kurtosis-tech Portal
Manage the Kurtosis Portal daemon for remote context access.
What is Portal?
Kurtosis Portal is a lightweight local daemon that enables communication with Kurtosis enclaves running on a remote Kurtosis server. It's only needed when using remote contexts — not required for local Docker or direct Kubernetes access.
Start
kurtosis portal start
Check status
kurtosis portal status
Stop
kurtosis portal stop
When you need it
Portal is used with remote Kurtosis contexts. If you're using:
- Local Docker: No portal needed
- Direct Kubernetes: Use
kurtosis gatewayinstead - Remote Kurtosis server: Use portal + remote context
Remote contexts
# List contexts
kurtosis context ls
# Add a remote context
kurtosis context add <context-name>
# Switch to remote context
kurtosis context set <context-name>
# Start portal for the remote context
kurtosis portal start
Troubleshooting
| Symptom | Cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Portal won't start | Port conflict or stale process | Run kurtosis portal stop then kurtosis portal start |
| Status shows not running | Portal crashed or was killed | Restart with kurtosis portal start |
| Services unreachable via portal | Portal not started for current context | Run kurtosis portal status to check, then kurtosis portal start |
| Connection refused errors | Wrong context or portal not needed | Verify context with kurtosis context ls — local Docker doesn't need portal |