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SUSE Linux Enterprise Micro 5.1, K3s 1.20.14

Layered Stack Deployment of K3s

Integrated with Dell Technologies (R)

Technical Reference Documentation
Reference Configuration
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Date: 2022-03-28

The purpose of this document is to provide an overview and procedure of implementing SUSE (R) and partner offerings for K3s, an official CNCF sandbox project that delivers a lightweight yet powerful certified Kubernetes distribution designed for production workloads across resource-restrained, remote locations or on Edge IoT devices.

Disclaimer: Documents published as part of the series SUSE Technical Reference Documentation have been contributed voluntarily by SUSE employees and third parties. They are meant to serve as examples of how particular actions can be performed. They have been compiled with utmost attention to detail. However, this does not guarantee complete accuracy. SUSE cannot verify that actions described in these documents do what is claimed or whether actions described have unintended consequences. SUSE LLC, its affiliates, the authors, and the translators may not be held liable for possible errors or the consequences thereof.

1 Introduction

On the digital transformation journey to a full cloud-native landscape, the use of microservices becomes the main approach with the dominant technology for such container orchestration being Kubernetes.⁠[1] With its large community of developers and abundant features and capabilities, Kubernetes has become the de-facto standard and is included across most container-as-a-service platforms. With all of these technologies in place, both developer and operation teams can effectively deploy, manage and deliver functionality to their end users in a resilient and agile manner.

1.1 Motivation

Once on such a digital transformation journey, also relevant to focus on areas like:

Workload(s)

Determine how to manage and launch internally developed containerized, microservice workloads

Kubernetes

As developers and organizations continue their journey from simple, containerized microservices toward having these workloads orchestrated and deployed where ever they need, being able to install, monitor and use such Kubernetes infrastructures is a core need. Such deployments, being Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF⁠[2]) conformant and certified⁠[3] are essential for both development and production workloads.

  • For simplified scenarios, like edge, remote or IoT, this is where K3s leads the industry, being simple and secure.

Compute Platform(s)

To optimize availability, performance, scalability and integrity, assess current system or hosting platforms

from Independent Hardware Vendors (IHV), such as Dell Technologies ® as the platform for physical, bare metal, hypervisors and virtual machines

1.2 Scope

The scope of this document is to provide a layered reference configuration for K3s. This can be done in a variety of scenarios to create an edge-oriented, lightweight Kubernetes cluster deployment.

1.3 Audience

This document is intended for IT decision makers, architects, system administrators and technicians who are implementing a flexible, software-defined Kubernetes platform. One should still be familiar with the traditional IT infrastructure pillars — networking, computing and storage — along with the local use cases for sizing, scaling and limitations within each pillars' environments.

2 Business aspect

Agility is driving developers toward more cloud-native methodologies that focus on microservices architectures and streamlined workflows. Container technologies, like Kubernetes, embody this agile approach and help enable cloud-native transformation.

By unifying IT operations with Kubernetes, organizations realize key benefits like increased reliability, improved security and greater efficiencies with standardized automation. Therefore, Kubernetes infrastructure platforms are adopted by enterprises to deliver:

Cluster Operations

Improved Production and DevOps efficiencies with simplified cluster usage and robust operations

Security Policy & User Management

Consistent security policy enforcement plus advanced user management on any Kubernetes infrastructure

Access to Shared Tools & Services

A high level of reliability with easy, consistent access to a broad set of tools and services

2.1 Business problem

Kubernetes is the leading solution to address edge computing use cases in industry verticals such as manufacturing, transportation, power generation, healthcare, retail and banking. Typical edge systems that leverage Kubernetes to run complex workloads include energy meters, aircraft engines, gas & oil rigs, cruise ships, high-speed trains, retail scanners, wind turbine base stations, internet-connected cars, ATMs and much more.

For such target edge systems, which are often unattended, resource constrained and remote, orchestrating containerized workloads on Kubernetes deployments may seem overbearingly complex.

2.2 Business value

After two years of research and development in June 2020, K3s was donated to the CNCF. The donation is a testament of the commitment to the open source community and their mission to run Kubernetes everywhere.

Perfect for Edge

K3s is a highly available, certified Kubernetes distribution specifically designed for production workloads in unattended, resource-constrained, remote locations or inside IoT appliances.

