk archive for macOS:

curl -LO https://github.com/redpanda-data/redpanda/releases/latest/download/rpk-darwin-amd64.zip

Ensure that you have the folder ~/.local/bin:

mkdir -p ~/.local/bin

Add it to your $PATH:

export PATH="~/.local/bin:$PATH"

Unzip the rpk files to your ~/.local/bin/ directory:

unzip rpk-darwin-amd64.zip -d ~/.local/bin/

Download the rpk archive for macOS:

curl -LO https://github.com/redpanda-data/redpanda/releases/latest/download/rpk-darwin-arm64.zip

Ensure that you have the folder ~/.local/bin:

mkdir -p ~/.local/bin

Add it to your $PATH:

export PATH="~/.local/bin:$PATH"

Unzip the rpk files to your ~/.local/bin/ directory:

unzip rpk-darwin-arm64.zip -d ~/.local/bin/

After the files have been unzipped, run rpk version to display the rpk binary version.

rpk version

The output displays the version number. For example:

v22.2.6 (rev 449eef2)