Prerequisites

Use an EKS cluster and a dedicated bucket for this guide. The example is an Ordered Bucket fleet named my-fleet in namespace fleets.

• Kubernetes 1.31 or newer with IPv4 Pod networking and an enforcing NetworkPolicy CNI. Independently verify policy enforcement before attesting it.
• Enough eligible worker nodes in the fleet’s explicit zones. Three strictly placed replicas need three distinct hosts.
• A compatible fork runtime image and operator image, pinned by verified registry digests. All runtime/recovery nodes must use the fork. Stock upstream celld is insufficient; see compatibility.
• kubectl, Helm, Docker/Buildx, AWS CLI, curl and jq. Use the fork’s native CLI and esbuild for application deployment.
• A dedicated S3 bucket and a runtime ServiceAccount with its bucket permissions. The operator needs no AWS IAM role. See AWS identities.

Select your context and account explicitly:

kubectl --context YOUR_CONTEXT cluster-info
kubectl --context YOUR_CONTEXT get nodes -L topology.kubernetes.io/zone
aws sts get-caller-identity --profile YOUR_AWS_PROFILE
kubectl --context YOUR_CONTEXT create namespace fleets
kubectl --context YOUR_CONTEXT -n fleets create serviceaccount celld-runtime

If the namespace or ServiceAccount already exists, inspect it instead of creating it again. Attach the runtime identity using your EKS Pod Identity or IRSA setup. Keep the bucket exclusive to this fleet, including its runtime metadata.

PersistentFleet additionally needs supported CSI storage. Ordered Bucket uses temporary disks and does not require EBS. Continue with installation.