Simplified & Secure

K3s is packaged as a tiny, single binary that reduces the dependencies and steps needed to install, run and auto-update a production Kubernetes cluster. For workloads, automated Manifest and Helm Chart managment deployments can be used. Also, multiple architectures, like x86_64, ARM64, and ARMv7, are supported with binaries and images available.

Given its extensive Kubernetes capabilities, K3s can also be a suitable choice for:

  • embedded platforms,

  • continuous integration and continuous deployment platforms,

  • branch locations or individual developer deployments, and

  • even core or cloud production instances

Tip
Tip

When K3s is imported and combined with SUSE Rancher, organizations are equipped with an easy, complete and reliable management solution for Kubernetes at the edge.

With this increased consistency of the deployed and managed Kubernetes infrastructure clusters, organizations benefit from an even higher level of the Cloud Native Computing model where each layer only relies upon the API and version of the adjacent layer, such as:

Compute Platform

Using the above software application and technology solutions with the server platforms offered by Dell Technologies provides many alternative for scale, cost-effectiveness and performance options that could align with local IT staff platform preferences:

  • density-optimized - high performance and efficiency for big data and the most demanding workloads

  • mission-critical - systems of intelligence to fuel your digital transformation in a world where time and data are the new currency and business continuity is expected

  • composable - fully adaptable and ready for Hybrid-IT to future-proof your data center for today’s workloads and tomorrow’s disruptors

  • IoT - realize the potential of the Internet of Things to provide compute at the network edge

  • cloud - high-capacity, mass-compute open infrastructure with security and software to match

  • and virtualized use cases.

3 Architectural overview

This section outlines the core elements of the K3s solution, along with the suggested target platforms and components.

3.1 Solution architecture

The figure below illustrates the high-level architecture of K3s:

K3s architecture
Figure 3.1: Architecture Overview - K3s
Container Runtime
  • Containerd & runc

  • Kine as a datastore shim that allows etcd to be replaced with other databases

Networking
  • Flannel for CNI

  • Kube-router for network policy

Services
  • CoreDNS

  • Metrics Server

  • Traefik for ingress

  • Klipper-lb as an embedded service load balancer provider

  • Local-path-provisioner for provisioning volumes using local storage

Workloads

Helm-controller to allow for CRD-driven deployment of helm manifests

Host utilities

iptables/nftables, ebtables, ethtool, and socat

When this is set up, users can interact with K3s via

  • kubectl

    • directly on the K3s host or

    • remotely, leveraging the KUBECONFIG file of the K3s cluster’s deployment (/etc/rancher/k3s/k3s.yaml)

  • manual or automatic, manifest or Helm Chart based, workload deployments

4 Component model

This section describes the various components being used to create a K3s solution deployment, in the perspective of top to bottom ordering. When completed, the K3s instance can be used as the application infrastructure for cloud-native workloads and can be imported into SUSE Rancher for management.

4.1 Component overview

By using:

  • Software

    • Kubernetes Platform - K3s

    • Linux Operating System - SUSE Linux Enterprise Micro

  • Compute Platform

    • Dell EMC PowerEdge

you can create the necessary infrastructure and services. Further details for these components are described in the following sections.

4.2 Software - K3s

K3s is packaged as a single binary, which is about 50 megabytes in size. Bundled in that single binary is everything needed to run Kubernetes anywhere, including low-powered IoT and Edge-based devices. The binary includes:

  • the container runtime

  • important host utilities such as iptables, socat and du

The only OS dependencies are the Linux kernel itself and a proper dev, proc and sysfs mounts (this is done automatically on all modern Linux distributions). K3s bundles the Kubernetes components:

  • kube-apiserver,

  • kube-controller-manager,

  • kube-scheduler,

  • kubelet and

  • kube-proxy

into combined processes that are presented as a simple server and agent model, as represented in the following figure:

K3s overview
Figure 4.1: Component Overview - K3s

K3s can run as a complete cluster on a single node or can be expanded into a multi-node cluster. Besides the core Kubernetes components, these are also included:

  • containerd,

  • Flannel,

  • CoreDNS,

  • ingress controller and

  • a simple host port-based service load balancer.

All of these components are optional and can be swapped out for your implementation of choice. With these included components, you get a fully functional and CNCF-conformant cluster so you can start running apps right away. K3s is now a CNCF Sandbox project, being the first Kubernetes distribution ever to be adopted into sandbox.

Tip
Tip

Learn more information about K3s

As K3s can be deployed on a single or multiple nodes, the next sections describe the suggested component layering approach.

