Installing Vault

There are several options to install Vault:

Vault version guidance

HashiCorp regularly releases new versions of Vault in the form of "major" and "minor" releases. Vault typically uses version numbers in the form of X.Y.Z, and very rarely the form X.Y.Z.A.

Vault version numbers do not conform to semver. Vault major releases are identified by a change in the second (Y) digit. Vault minor releases are identified by a change in the third (Z) digit. Vault denotes a release with Enterprise only changes using the fourth (A) digit. HashiCorp's Support and End-of-Life policy covers versioning in more detail.

HashiCorp does not require upgrading to each major (Y digit) Vault release immediately when it becomes available. HashiCorp does strongly encourage upgrading Vault to the latest minor (Z digit) patch in a supported major release.

To be notified of new Vault releases, users can subscribe to our Discuss Forum using the vault-release-ce-ent tag. New security bulletins are also available on Discuss via the security-vault tag.

Package manager

HashiCorp manages packages for Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, RHEL, Amazon Linux, and other distributions. Follow the instructions at HashiCorp Tutorials to add our PGP key, add a repository, and install.

Precompiled binaries

To install the precompiled binary, download the applicable package for your system. Vault is packaged as a zip file.

Once the zip is downloaded, unzip the file into your designated directory. The vault binary inside is all that is necessary to run Vault (or vault.exe for Windows). No additional files are required to run Vault.

Copy the binary to your system. If you intend to access it from the command-line, ensure that you place the binary somewhere on your PATH.

Refer to the HashiCorp Tutorials to start a server, put your first secret, and use other features of Vault.

Compiling from source

To compile from source, you will need Go installed and properly configured (including a GOPATH environment variable set), as well as a copy of git in your PATH.

Clone the Vault repository from GitHub into your GOPATH:

$ mkdir -p $GOPATH/src/github.com/hashicorp && cd $_
$ git clone https://github.com/hashicorp/vault.git
$ cd vault

Bootstrap the project. This will download and compile libraries and tools needed to compile Vault:

$ make bootstrap

Build Vault for your current system and put the binary in ./bin/ (relative to the git checkout). The make dev target is just a shortcut that builds vault for only your local build environment (no cross-compiled targets).

$ make dev

Verifying the installation

To verify Vault is installed, run vault -h on your system. You should see the help output. If you are executing it from the command line, ensure it is on your PATH to avoid receiving an error that Vault is not found.

$ vault -h

Tutorial

Following tutorials provide some guidance on production cluster deployment: