Kubernetes Deployment

Deploy AgentVisor™ to Kubernetes with sandbox isolation (gVisor by default).

Production Deployment

This page covers Kubernetes manifests and configuration. For production deployment patterns including scaling strategies, high availability, and resource planning, see the Scaling and Resilience Guide.

License required

AgentVisor production images require a valid Manetu license key. Store it in a Kubernetes Secret and inject it via secretKeyRef. See the License Key section below and the Licensing guide for full details.

Deployment Options

AgentVisor uses gVisor by default to isolate agents using unprivileged user namespaces. gVisor provides syscall-level interception for the strongest available isolation on Linux. You can choose between two configurations:

Approach	Description	When to Use
Rootless	No elevated capabilities (default)	Default; works on any cluster with unprivileged userns enabled
Privileged	Full privileged: true security context	When DirectFS performance is needed or userns is unavailable

Option 1: Rootless Mode (Default)

AgentVisor uses gVisor to sandbox agent processes. gVisor's rootless mode creates a user namespace via CLONE_NEWUSER. Two host mechanisms can block this syscall and must both be relaxed:

• seccomp: Kubernetes' default RuntimeDefault profile may block CLONE_NEWUSER
• AppArmor: Ubuntu 24.04+, GKE, and AKS nodes enforce AppArmor policies that restrict unprivileged user namespaces by default

Node Prerequisites

Rootless mode requires unprivileged user namespaces enabled on all nodes:

• Linux 5.15+ supports this by default on most distributions
• Some distributions (Debian, Ubuntu 23.10+) require: sysctl -w kernel.unprivileged_userns_clone=1
• Verify userns: cat /proc/sys/kernel/unprivileged_userns_clone (should be 1) or cat /proc/sys/user/max_user_namespaces (should be > 0)
• Ubuntu 24.04+, GKE, AKS: also check cat /proc/sys/kernel/apparmor_restrict_unprivileged_userns (should be 0). Set appArmorProfile: Unconfined in the container securityContext (Kubernetes 1.30+) or use the annotation on pre-1.30 clusters: container.apparmor.security.beta.kubernetes.io/<container-name>: unconfined

Container images built with agentvisor build have newuidmap/newgidmap (provided by shadow-utils on UBI 9) and subuid/subgid pre-configured.

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: agentvisor
spec:
  replicas: 3
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: agentvisor
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: agentvisor
    spec:
      containers:
      - name: agent
        image: my-agent:v1
        securityContext:
          seccompProfile:
            type: Unconfined  # Allows CLONE_NEWUSER needed by gVisor rootless mode
          appArmorProfile:
            type: Unconfined  # Required on Ubuntu 24.04+, GKE, AKS
        ports:
        - containerPort: 8090
        env:
        - name: AGENTVISOR_LICENSE_KEY
          valueFrom:
            secretKeyRef:
              name: agentvisor-license
              key: license-key
        - name: AGENTVISOR_TEMPORAL_TARGET
          value: "temporal.temporal-system.svc:7233"
        - name: AGENTVISOR_GUEST_SANDBOX
          value: "gvisor"
        - name: AGENTVISOR_AUTHZ_TYPE
          value: "embedded"
        - name: AGENTVISOR_AUTHZ_EMBEDDED_POLICY_DOMAIN_FILES
          value: "/etc/agentvisor/policies/domain.yml"
        volumeMounts:
        - name: policies
          mountPath: /etc/agentvisor/policies
          readOnly: true
        resources:
          limits:
            memory: "2Gi"
            cpu: "2"
      volumes:
      - name: policies
        configMap:
          name: agentvisor-policies

Option 2: Privileged Mode

Use privileged mode when you need DirectFS performance or your nodes don't support unprivileged user namespaces.

Privilege Dropping

Although the container requires privileged: true, the AgentVisor host runtime immediately drops privileges to uid/gid 1000 after initializing the gVisor sandbox. The elevated privileges are only used during the brief startup phase; all subsequent operations run as an unprivileged user.