4.3 Software - SUSE Linux Enterprise Micro

SUSE Linux Enterprise Micro combines the assurance of enterprise-grade security and compliance with the immutability and portability of a modern, lightweight operating system. The top 4 features are:

Immutable OS

Immutable design ensures the OS is not altered during runtime and runs reliably every single time. Security signed and verified transactional updates are easy to rollback if things go wrong.

Security and Compliance

Fully open source and built using open standards, SUSE Linux Enterprise Micro leverages SUSE Linux Enterprise common code base, to provide FIPS 140-2, DISA SRG/STIG, integration with CIS and Common Criteria certified configurations. Includes fully supported security framework (SELinux) with policies.

Architectural Flexibility

Both Arm and x86-64 architectures are supported so you can deploy edge applications with confidence across multiple architectures.

Kubernetes-Ready

You can easily combine SUSE Linux Enterprise Micro with the latest cloud-native technologies including SUSE Rancher, Rancher Kubernetes Engine, Longhorn persistent block storage, and K3s, the world’s most popular Kubernetes distribution for use in low resource, distributed edge locations.

As a result, you get an ultra-reliable infrastructure platform that is also simple to use and comes out-of-the-box with best-in-class compliance. Furthermore, SUSE’s flexible subscription model ensures enterprise assurance for any edge, embedded or IoT deployment without vendor lock-in. A free, evaluation copy can be downloaded or if the organization already has subscriptions, both install media and updates can be obtained from SUSE Customer Center.

4.4 Compute Platform

Leveraging the enterprise grade functionality of the operating system mentioned in the previous section, many compute platforms can be the foundation of the deployment:

  • Virtual machines on supported hypervisors or hosted on cloud service providers

  • Physical, baremetal or single-board computers, either on-premises or hosted by cloud service providers

Note
Note

To complete self-testing of hardware with SUSE YES Certified Process, you can download and install the respective SUSE operating system support-pack version of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and the YES test suite. Then run the tests per the instructions in the test kit, fixing any problems encountered and when corrected, re-run all tests to obtain clean test results. Submit the test results into the SUSE Bulletin System (SBS) for audit, review and validation.

Tip
Tip

Certified systems and hypervisors can be verified via SUSE YES Certified Bulletins and then can be leveraged as supported nodes for this deployment, as long as the certification refers to the respective version of the underlying SUSE operating system required.

Dell EMC PowerEdge Rack Servers help you build a modern infrastructure that minimizes IT challenges and drives business success. Choose from a complete portfolio of 1, 2, and 4-socket rack servers to deliver high core density for your traditional applications, virtualization, and cloud-native workloads. Enhanced memory speeds, faster NVMe storage options, and BIOS tuning allows you to match performance to your workload for ultimate efficiency

4.4.1 Dell EMC PowerEdge R640 Rack Servers

Note
Note

The EMC PowerEdge R640 is SUSE YES Certified Hardware.

Uncompromising performance and density

The Dell EMC PowerEdge R640 is the ideal dual-socket, 1U platform for dense scale-out data center computing. The R640 combines density, performance and scalability to optimize application performance and data center density

  • CPU : Up to two 2nd Generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors with up to 28 cores per processor

  • Accelerators : Up to one single-width FPGA, Up to three single-width GPU (NVIDIA T4)

  • Memory

    • Speed : DIMM Speed (Up to 2933MT/s)

    • Type : RDIMM, LRDIMM, NVDIMM, DCPMM (Intel Optane) DC persistent memory)

    • Module Slots : 24 DDR4 DIMM slots (12 NVDIMM or 12 DCPMM only) Supports registered ECC DDR4 DIMMs only

    • RAM : RDIMM 1.53TB, LRDIMM 3TB, NVDIMM 192GB, DCPMM 6.14TB (7.68TB with LRDIMM)

  • Storage

    • Front Bays : Up to 10 x 2.5” with up to 8 NVMe, SAS/SATA/SSD/NVMe, max 76.8TB

      • Up to 10 NVMe, max 64TB

      • Up to 4 x 3.5” SAS/SATA, max 56T

    • Rear Bays : Up to 2 x 2.5” SAS/SATA/SSD/NVMe, max 15.36TB

Tip
Tip

For more information, see Dell EMC PowerEdge R640 Datasheet

Maximize application performance and density

The scalable business architecture of the R640 is designed to maximize application performance and provide the flexibility to optimize configurations based on the application and use case. With the R640 you can create an NVMe cache pool and use either 2.5” or 3.5” drives for data storage. Combined with up to 24 DIMM’s, 12 of which can be DCPMMs or NVDIMMs, you have the resources to maximize application performance with the optimum configuration in only a 1U chassis.

