Walkthrough

So, you’re interested in learning how to manage your servers with Clova? You’re in the right place!

Clova is designed with flexibility in mind in the hopes that it can fit into your existing workflow nicely, so you get to choose how you use it. With that being said, this guide will cover using Clova as we recommend while you’re getting started.

Need help? Ask! Either we’ll point you in the right direction, or you’ll point us in the direction of something which needs fixing!

Confused about a term? Check the glossary for key terminology used throughout Clova. If something is missing, let us know by asking for help.

Covered By This Guide

We will cover:

1. The basics of what you can do with Clova and how it works, as well as how to get set up with a working directory.
2. How Clova discovers and interprets configuration files.
3. The general structure of a typical configuration file.
4. How to define targets, both local and remote.
5. How to define services.
6. How to work with Clova’s CLI to deploy and manage services.

Before You Begin

You don’t need much to get started with Clova, but there are a few things that may help you:

• A basic understanding of using a terminal and working with UNIX-based systems.
• Familiarity with a text editor and the TOML configuration format.
• A basic understanding of Git.

In addition, to follow along with this walkthrough you will need:

• Clova installed on your local machine (see Installation).
• A target which you don’t mind Clova working with (this can be your local machine, but we recommend using a fresh Linux VM or server).
• (Optionally) Docker or Podman installed on your target of choice.
• (Optionally) Git installed on your local machine.