Getting Started

Prelude Topology Engine is shipped as a single container image. It runs on its own — no external database to provision, no message bus to stand up — and you bring it up to date with your network by declaring your BGP-LS peers through the UI or the API.

This section takes you from a fresh install to a first established session and a populated topology, in under an hour. Each page is self-contained and links to the next, so you can stop after configuration if all you need is a running service, or follow through to see real data on the wire.

What you will accomplish

By the end of this section, you will have:

1. A running Prelude TE instance, reachable on its HTTPS port.
2. The expected environment variables set for your deployment.
3. An issued API token, plus a license key if you need more than the Community tier allows.
4. One BGP-LS peer in established state.
5. A populated topology you can browse in the UI or query through the REST API.

Reading order

Work through these pages in order on your first install:

1. Installation — pull the image, run the container, create the admin user and your first API token.
2. Configuration — set the environment variables for your deployment (port, storage, TLS, logging).
3. Licensing (optional) — run on Community (up to 20 nodes, 2 peers, 1 domain) or install a license key for more capacity.
4. First peer — drive the API to bring up your first BGP-LS session and read back the topology.
5. Next steps — pointers into the rest of the documentation once the basics work.

Before you begin

You should be comfortable with:

• Running containers (Docker, Podman, or any OCI-compatible runtime), or managing a systemd-based Linux host.
• Reading basic BGP session output — Prelude TE is a passive BGP-LS speaker, so you also need administrative access on at least one router or route reflector that can be configured to peer with it.