  • Simplify deployments and speed deployments with Dell EMC ready nodes for ScaleIO and VSAN.

  • Maximize storage performance with up to 10 NVMe drives or 12 2.5” drives.

  • Scale compute resources with 2nd Generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors and tailor performance based on your unique workload requirements.

Automate maintenance with Dell EMC OpenManage

The Dell EMC OpenManage portfolio helps deliver peak efficiency for EMC PowerEdge servers, delivering intelligent, automated management of routine tasks. Combined with unique agent-free management capabilities, the R640 is simply managed, freeing up time for high profile projects.

  • Simplify management with the OpenManage Enterprise console, with customized reporting and automatic discovery.

  • Take advantage of QuickSync 2 capabilities and gain access to your servers easily through your phone or tablet.

Guard your data center with built in security

Every EMC PowerEdge server is designed as part of a cyber resilient architecture, integrating security into the full server life cycle. The R640 leverages new security features built-into every new EMC PowerEdge server strengthening protection so you can reliably and securely deliver accurate data to your customers no matter where they are. By considering each aspect of system security, from design to retirement, Dell EMC ensures trust and delivers a worry-free, secure infrastructure without compromise.

  • Rely on a secure component supply chain to ensure protection from factory to the data center.

  • Maintain data safety with cryptographically signed firmware packages and Secure Boot.

  • Prevent unauthorized or malicious change with Server Lockdown.

  • Wipe all data from storage media including hard drives, SSDs and system memory quickly and securely with System Erase.

4.4.2 Dell EMC PowerEdge R740 Rack Servers

Note
Note

The EMC PowerEdge R740 is SUSE YES Certified Hardware.

Optimized for workload acceleration

The Dell EMC PowerEdge R740 is designed to accelerate application performance leveraging accelerator card and storage scalability. The 2-socket, 2U platform has the optimum balance of resources to power the most demanding environments

  • CPU : Up to two 2nd Generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors with up to 28 cores per processor

  • Accelerator : Up to three 300W or six 150W GPUs, Up to three double-width or four single-width FPGAs

  • Memory

    • Type : RDIMM, LRDIMM, NVDIMM, DCPMM (Intel Optane DC persistent memory)

    • Module Slots : 24 DDR4 DIMM slots (12 NVDIMM or 12 DCPMM only), Supports registered ECC DDR4 DIMMs only

    • RAM : RDIMM 1.53TB, LRDIMM 3TB, NVDIMM 192GB, DCPMM 6.14TB (7.68TB with LRDIMM)

  • Storage : Front Bays: Up to 16 x 2.5” SAS/SATA/SSD, max 122.88TB, Up to 8 x 3.5” SAS/SATA, max 128TB

Tip
Tip

For more information, see Dell EMC PowerEdge R740 Rack Servers

Expand and optimize application performance

The scalable business architecture of the R740 can scale up to three 300W or six 150W GPUs, or up to three double-width or four single-width FPGAs. With up to 16 2.5” drives or 8 3.5” drives the R740 provides the versatility to adapt to virtually any application and provides the perfect platform for VDI deployments.

  • Scale your VDI deployments with 3 double-width GPUs, supporting up to 50% more users when compared to R730.

  • Free up storage space using internal M.2 SSDs optimized for boot.

  • Scale compute resources with 2nd Generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors and tailor performance based on your unique workload requirements.

Automate systems management with OpenManage

The Dell EMC OpenManage portfolio helps deliver peak efficiency for EMC PowerEdge servers, delivering intelligent, automated management of routine tasks. Combined with unique agent-free management capabilities, the R740 is simply managed, freeing up time for high profile projects.

  • Simplify management with the New OpenManage Enterprise console, with customized reporting and automatic discovery.

  • Take advantage of QuickSync 2 capabilities and gain access to your servers easily through your phone or tablet.

Rely on EMC PowerEdge with built-in security

Every EMC PowerEdge server is designed as part of a cyber resilient architecture, integrating security into the full server lifecycle. The R740 leverages new security features built-into every new EMC PowerEdge server strengthening protection so you can reliably and securely deliver accurate data to your customers no matter where they are. By considering each aspect of system security, from design to retirement, Dell EMC ensures trust and delivers a worry-free, secure infrastructure without compromise.

