Make sure the nodes for the Rancher server fulfill the following requirements:

Operating Systems and Container Runtime Requirements

Rancher should work with any modern Linux distribution and any modern Docker version. Linux is required for the etcd and controlplane nodes of all downstream clusters. Worker nodes may run Linux or Windows Server.

For details on which OS and Docker versions were tested with each Rancher version, refer to the

All supported operating systems are 64-bit x86.

If you plan to use ARM64, see Running on ARM64 (Experimental).

For information on how to install Docker, refer to the official

SUSE Linux may have a firewall that blocks all ports by default. In that situation, follow these steps to open the ports needed for adding a host to a custom cluster.

When using Flatcar Container Linux nodes, it is required to use the following configuration in the Cluster Config File

It is also required to enable the Docker service, you can enable the Docker service using the following command:

The Docker service is enabled automatically when using .

Nodes with Windows Server must run Docker Enterprise Edition.

Windows nodes can be used for worker nodes only. See Configuring Custom Clusters for Windows

Hardware Requirements

The hardware requirements for nodes with the role mostly depend on your workloads. The minimum to run the Kubernetes node components is 1 CPU (core) and 1GB of memory.

For hardware recommendations for large Kubernetes clusters, refer to the official Kubernetes documentation on building large clusters.

For hardware recommendations for etcd clusters in production, refer to the official

Networking Requirements

For a production cluster, we recommend that you restrict traffic by opening only the ports defined in the port requirements below.

The ports required to be open are different depending on how the user cluster is launched. Each of the sections below list the ports that need to be opened for different .

For a breakdown of the port requirements for etcd nodes, controlplane nodes, and worker nodes in a Kubernetes cluster, refer to the port requirements for the Rancher Kubernetes Engine.

Details on which ports are used in each situation are found under .

Optional: Security Considerations

If you want to provision a Kubernetes cluster that is compliant with the CIS (Center for Internet Security) Kubernetes Benchmark, we recommend to following our hardening guide to configure your nodes before installing Kubernetes.