Kots Admin Console

Reference for CARTO Self-Hosted Kots Admin Console configuration

Overview

The Kots Admin Console is a web UI that lets you configure, deploy, and manage your CARTO Self-Hosted installation without editing YAML files directly. It is available for both the Standard Orchestrated container deployment and the Single Virtual Machine deployment (both managed with Kots).

Accessing the Admin Console:

Single VM (embedded cluster)

The Admin Console is served directly on the VM. Open a browser and navigate to:

http://<vm-public-ip>:30000

No port-forwarding is needed. Ensure port 30000 is reachable from your workstation (restrict it to your ops team's IP range via your firewall).

Standard Orchestrated container deployment

Configuration sections

The Admin Console is organized into the following tabs:

Dashboard

The Dashboard provides a high-level status view of your CARTO deployment:

• Application status — whether all CARTO components are running and healthy

• Version — current deployed version and available updates

• License — license status, domain, and expiry date

Version history

The Version History tab shows all deployed versions of CARTO Self-Hosted. From here you can:

• Deploy a specific version

• View the diff between versions (config changes and image updates)

Config

The Config tab contains all editable deployment settings. Changes made here are applied to the cluster on the next deployment. Key configuration groups include:

Section	What you configure
Application	Self-hosted domain, organization name
Database	External PostgreSQL host, port, database name, credentials
Object Storage	Cloud provider, bucket names, service account credentials
Cache	External Valkey host, port, password, TLS settings
Networking	Proxy settings, TLS mode
SSO	Identity provider settings for Single Sign-On
AI Features	OpenAI API key, enable/disable AI capabilities

After modifying settings, click Save config and then Deploy to apply changes.

Troubleshoot

The Troubleshoot tab lets you generate a support bundle: a compressed archive of logs, configuration, and diagnostic data from your CARTO deployment. Share this bundle with CARTO Support to help diagnose issues.

To generate a support bundle:

1. Open the Troubleshoot tab in the Admin Console.

2. Click Analyze to collect diagnostic data.

3. Download the generated bundle and send it to CARTO Support.

Custom Configuration

The Custom Configuration field (at the bottom of the Config tab) is a free-form YAML textarea that lets CARTO Support provide advanced Helm values for your deployment. When populated, its content is deep-merged into the Helm values on every deploy, taking precedence over the values set by the other Admin Console fields.

The Custom Configuration field is intended for use with CARTO Support guidance only. Do not modify it unless instructed by the Support team. Incorrect values can break your deployment.

Common use cases (always with Support guidance):

• Enabling EKS Pod Identity (commonBackendServiceAccount, externalPostgresql.awsEksPodIdentityEnabled)

• Per-component resource overrides

• Feature flags or advanced tuning not exposed in the standard UI

How it works: The YAML you paste is applied as the last values file in the Helm release, so it can override any setting including those set by other Admin Console fields.

License

The License tab displays your current license details.