  • Rely on a secure component supply chain to ensure protection from factory to the data center.

  • Maintain data safety with cryptographically signed firmware packages and Secure Boot.

  • Prevent unauthorized or malicious change with Server Lockdown.

  • Wipe all data from storage media including hard drives, SSDs and system memory quickly and securely with System Erase

4.4.3 Dell EMC PowerEdge R650 Rack Servers

Note
Note

The EMC PowerEdge R650 is SUSE YES Certified Hardware.

Compelling performance, high scalability, and density

The Dell EMC PowerEdge R650 is a full-featured enterprise server, designed to optimize workloads performance and data center density

  • CPU : Up to two 3rd Generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors, with up to 40 cores per processor

  • Memory : 32 DDR4 DIMM slots, supports RDIMM 2 TB max or LRDIMM 4 TB max, speeds up to 3200 MT/s, Up to 16 Intel Persistent Memory 200 series (BPS) slots, 8 TB max, Supports registered ECC DDR4 DIMMs only

  • Storage Controllers

    • Internal controllers: PERC H745, HBA355I, S150, H345, H755, H755N

    • Boot Optimized Storage Subsystem (BOSS-S2): HW RAID 2 x M.2 SSDs 240 GB or 480 GB

    • External PERC (RAID): PERC H840, HBA355E

  • Drive Bays

    • Front bays : Up to 10 x 2.5-inch SAS/SATA/NVMe (HDD/SSD) max 153 TB, Up to 4 x 3.5-inch SAS/SATA (HDD/SSD) max 64 TB, Up to 8 x 2.5-inch SAS/SATA/NVMe (HDD/SSD) max 122.8 TB

    • Rear bays : Up to 2 x 2.5-inch SAS/SATA/NVMe (HDD/SSD) max 30.7 TB

Tip
Tip

For more information, see Dell EMC PowerEdge R650 Datasheet

Innovate at scale with challenging and emerging workloads

The Dell EMC PowerEdge R650, powered by the 3rd Generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors is the optimal rack server to address application performance and acceleration. The EMC PowerEdge R650, is a dual-socket/1U rack server that delivers outstanding performance for the most demanding workloads. It supports 8 channels of memory per CPU, and up to 32 DDR4 DIMMs @ 3200 MT/s speeds. In addition, to address substantial throughput improvements the EMC PowerEdge R650 supports PCIe Gen 4 and up to 10 NVMe drives with improved air-cooling features and optional Direct Liquid Cooling to support increasing power and thermal requirements. This makes the EMC PowerEdge R650 an ideal server for data center standardization on a wide range of workloads including; Database and Analytics, HighFrequency Trading, Traditional corporate IT, Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, and even HPC or AI/ML environments that require performance, and GPU support in a dense 1U form factor

Increase efficiency and accelerate operations with autonomous collaboration

The Dell EMC OpenManage systems management portfolio tames the complexity of managing and securing IT infrastructure. Using Dell Technologies’ intuitive end-to-end tools, IT can deliver a secure, integrated experience by reducing process and information silos in order to focus on growing the business. The Dell EMC OpenManage portfolio is the key to your innovation engine, unlocking the tools and automation that help you scale, manage, and protect your technology environment.

  • Built-in telemetry streaming, thermal management, and RESTful API with Redfish offer streamlined visibility and control for better server management

  • Intelligent automation lets you enable cooperation between human actions and system capabilities for added productivity

  • Integrated change management capabilities for update planning and seamless, zero-touch configuration and implementation

  • Full-stack management integration with Microsoft, VMware, ServiceNow, Ansible and many other tools

Protect your data assets and infrastructure with proactive resilience

The Dell EMC PowerEdge R650 server is designed with a cyber-resilient architecture, integrating security deeply into every phase in the lifecycle, from design to retirement.

  • Operate your workloads on a secure platform anchored by cryptographically trusted booting and silicon root of trust

  • Maintain server firmware safety with digitally signed firmware packages

  • Prevent unauthorized configuration or firmware change with system lockdown

  • Securely and quickly wipe all data from storage media, including hard drives, SSDs and system memory with System Erase

4.4.4 Dell EMC PowerEdge R750 Rack Servers

Note
Note

The EMC PowerEdge R750 is SUSE YES Certified Hardware.

