threshold/website/content/docs/getting-started/deploy-and-login.mdx

---
layout: docs
page_title: Deploy and Login
description: |-
  How to deploy HCP Boundary services and login for the first time.
---

# Deploy an HCP Boundary Instance

HCP Boundary is a fully-managed cloud-based workflow. It enables secure access
to remote hosts and critical systems across cloud service catalogs, on-premises
infrastructure, and Kubernetes clusters without needing to manage any of the
underlying systems or operations.

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 (Beta)** 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-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. Click **Auth Methods**.

1. Click the **copy icon** for the Password **Auth Method ID**. The ID is needed to
authenticate to HCP Boundary using the CLI.

<Tabs>
<Tab heading="CLI">


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 **Origin URL**.

1. Open a terminal session and set the `BOUNDARY_ADDR` environment variable to
the copied origin URL.

```shell-session
$ export BOUNDARY_ADDR=<boundary-origin-url>
```

1. Log in with the administrator credentials you created when you deployed the
HCP Boundary instance.

```shell-session
$ boundary authenticate password \
   -auth-method-id=COPIED_AUTH_ID \
   -login-name=ADMIN_USERNAME \
   -password=ADMIN_PASSWORD
```

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.

</Tab>
<Tab heading="Desktop Client">


[Boundary Desktop](https://www.boundaryproject.io/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 origin 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 **Origin URL**.

You can find your environment’s origin 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 **Origin
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.


<video
  muted
  playsInline
  autoPlay
  loop
  class="boundary-clickthrough-video boundary-clickthrough-desktop-video"
>
  <source
    type="video/mp4"
    src="https://www.datocms-assets.com/2885/1613612831-boundary-desktop-clickthrough-authenticate-v1-0-0.mp4"
  />
</video>

</Tab>
<Tab heading="Terraform">


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-origin-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 **Origin 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**

</Tab>
</Tabs>


## Next Steps

See [connecting to your first target](/docs/getting-started/connect-to-target)
for how to use HCP Boundary to run your first SSH session.