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: agentvisor
spec:
  replicas: 3
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: agentvisor
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: agentvisor
    spec:
      containers:
      - name: agent
        image: my-agent:v1
        securityContext:
          privileged: true  # Required for gVisor privileged mode
          runAsUser: 0
        ports:
        - containerPort: 8090
        env:
        - name: AGENTVISOR_LICENSE_KEY
          valueFrom:
            secretKeyRef:
              name: agentvisor-license
              key: license-key
        - name: AGENTVISOR_TEMPORAL_TARGET
          value: "temporal.temporal-system.svc:7233"
        - name: AGENTVISOR_GUEST_SANDBOX
          value: "gvisor"
        - name: AGENTVISOR_GUEST_ROOTLESS
          value: "false"
        - name: AGENTVISOR_AUTHZ_TYPE
          value: "embedded"
        - name: AGENTVISOR_AUTHZ_EMBEDDED_POLICY_DOMAIN_FILES
          value: "/etc/agentvisor/policies/domain.yml"
        volumeMounts:
        - name: policies
          mountPath: /etc/agentvisor/policies
          readOnly: true
        resources:
          limits:
            memory: "2Gi"
            cpu: "2"
      volumes:
      - name: policies
        configMap:
          name: agentvisor-policies

Comparison of Options

Option	Privileges Required	Performance	Node Requirements
Rootless (default)	None	Good (9P filesystem)	Unprivileged userns enabled
Privileged	privileged: true	Best (DirectFS)	None

Recommendation

1. Use Rootless mode (default) — works on any modern cluster with unprivileged user namespaces
2. Use Privileged mode when you need maximum DirectFS performance or nodes lack userns support

Service

apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: agentvisor
spec:
  selector:
    app: agentvisor
  ports:
  - name: http
    port: 8090
    targetPort: 8090
  type: ClusterIP

The http port name is referenced by the ServiceMonitor below — Prometheus's monitoring.coreos.com operator resolves endpoints[].port against a Service's named port, not a raw port number.

Ingress

apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: Ingress
metadata:
  name: agentvisor
  annotations:
    nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/proxy-read-timeout: "3600"
    nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/proxy-send-timeout: "3600"
spec:
  rules:
  - host: agents.example.com
    http:
      paths:
      - path: /
        pathType: Prefix
        backend:
          service:
            name: agentvisor
            port:
              number: 8090
  tls:
  - hosts:
    - agents.example.com
    secretName: agentvisor-tls

ConfigMap for Policies

apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
  name: agentvisor-policies
data:
  domain.yml: |
    apiVersion: iamlite.manetu.io/v1beta1
    kind: PolicyDomain
    metadata:
      name: production
    spec:
      policies:
        - mrn: "mrn:iam:policy:allow-authenticated"
          name: allow-authenticated
          rego: |
            package authz
            default allow = false
            allow { input.principal.sub != "" }

      resource-groups:
        - mrn: "mrn:iam:resource-group:allowed"
          name: allowed
          policy: "mrn:iam:policy:allow-authenticated"

      resources:
        - name: openai
          selector: ["mrn:agentvisor:http:api\\.openai\\.com.*"]
          group: "mrn:iam:resource-group:allowed"

License Key

Store the AgentVisor license key in a Kubernetes Secret:

apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
  name: agentvisor-license
type: Opaque
stringData:
  license-key: "XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX"

Reference it from the Deployment via secretKeyRef as shown in the examples above. See the Licensing guide for machine code configuration and offline/air-gap requirements.

