Hardware and Network Requirements

As an HCI solution on bare metal servers, there are minimum node hardware and network requirements for installing and running SUSE Virtualization.

A three-node cluster is required to fully realize the multi-node features. The first node that is added to the cluster is by default the management node. When the cluster has three or more nodes, the two nodes added after the first are automatically promoted to management nodes to form a high availability (HA) cluster.

The latest versions support the deployment of single-node clusters. Such clusters do not support high availability, multiple replicas, and live migration.

Hardware Requirements

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

Hardware Development/Testing Production

CPU

x86_64 (with hardware-assisted virtualization); 8 cores minimum

x86_64 (with hardware-assisted virtualization); 16 cores minimum

Memory

32 GB minimum

64 GB minimum

Disk capacity

250 GB minimum (180 GB minimum when using multiple disks)

500 GB minimum

Disk performance

5,000+ random IOPS per disk (SSD/NVMe); management node storage must meet etcd speed requirements. Only local disks and hardware RAID are supported.

5,000+ random IOPS per disk (SSD/NVMe); management node storage must meet etcd speed requirements. Only local disks and hardware RAID are supported.

Network card count

Management cluster network: 1 NIC required, 2 NICs recommended; VM workload network: 1 NIC required, at least 2 NICs recommended (does not apply to the witness node)

Management cluster network: 1 NIC required, 2 NICs recommended; VM workload network: 1 NIC required, at least 2 NICs recommended (does not apply to the witness node)

Network card speed

1 Gbps Ethernet minimum

10 Gbps Ethernet minimum

Network switch

Port trunking for VLAN support

Port trunking for VLAN support

  • For best results, use YES-certified hardware for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 15 SP3 or SP4. SUSE Virtualization is built on SLE technology and YES-certified hardware has additional validation of driver and system board compatibility. Laptops and nested virtualization are not supported.

  • Each node must have a unique product_uuid (fetched from /sys/class/dmi/id/product_uuid) to prevent errors from occurring during VM live migration and other operations. For more information, see Issue #4025.

  • SUSE Virtualization has a built-in management cluster network (mgmt). To achieve high availability and the best performance in production environments, use at least two NICs in each node to set up a bonded NIC for the management network (see step 6 in ISO Installation). You can also create custom cluster networks for VM workloads. Each custom cluster network requires at least two additional NICs to set up a bonded NIC in every involved node of the cluster. The witness node does not require additional NICs. For more information, see Cluster Network.

  • During testing, you can use only one NIC for the built-in management cluster network (mgmt), and for testing the VM network that is also carried by mgmt. High availability and optimal performance are not guaranteed.

CPU Specifications

Live Migration functions correctly only if the CPUs of all physical servers in the cluster have the same specifications. This requirement applies to all operations that rely on Live Migration functionality, such as automatic VM migration when Maintenance Mode is enabled.

Newer CPUs (even those from the same vendor, generation, and family) can have varying capabilities that may be exposed to VM operating systems. To ensure VM stability, Live Migration checks if the CPU capabilities are consistent, and blocks migration attempts when the source and destination are incompatible.

When creating clusters, adding more hosts to a cluster, and replacing hosts, always use CPUs with the same specifications to prevent operational constraints.

Network Requirements

Nodes have the following network requirements for installation.

Port Requirements for Nodes

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

Protocol Port Source Description

TCP

2379

Management nodes

Etcd client port

TCP

2381

Management nodes

Etcd metrics collection

TCP

2380

Management nodes

Etcd peer port

TCP

2382

Management nodes

Etcd client port (HTTP only)

TCP

10010

Management and compute nodes

Containerd

TCP

6443

Management nodes

Kubernetes API

TCP

9345

Management nodes

Kubernetes API

TCP

10252

Management nodes

Kube-controller-manager health checks

TCP

10257

Management nodes

Kube-controller-manager secure port

TCP

10251

Management nodes

Kube-scheduler health checks

TCP

10259

Management nodes

Kube-scheduler secure port

TCP

10250

Management and compute nodes

Kubelet

TCP

10256

Management and compute nodes

Kube-proxy health checks

TCP

10258

Management nodes

cloud-controller-manager

TCP

10260

Management nodes

cloud-controller-manager

TCP

9091

Management and compute nodes

Canal calico-node felix

TCP

9099

Management and compute nodes

Canal CNI health checks

UDP

8472

Management and compute nodes

Canal CNI with VxLAN

TCP

2112

Management nodes

Kube-vip

TCP

6444

Management and compute nodes

RKE2 agent

TCP

10246/10247/10248/10249

Management and compute nodes

Nginx worker process

TCP

8181

Management and compute nodes

Nginx-ingress-controller

TCP

8444

Management and compute nodes

Nginx-ingress-controller

TCP

10245

Management and compute nodes

Nginx-ingress-controller

TCP

80

Management and compute nodes

Nginx

TCP

9796

Management and compute nodes

Node-exporter

TCP

30000-32767

Management and compute nodes

NodePort port range

TCP

22

Management and compute nodes

sshd

UDP

68

Management and compute nodes

Wicked

TCP

3260

Management and compute nodes

iscsid

Port Requirements for Integrating with SUSE Rancher Prime

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

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

Port Requirements for K3s or RKE/RKE2 Clusters

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