---
title: "Installing Kea"
slug: "installing-kea"
description: "Instructions for installing Kea via package repositories or from source code."
tags: ["kea dhcp"]
updated: 2025-06-20T06:22:53Z
published: 2025-06-20T06:22:53Z
canonical: "kb.isc.org/installing-kea"
---

> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://kb.isc.org/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Fetching Kea Sources

## Retrieving and Building Kea from Source Code

### Via the isc.org website

To obtain the latest stable and development releases of Kea, please visit the official ISC website at [https://www.isc.org/download/#Kea](https://www.isc.org/download/#Kea). Tarballs containing the source code and documentation are available.

### Via downloads.isc.org

To access all current and previous releases of Kea, visit [https://downloads.isc.org/isc/kea/](https://downloads.isc.org/isc/kea/). The page lists all available releases for download, by directory.

### Via the ISC GitLab repository

To obtain the most recent code, please access the Kea GitLab repository via the `git clone` command. You should see the following results:

```
$ git clone https://gitlab.isc.org/isc-projects/kea.git
Cloning into 'kea'...
remote: Enumerating objects: 408916, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (1016/1016), done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (436/436), done.
remote: Total 408916 (delta 733), reused 800 (delta 577), pack-reused 407900 (from 1)
Receiving objects: 100% (408916/408916), 110.44 MiB | 10.09 MiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (347391/347391), done.
$ ls
kea
$ cd kea
$ ls
AUTHORS		      config-report.sh.in  hammer.py		     meson.options  src
ChangeLog	      CONTRIBUTING.md	   INSTALL		     meson.sh	    subprojects
changelog_unreleased  COPYING		   install-meson-info.sh.in  platforms.rst  tools
code_of_conduct.md    Dangerfile	   kea_version.h.in	     README
compiler-checks       doc		   meson.build		     scripts
config.h.in	      fuzz		   meson.format		     SECURITY.md
```

It is also possible to obtain the released code using git tags, which follow the format `Kea-X.X.X`, such as `Kea-3.0.0`.

```
$ git checkout Kea-3.0.0
Note: switching to 'Kea-3.0.0'.
```

or list all possible tags related to releases with the `git tag -l 'Kea-*'` command.

Once you have retrieved either the desired release or git version of Kea, please follow the instructions in [section 3.4.4 of the Kea Administrator Reference Manual (ARM)](https://kea.readthedocs.io/en/latest/arm/install.html#set-up-the-build) to build and install it.

Instructions for building Kea on specific platforms can be found elsewhere in this KB; search for your desired platform (Debian, Ubuntu, etc.) in the search bar at the top of this page.