open-vault/website/source/intro/getting-started/install.html.md

---
layout: "intro"
page_title: "Install Vault"
sidebar_current: "gettingstarted-install"
description: |-
  The first step to using Vault is to get it installed.
---

# Install Vault

Vault must first be installed on your machine. Vault is distributed as
a [binary package](/downloads.html) for all supported platforms and
architectures. This page will not cover how to compile Vault from source,
but compiling from source is covered in the [documentation](/docs/install/index.html)
for those who want to be sure they're compiling source they trust into
the final binary.

## Installing Vault

To install Vault, find the [appropriate package](/downloads.html) for
your system and download it. Vault is packaged as a zip archive.

After downloading Vault, unzip the package. Vault runs as a single binary
named `vault`. Any other files in the package can be safely removed and
Vault will still function.

The final step is to make sure that the `vault` binary is available on the `PATH`.
See [this page](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/14637979/how-to-permanently-set-path-on-linux)
for instructions on setting the PATH on Linux and Mac.
[This page](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1618280/where-can-i-set-path-to-make-exe-on-windows)
contains instructions for setting the PATH on Windows.

## Verifying the Installation

After installing Vault, verify the installation worked by opening a new
terminal session and checking that the `vault` binary is available. By executing
`vault`, you should see help output similar to the following:

```
$ vault
usage: vault [-version] [-help] <command> [args]

Common commands:
    delete           Delete operation on secrets in Vault
    path-help        Look up the help for a path
    read             Read data or secrets from Vault
    renew            Renew the lease of a secret
    revoke           Revoke a secret.
    server           Start a Vault server
    status           Outputs status of whether Vault is sealed and if HA mode is enabled
    write            Write secrets or configuration into Vault

All other commands:
    audit-disable    Disable an audit backend
    audit-enable     Enable an audit backend
    audit-list       Lists enabled audit backends in Vault
    auth             Prints information about how to authenticate with Vault
    auth-disable     Disable an auth provider
    auth-enable      Enable a new auth provider
    init             Initialize a new Vault server
    key-status       Provides information about the active encryption key
    mount            Mount a logical backend
    mount-tune       Tune mount configuration parameters
    mounts           Lists mounted backends in Vault
    policies         List the policies on the server
    policy-delete    Delete a policy from the server
    policy-write     Write a policy to the server
    rekey            Rekeys Vault to generate new unseal keys
    remount          Remount a secret backend to a new path
    rotate           Rotates the backend encryption key used to persist data
    seal             Seals the vault server
    ssh              Initiate a SSH session
    token-create     Create a new auth token
    token-renew      Renew an auth token if there is an associated lease
    token-revoke     Revoke one or more auth tokens
    unmount          Unmount a secret backend
    unseal           Unseals the vault server
    version          Prints the Vault version
```

If you get an error that the binary could not be found, then your `PATH` environment
variable was not setup properly. Please go back and ensure that your `PATH`
variable contains the directory where Vault was installed.

Otherwise, Vault is installed and ready to go!

## Next

Now Vault is installed we can start our first Vault server! [Let's do
that now](/intro/getting-started/dev-server.html).