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Welcome to the CKAN wiki! You can contribute to improve it! Please be bold with your edits and don't be afraid to participate!

What is CKAN?

The Comprehensive Kerbal Archive Network is a repository of metadata about mods for Kerbal Space Program and tools to work with this metadata, which makes it possible to write safe and robust mod managers that can guarantee that mods are installed exactly as they are supposed to be. The CKAN client is heavily inspired by the many package management utilities available on Unix platforms; you might be already familiar with some of them.

CKAN is built for the .NET platform using Mono, so even though it's an .exe file, it works on Windows, macOS, and Linux. We have specialized packages for a few platforms, but this is only so we can add things like system menus and documentation; the core executable is the same everywhere.

Mono and .NET run programs in a VM-like runtime, somewhat simlar to JVM; .NET programs will run on any platform that has .NET or Mono installed, just as Java programs can be run on any platform where a JVM is present. CKAN can be started with mono ckan.exe on a system with Mono installed, but most systems with Mono allow simply running ./ckan.exe and will add the mono part automatically.

For more information, see About.

Installing CKAN

You can download the latest release here:

https://github.com/KSP-CKAN/CKAN/releases/latest

You can place the executable in any folder you like; the client can manage all your KSP installations from anywhere on your disk, so you don't have to worry about its location. If you place it in the root of your KSP game folder, it will default to managing that folder (this is called a "portable instance" because it is useful for thumb drives).

If you're upgrading from a previous CKAN version, you only have to replace your ckan.exe with the new one.

If you need help, refer to the instructions for your platform:

• Installing CKAN on Windows
• Installing CKAN on macOS
• Installing CKAN on Linux:
  • Installing CKAN on Arch
  • Installing CKAN on Debian
  • Installing CKAN on Fedora
  • Installing CKAN on openSUSE
  • Installing CKAN on Solus
  • Installing CKAN on Steam Deck
  • Installing CKAN on Ubuntu

For help using CKAN after you install it, see the User guide.

Getting help

If you are experiencing trouble with the CKAN client, see:

• Troubleshooting for some common pitfalls and solutions
• Open an issue if the problem persists
• Some issues can be worked around with the Clean and reinstall process
• You can contact us on our Discord server. We'd love to hear from you for any reason you need!

Contributing

CKAN is open source and MIT-licensed and welcomes help from anyone who is interested.

• Our Code of conduct specifies what is expected of contributors
• To add a mod to CKAN, see Adding a mod to the CKAN, or open an issue at the metadata repository
• The CKAN spec describes the format of CKAN metadata, like a human-readable version of the schema
• The CKAN schema specifies the format of CKAN metadata, like a machine-readable version of the spec