We'd like to extend a warm welcome to you from everyone at Katapult and thank you for choosing us for your infrastructure requirements. We have created this getting started guide to assist you in the initial configuration of Katapult, right the way through to helping you create your first virtual machine. They do not necessarily need to followed in order so feel free to refer back to this guide some time in the future. Beyond this guide you can also find several other how-to guides on various other topics within our docs site. If you have any questions which are not answered on this docs site then please feel free to reach out to our award-winning support team!
When it comes to the management of your Katapult services it might be useful for you to learn more about the user interface and where things can typically be found. We've made a separate guide on that which you can read at your own leisure. Refer to the Katapult Interface guide to learn more.
Katapult provides two additional layers of security:
Enabling two factor authentication on your account requires that you enter a second authentication factor when logging in. You can choose from different options when it comes to securing your account, i.e. Google Authenticator or Yubikey and can use a mobile number as a backup. While using two factor authentication is entirely optional, it is strongly recommended. See our two factor authentication how-to guide for steps on configuring 2FA for your account.
Adding an SSH key to a given user account is an optional item but if added will allow you to permit access to a given virtual machine based on that SSH key. Refer to our user SSH keys how-to guide for more information.
You are able to use Katapult services for your organisation, yourself, or indeed both should you wish. Please refer to the relevant guide:
If you plan on using Katapult for your own benefit then the Organisation, Users & Roles section below can be skipped over.
Katapult services can belong to an individual user or an organisation and that same organisation can have several users each with permission to access different areas of the Katapult service. Before you start creating virtual machines or indeed inviting other users to an organisation, it will be beneficial for you to read the organisations, users & roles guide.
By default the account which created the organisation is known as the Owner as far as roles go and will have full authority in every part of the Katapult account, akin to a root user on a Linux operating system. We strongly advise against sharing the account credentials for the organisation owner user, or adding users into the Owner role unless it absolutely essential. This will go a long way to protecting your account. If your organisation has more than one member of staff that requires access to Katapult, i.e. your system administrators or your accounts/finance teams, then you can create clearly defined roles to which those members of staff will become members of. To learn more about roles and for steps on how to create your first role, refer to the roles how-to guide.
Now that you have created one or more roles for your organisation you can now begin to invite other users to your Katapult organisation, see the users how-to guide for instructions on how to invite a user to your organisation.
Before you can create a Katapult service you will need to provide billing information. Billing information is done a per organisation basis, unless you have a parent organisation managing one or more child organisation whereby only the parent organisation will be billed. In addition, should you use Katapult for yourself and not as part of an organisation you will also need to provide your own billing details. See the add / update billing information how-to guide for details.
You are now able to create your first virtual machine. We have made several virtual machine related how-to guides which can help you as you get started in configuring your machine should you need them.
We encourage you to take a look through this docs site for help using the Katapult service. If you can't find what you're looking for them feel free to contact our support team.