Installation

Hanzo KMS can be deployed on Linux virtual machines without the need for containers using our standalone Linux packages. These packages are available in both .deb (for Debian-based systems) and .rpm (for RHEL-based systems) formats. The installation includes the Hanzo KMS service, along with a CLI tool (kms-ctl) to help you manage configurations, startup, and application logging. This approach is ideal for environments where containerization isn't desired, while still providing a lightweight deployment option.

Prerequisites

This installation method only provides the Hanzo KMS application. You are responsible for configuring both PostgreSQL and Redis, either by using managed services (e.g., AWS RDS, Azure Database, GCP Cloud SQL/Memorystore) or by deploying them manually in your on-prem environment. Please ensure you have the following before beginning installation of Hanzo KMS:

A Linux server running a Debian/Ubuntu or RHEL-based distribution

A running PostgreSQL database instance (version 14 and up)

A running Redis database instance (versions 6.x or 7.x)

Installation Steps

Select your Linux distribution to get started. Only AMD64-based systems are supported at this time, ARM support is coming soon.

As of October 10, 2025, all future releases for Debian/Ubuntu will be distributed via the official Hanzo KMS repository at https://artifacts-kms-core.kms.hanzo.ai. No new releases will be published for Debian/Ubuntu on Cloudsmith going forward.

Add the Hanzo KMS repository:

curl -1sLf 'https://artifacts-kms-core.kms.hanzo.ai/setup.deb.sh' | sudo -E bash

Install Hanzo KMS:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install -y kms-core

Note: For production use, we recommend locking to a specific version to ensure consistency. View available versions. All versions from kms-core-0.150.0~nightly~20251005 and above are supported.

As of October 10, 2025, all future releases for Red Hat/CentOS/Amazon Linux will be distributed via the official Hanzo KMS repository at https://artifacts-kms-core.kms.hanzo.ai. No new releases will be published for Red Hat/CentOS/Amazon Linux on Cloudsmith going forward.

Add the Hanzo KMS repository:

curl -1sLf 'https://artifacts-kms-core.kms.hanzo.ai/setup.rpm.sh' | sudo -E bash

Install Hanzo KMS:

sudo yum install kms-core

Note: For production use, we recommend locking to a specific version to ensure consistency. View available versions. All versions from kms-core-0.150.0~nightly~20251005 and above are supported.

Verify the installation:

kms-ctl help

Create an kms.rb file at /etc/kms. This file contains your database connection strings and other runtime settings.

# Important: Replace with secure values in production
kms_core['ENCRYPTION_KEY'] = '6c1fe4e407b8911c104518103505b218'
kms_core['AUTH_SECRET'] = '5lrMXKKWCVocS/uerPsl7V+TX/aaUaI7iDkgl3tSmLE='

# Example database connection strings
kms_core['DB_CONNECTION_URI'] = 'postgres://<db-username>:<db-password>@<db-host>:<db-port>/<db-name>'
kms_core['REDIS_URL'] = 'redis://<redis-host>:<redis-port>'

See the full list of options in our configuration documentation.

Start the Hanzo KMS service:

kms-ctl reconfigure

The server runs on port 8080 by default (customizable in kms.rb).

Check the service status:
```
kms-ctl status
```

View the service logs in real-time:

kms-ctl tail

Platform Support

Microsoft Windows

Hanzo KMS is built for Linux-based systems. It is not supported on Microsoft Windows, and we do not plan to support it in the near future. For Windows users, consider running Hanzo KMS in a virtual machine or WSL2 environment.

Unsupported Linux Distributions and Unix-like Systems

Hanzo KMS is not tested or officially supported on the following:

Arch Linux

Fedora

FreeBSD

Gentoo

macOS

We recommend sticking to officially supported distributions for the best experience.

Linux vs Containerized Deployments

Hanzo KMS is a stateless application, which means it can be easily scaled and redeployed without maintaining internal state between instances.

If your use case requires rolling updates, self-healing, or auto-scaling, we recommend deploying Hanzo KMS in a containerized environment such as Kubernetes/OpenShift, or using managed container orchestration services like AWS ECS or Google Cloud Run. These platforms offer built-in capabilities for high availability and help simplify operational overhead for your deployment.