Skip to main content
Version: v1.1

Hardware and Network Requirements

As an HCI solution on bare metal servers, there are minimum node hardware and network requirements to install and run Harvester.

Hardware Requirements​

Harvester nodes have the following hardware requirements and recommendations for installation and testing.

TypeRequirements and Recommendations
CPUx86_64 only. Hardware-assisted virtualization is required. 8-core processor minimum for testing; 16-core or above required for production
Memory32 GB minimum for testing; 64 GB or above required for production
Disk Capacity200 GB minimum for testing; 500 GB or above required for production
Disk Performance5,000+ random IOPS per disk(SSD/NVMe). Management nodes (first 3 nodes) must be fast enough for etcd
Network Card1 Gbps Ethernet minimum for testing; 10 Gbps Ethernet minimum required for production
Network SwitchTrunking of ports required for VLAN support
info

A three-node cluster is required to realize the multi-node features of Harvester fully.

  • The first node always defaults to be a management node of the cluster.
  • When there are three or more nodes, the two other nodes added first are automatically promoted to management nodes to form a high availability (HA) cluster.
  • We recommend server-class hardware for the best results. Laptops and nested virtualization are not officially supported.
  • The product_uuid fetched from /sys/class/dmi/id/product_uuid in Linux must be unique in each node. Otherwise, features like VM live migration will be affected. For more information, refer to #4025.

Network Requirements​

Harvester nodes have the following network requirements for installation.

Port Requriements for Harvester Nodes​

Harvester nodes require the following port connections or inbound rules. Typically, all outbound traffic is allowed.

ProtocolPortSourceDescription
TCP2379Harvester management nodesEtcd client port
TCP2381Harvester management nodesEtcd health checks
TCP2380Harvester management nodesEtcd peer port
TCP10010Harvester management and compute nodesContainerd
TCP6443Harvester management nodesKubernetes API
TCP9345Harvester management nodesKubernetes API
TCP10252Harvester management nodesKube-controller-manager health checks
TCP10257Harvester management nodesKube-controller-manager secure port
TCP10251Harvester management nodesKube-scheduler health checks
TCP10259Harvester management nodesKube-scheduler secure port
TCP10250Harvester management and compute nodesKubelet
TCP10256Harvester management and compute nodesKube-proxy health checks
TCP10258Harvester management nodesCloud-controller-manager
TCP9091Harvester management and compute nodesCanal calico-node felix
TCP9099Harvester management and compute nodesCanal CNI health checks
UDP8472Harvester management and compute nodesCanal CNI with VxLAN
TCP2112Harvester management nodesKube-vip
TCP6444Harvester management and compute nodesRKE2 agent
TCP6060Harvester management and compute nodesNode-disk-manager
TCP10246/10247/10248/10249Harvester management and compute nodesNginx worker process
TCP8181Harvester management and compute nodesNginx-ingress-controller
TCP8444Harvester management and compute nodesNginx-ingress-controller
TCP10245Harvester management and compute nodesNginx-ingress-controller
TCP80Harvester management and compute nodesNginx
TCP9796Harvester management and compute nodesNode-exporter
TCP30000-32767Harvester management and compute nodesNodePort port range
TCP22Harvester management and compute nodessshd
UDP68Harvester management and compute nodesWicked
TCP3260Harvester management and compute nodesiscsid

Port Requirements for Integrating Harvester with Rancher​

If you want to integrate Harvester with Rancher, you need to make sure that all Harvester nodes can connect to TCP port 443 of the Rancher load balancer.

When provisioning VMs with Kubernetes clusters from Rancher into Harvester, you need to be able to connect to TCP port 443 of the Rancher load balancer. Otherwise, the cluster won't be manageable by Rancher. For more information, refer to Rancher Architecture.

Port Requirements for K3s or RKE/RKE2 Clusters​

For the port requirements for guest clusters deployed inside Harvester VMs, refer to the following links: