Install Kubermeister

Kubermeister is a desktop application for macOS, Windows and Linux. Every build comes from a tagged release on GitHub, and the installers carry the version in their file name, so a download is always a specific release rather than whatever is current.

Only the macOS build is signed and notarised. The Windows and Linux installers are unsigned, so the checksum is how you tell a good download from a truncated or tampered one.

macOS

Kubermeister runs on macOS 13 or newer, on Apple silicon and Intel.

Homebrew

brew install --cask kubermeister/tap/kubermeister

The cask installs the same .dmg the download page offers. It declares auto_updates true, because the app updates itself whichever way it was installed.

The installer

Download the .dmg for your architecture from the download page — mac-arm64 for Apple silicon, mac-x64 for Intel — open it and drag the app to Applications.

The macOS build is Developer ID signed and notarised, so the first launch opens without a right-click-to-open dance.

Windows

Download the .exe installer (win-x64) from the download page and run it. The installer is not code-signed; check it against SHA256SUMS before you run it.

Linux

Three formats are published, each for x86-64 and for arm64 (an Ampere or Graviton machine, a Raspberry Pi with a 64-bit OS, an arm64 virtual machine on an Apple silicon Mac). uname -m tells you which one you have: x86_64 or aarch64.

Architecture	AppImage	.deb	.rpm
x86-64	linux-x86_64.AppImage	linux-amd64.deb	linux-x86_64.rpm
arm64	linux-arm64.AppImage	linux-arm64.deb	linux-aarch64.rpm

• AppImage — download it, mark it executable and run it. Nothing is installed, and it needs no FUSE library.

  chmod +x Kubermeister-*-linux-x86_64.AppImage   # linux-arm64.AppImage on arm64
  ./Kubermeister-*-linux-x86_64.AppImage

• .deb — for Debian, Ubuntu and derivatives.

  sudo apt install ./Kubermeister-*-linux-amd64.deb   # linux-arm64.deb on arm64

• .rpm — for Fedora, RHEL and derivatives, and openSUSE. The package is not signed, so zypper asks to be told that is expected.

  sudo dnf install ./Kubermeister-*-linux-x86_64.rpm   # linux-aarch64.rpm on arm64
  sudo zypper install --allow-unsigned-rpm ./Kubermeister-*-linux-x86_64.rpm   # openSUSE

They update differently. The AppImage updates itself like the other builds. A .deb or .rpm belongs to your package manager, so the app only tells you a new version exists and links to its release page; you install the new package the same way you installed this one.

An AppImage installs no desktop entry until you integrate it, so on Linux the window sets its own icon rather than relying on one to supply it.

Verifying a download

Every release carries a SHA256SUMS file beside its installers, listing the SHA-256 digest of each .dmg, .zip, .exe, .AppImage, .deb and .rpm. Download it from the releases page into the same folder as the installer and check it:

# Linux
sha256sum --check --ignore-missing SHA256SUMS

# macOS
shasum -a 256 --check --ignore-missing SHA256SUMS

On Windows, compare the output of Get-FileHash .\Kubermeister-*-win-x64.exe in PowerShell with the line for that file.

The release is made public only after SHA256SUMS is attached, so it is never visible without its checksums. Before that, each installer is uploaded on its own and read back to compare its size and digest with the file that was built, and the update feed a running app reads is written last, so it only ever names files that are complete.

Updating

Kubermeister checks its GitHub releases for a new version. By default it downloads one in the background and installs it when you quit. You can have it ask first, or stop checking on a schedule — see updates. A .deb or .rpm install is the exception: it reports the new version and leaves the installing to you.

Next

Point it at a cluster: connecting to a cluster.