Installation

Rune ships as two binaries: rune (CLI) and runed (server). Most installs use one of the official scripts.

CLI only — for developers

If you just need to talk to a remote runed, install the CLI:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/runestack/rune/master/scripts/install-cli.sh | bash

This drops rune in /usr/local/bin (or ~/.local/bin if not root). Verify:

rune version

Full server bundle — recommended for hosts

The server bundle installs both binaries plus a systemd unit and Docker (if missing):

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/runestack/rune/master/scripts/install-server.sh \
  | sudo bash -s -- --version v0.1.0

What it does:

1. Installs rune and runed to /usr/local/bin.
2. Installs Docker if not already present (skip with --skip-docker).
3. Creates /etc/rune/runefile.yaml with sane defaults.
4. Creates /var/lib/rune for state (BadgerDB + KEK).
5. Installs and enables runed.service.

For automated provisioning (cloud-init, CI/CD), drop sudo:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/runestack/rune/master/scripts/install-server.sh \
  | bash -s -- --version v0.1.0

Binary-only — Docker already configured

If Docker is set up and you only want the binaries:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/runestack/rune/master/scripts/install.sh \
  | sudo bash -s -- --version v0.1.0

From source

Requires Go 1.23+.

git clone https://github.com/runestack/rune.git
cd rune
make setup
make build

# Or via go install
go install github.com/runestack/rune/cmd/rune@latest
go install github.com/runestack/rune/cmd/runed@latest

rune version

The Makefile targets:

Target	What it does
make setup	Installs lint and protobuf tooling.
make build	Builds both binaries to bin/.
make test	Runs unit tests.
make test-int	Runs integration tests (requires Docker).
make proto	Regenerates protobuf code.
make lint	Runs golangci-lint.

Manual binary install

Grab a release tarball:

VER=v0.1.0
ARCH=$(uname -m); case "$ARCH" in
  x86_64) ARCH=amd64 ;;
  aarch64|arm64) ARCH=arm64 ;;
  *) echo "Unsupported arch"; exit 1 ;;
esac

curl -L -o /tmp/rune.tgz \
  "https://github.com/runestack/rune/releases/download/$VER/rune_linux_${ARCH}.tar.gz"
sudo tar -C /usr/local/bin -xzf /tmp/rune.tgz rune runed

Upgrading

Stop the service, swap the binaries, restart:

sudo systemctl stop runed
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/runestack/rune/master/scripts/install-server.sh \
  | sudo bash -s -- --version v0.1.1 --skip-docker
sudo systemctl start runed

runed --version
sudo systemctl status runed --no-pager | cat

Uninstall

sudo systemctl stop runed
sudo systemctl disable runed
sudo rm /etc/systemd/system/runed.service
sudo rm /usr/local/bin/rune /usr/local/bin/runed
# State (delete only if you really mean it):
sudo rm -rf /var/lib/rune /etc/rune

Verify

rune version
runed --version
sudo systemctl status runed --no-pager

If runed won’t start, check:

sudo journalctl -u runed -n 100 --no-pager

Common issues are covered in Operations → Configuration.