Secrets

Store sensitive configuration such as API keys and credentials. For Temporal Cloud authentication secrets (API keys or mTLS certificates), see the Temporal Configuration Guide.

apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
  name: agentvisor-secrets
type: Opaque
stringData:
  api-key: "your-api-key"
---
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
spec:
  template:
    spec:
      containers:
      - name: agent
        envFrom:
        - secretRef:
            name: agentvisor-secrets

Network Policy

apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: NetworkPolicy
metadata:
  name: agentvisor-network-policy
spec:
  podSelector:
    matchLabels:
      app: agentvisor
  policyTypes:
  - Ingress
  - Egress
  ingress:
  - from:
    - namespaceSelector:
        matchLabels:
          name: ingress-nginx
    ports:
    - port: 8090
  egress:
  # Temporal
  - to:
    - namespaceSelector:
        matchLabels:
          name: temporal-system
    ports:
    - port: 7233
  # External HTTPS (LLM APIs)
  - to:
    - ipBlock:
        cidr: 0.0.0.0/0
        except:
        - 10.0.0.0/8
        - 172.16.0.0/12
        - 192.168.0.0/16
        - 169.254.0.0/16
    ports:
    - port: 443
  # DNS
  - to:
    - namespaceSelector: {}
    ports:
    - port: 53
      protocol: UDP

HorizontalPodAutoscaler

Auto-scale AgentVisor pods based on resource utilization. For the canonical manifest (including scale-up/scale-down behavior tuning), threshold guidance, and custom metrics considerations, see Auto-Scaling Configuration in the Scaling and Resilience Guide. Its minReplicas: 3 matches the high-availability replica count used by the Deployment manifests on this page.

PodDisruptionBudget

Protect availability during cluster maintenance and rolling updates. For the canonical manifest and the reasoning behind its replica math, see PodDisruptionBudget in the Scaling and Resilience Guide. Its minAvailable: 2 matches the high-availability replica count used by the Deployment manifests on this page.

ServiceMonitor (Prometheus)

telemetry.metrics.enabled defaults to false, and metrics are served on the same port as the rest of the HTTP API (there is no separate metrics port) — set AGENTVISOR_TELEMETRY_METRICS_ENABLED=true on the Deployment's containers before adding this ServiceMonitor, or /metrics will 404.

apiVersion: monitoring.coreos.com/v1
kind: ServiceMonitor
metadata:
  name: agentvisor
spec:
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: agentvisor
  endpoints:
  - port: http
    path: /metrics
    interval: 30s

Helm Chart (Example values)

# values.yaml
replicaCount: 3

image:
  repository: my-agent
  tag: v1
  pullPolicy: IfNotPresent

securityContext:
  seccompProfile:
    type: Unconfined  # Required for rootless gVisor (default mode)
  appArmorProfile:
    type: Unconfined  # Required on Ubuntu 24.04+, GKE, AKS
  # For privileged mode instead: set privileged: true, runAsUser: 0,
  # and AGENTVISOR_GUEST_ROOTLESS=false

resources:
  limits:
    cpu: 2
    memory: 2Gi
  requests:
    cpu: 500m
    memory: 512Mi

temporal:
  target: temporal.temporal-system.svc:7233
  namespace: default

policies:
  domain: |
    apiVersion: iamlite.manetu.io/v1beta1
    ...

ingress:
  enabled: true
  host: agents.example.com
  tls:
    enabled: true
    secretName: agentvisor-tls

autoscaling:
  enabled: true
  minReplicas: 3
  maxReplicas: 10

Troubleshooting

For general AgentVisor troubleshooting — including gVisor rootless preflight failures (seccomp/AppArmor), policy evaluation errors, and Temporal connectivity — see the Troubleshooting Guide.

Pod Not Starting

kubectl describe pod -l app=agentvisor
kubectl logs -l app=agentvisor

If the pod fails during sandbox initialization, check the container's securityContext against the manifests above:

kubectl get pod -l app=agentvisor -o jsonpath='{.items[*].spec.containers[*].securityContext}'

then see Sandbox Startup Failures — specifically "gVisor rootless preflight failed" — for the seccomp/AppArmor causes and fixes.

Testing Temporal Connectivity from Within the Cluster

kubectl run -it --rm debug --image=curlimages/curl -- \
  curl temporal.temporal-system.svc:7233

See Temporal Connectivity if this doesn't succeed.