--- layout: docs page_title: Deploy and Login description: |- How to deploy HCP Boundary services and login for the first time. --- # Deploy HCP Boundary and Login HCP Boundary provides secure access to remote hosts and infrastructure endpoints. Boundary enables secure connectivity to cloud service catalogs, on-premise infrastructure, and Kubernetes clusters without needing to manage any of the underlying systems or operations. ## Requirements The Getting Started section uses HCP Boundary, a HashiCorp hosted and fully-managed version of the Boundary product. To get started with HCP Boundary, users need: - A [HashiCorp Cloud Platform](https://portal.cloud.hashicorp.com/sign-up) account - [Installation](/boundary/tutorials/hcp-getting-started/hcp-getting-started-install) of the Boundary CLI - A [Boundary binary](/boundary/downloads) in your `$PATH` - Optionally, an [installation of Boundary Desktop](/boundary/tutorials/hcp-getting-started/hcp-getting-started-desktop-app) If you prefer to get started on your local machine, refer to [Run and Login in Dev Mode](/boundary/docs/oss/installing/run-and-login). For more information on Boundary OSS and self-managed installations, refer to [Boundary OSS](/boundary/docs/oss). ## Deploy an HCP Boundary Cluster To deploy an HCP Boundary instance: 1. Navigate to [HashiCorp Cloud Platform](https://portal.cloud.hashicorp.com/) and login using your credentials. 1. Click the **Boundary** tab, and then and click **Deploy Boundary** on the right-hand pane. 1. Fill out the following form details: - Instance Name - Administrator Username - Administrator Password 1. Store the administrator username and password in a safe location. These credentials will be used when authenticating using the Admin Console, CLI, or Terraform. 1. Click **Deploy** after completing the form. It may take a few minutes to initialize the HCP Boundary instance. ![Deploy boundary](/img/hcp-deploy-form.png) ## Login to HCP Boundary Once the deployment is complete, the HCP Boundary instance can be accessed directly from the HCP Boundary portal using the credentials created during setup. 1. From the HCP Boundary portal page, click the **Open Admin UI** button. 1. Enter the admin username and password you created when you deployed the new instance, and click **Authenticate**. 1. The **Welcome to Boundary** setup wizard will launch automatically. There are two options for Boundary’s initial setup: - Quick setup - Manual ![Setup Wizard](/img/setup-wizard.png) The **Quick setup** is recommended for new users, and generates a set of initial resources to assist in connecting to your first target. ![Setup Wizard](/img/setup-wizard-address-target.png) The **Manual** setup drops the user directly into Boundary, without any provisioned resources. Upon completion of the setup wizard, you will be logged into your HCP Boundary instance's Global scope via the web UI. This is the default scope for all new Boundary clusters. 1. In the HCP Boundary portal, open the **Boundary Overview** page, and click the **copy icon** in the **Copy this into Boundary Desktop** section. This copies your environment’s Boundary **Cluster URL**. 1. Open a terminal session and set the `BOUNDARY_ADDR` environment variable to the copied Cluster URL. ```shell-session $ export BOUNDARY_ADDR= ``` 1. Log in with the administrator credentials you created when you deployed the HCP Boundary instance. ```shell-session $ boundary authenticate Please enter the login name (it will be hidden): Please enter the password (it will be hidden): Authentication information: Account ID: acctpw_VOeNSFX8pQ Auth Method ID: ampw_wxzojlKJLN Expiration Time: Mon, 13 Feb 2023 12:35:32 MST User ID: u_1vUkf5fPs9 The token was successfully stored in the chosen keyring and is not displayed here. ``` You are now logged into your HCP Boundary instance's Global scope via the CLI. This is the default scope for all new Boundary clusters. If you are on Windows or macOS, the system password store will be used to store the new token. On any other operating system, you may get an error indicating that the token could not be stored. Boundary defaults to using [pass](https://www.passwordstore.org/) on these machines, which uses [GNU Privacy Guard](https://gnupg.org/) to encrypt values. If it is not available, the token will be displayed and can be stored in a system of your choice and passed in via the `BOUNDARY_TOKEN` environment variable. It is recommended to make use of `pass` or another alternative (such as any implementation of the freedesktop.org Secret Service feature). Installation and configuration of `pass` or other alternatives is beyond the scope of this article; consult the documentation for `pass` or your specific OS distribution help pages. [Boundary Desktop](/boundary/downloads) can be used to connect to HCP Boundary. To get started with Boundary Desktop: 1. Install Boundary Desktop. 1. Enter your HCP Boundary instance’s Cluster URL. 1. Enter the login name and password. To authenticate using the Boundary desktop client, launch Boundary desktop client and connect to boundary to using your environment's **Cluster URL**. You can find your environment’s Cluster URL In the HCP portal. Open the **Boundary Overview** page and click the **copy icon** in the **Copy this into Boundary Desktop** section. This copies your environment’s Boundary **Cluster URL**. The admin username and password from instance creation can be used for initial setup. Once additional users have been created, they can also log in to HCP Boundary using the Boundary Desktop app. You can also use these overrides to configure the [Terraform provider for Boundary](https://registry.terraform.io/providers/hashicorp/boundary): ```hcl provider "boundary" { base_url = "hcp-boundary-cluster-url" auth_method_id = "auth-method-id" auth_method_username = "admin-username" auth_method_password = "admin-password" } ``` To find your environment’s `base_url`: 1. In the HCP portal, open the **Boundary Overview** page. 1. Click the **copy icon** in the **Copy this into Boundary Desktop** section. This copies your environment’s Boundary **Cluster URL**. To find your environment’s default `auth_method_id`: 1. In your HCP Boundary portal, click the Admin UI button. 1. Log in to the Admin Console by entering the admin username and password you created when you deployed the HCP Boundary instance, and click **Authenticate**. 1. Click **Auth Methods**. 1. Click the **copy icon** for the Password **Auth Method ID** ## Tutorial - Refer to the [Create a Boundary Instance on HCP](/boundary/tutorials/hcp-getting-started/hcp-getting-started-create) tutorial to learn how to deploy a Boundary instance. - Refer to the [Install Boundary Desktop](/boundary/tutorials/hcp-getting-started/hcp-getting-started-desktop-app) tutorial to learn how to use the Boundary desktop to connect to a running HCP Boundary instance. ## Next Steps See [connecting to your first target](/boundary/docs/getting-started/connect-to-target) for how to use HCP Boundary to run your first SSH session.