General purpose server optimized to address the most demanding workloads

The Dell EMC PowerEdge R750 is a full-featured enterprise server, delivering outstanding performance for the most demanding workloads

  • CPU : Up to two 3rd Generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors, with up to 40 cores per processor

  • Memory : 32 DDR4 DIMM slots, supports RDIMM 2 TB max or LRDIMM 8 TB max, speeds up to 3200 MT/s, Up to 16 Intel Persistent Memory 200 series (BPS) slots, 8 TB max, Supports registered ECC DDR4 DIMMs only

  • Storage Controllers

    • Internal controllers : PERC H745, HBA355I, S150, H345, H755, H755N

    • Boot Optimized Storage Subsystem (BOSS-S2): HW RAID 2 x M.2 SSDs 240 GB or 480 GB

    • External PERC (RAID): PERC H840, HBA355E

  • Drive Bays

    • Front bays : Up to 12 x 3.5-inch SAS/SATA (HDD/SSD) max 192 TB, Up to 8 x 2.5-inch NVMe (SSD) max 122.88 TB, Up to 16 x 2.5-inch SAS/SATA/NVMe (HDD/SSD) max 245.76 TB, Up to 24 x 2.5-inch SAS/SATA/NVMe (HDD/SSD) max 368.84 TB

    • Rear bays : Rear bays: Up to 2 x 2.5-inch SAS/SATA/NVMe (HDD/SSD) max 30.72 TB, Up to 4 x 2.5-inch SAS/SATA/NVMe (HDD/SSD) max 61.44 TB

Tip
Tip

For more information, see see Dell EMC PowerEdge R750 Datasheet

Innovate at scale with challenging and emerging workloads

The Dell EMC PowerEdge R750, powered by the 3rd Generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors is a rack server to address application performance and acceleration. The EMC PowerEdge R750, is a dual-socket/2U rack server that delivers outstanding performance for the most demanding workloads. It supports 8 channels of memory per CPU, and up to 32 DDR4 DIMMs @ 3200 MT/s speeds. In addition, to address substantial throughput improvements the EMC PowerEdge R750 supports PCIe Gen 4 and up to 24 NVMe drives with improved air-cooling features and optional Direct Liquid Cooling to support increasing power and thermal requirements. This makes the EMC PowerEdge R750 an ideal server for data center standardization on a wide range of workloads including; Database and Analytics, Highperformance computing (HPC), Traditional corporate IT, Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, and AI/ML environments that require performance, extensive storage and GPU support

Increase efficiency and accelerate operations with autonomous collaboration

The Dell EMC OpenManage systems management portfolio tames the complexity of managing and securing IT infrastructure. Using Dell Technologies’ intuitive end-to-end tools, IT can deliver a secure, integrated experience by reducing process and information silos in order to focus on growing the business. The Dell EMC OpenManage portfolio is the key to your innovation engine, unlocking the tools and automation that help you scale, manage, and protect your technology environment.

  • Built-in telemetry streaming, thermal management, and RESTful API with Redfish offer streamlined visibility and control for better server management

  • Intelligent automation lets you enable cooperation between human actions and system capabilities for added productivity

  • Integrated change management capabilities for update planning and seamless, zero-touch configuration and implementation

  • Full-stack management integration with Microsoft, VMware, ServiceNow, Ansible and many other tool

Protect your data assets and infrastructure with proactive resilience

The Dell EMC PowerEdge R750 server is designed with a cyber-resilient architecture, integrating security deeply into every phase in the lifecycle, from design to retirement.

  • Operate your workloads on a secure platform anchored by cryptographically trusted booting and silicon root of trust

  • Maintain server firmware safety with digitally signed firmware packages

  • Prevent unauthorized configuration or firmware change with system lockdown

  • Securely and quickly wipe all data from storage media, including hard drives, SSDs and system memory with System Erase

Note
Note

A sample bill of materials, in the Chapter 9, Appendix, cites the necessary quantites of all components, along with a reference to the minimum resource requirements needed by the software components.

5 Deployment

This section describes the process steps for the deployment of the K3s solution. It describes the process steps to deploy each of the component layers starting as a base functional proof-of-concept, having considerations on migration toward production, providing scaling guidance that is needed to create the solution.

5.1 Deployment overview

The deployment stack is represented in the following figure:

rc K3s SLEMicro Dell deployment
Figure 5.1: Deployment Stack - K3s

and details are covered for each layer in the following sections.

Note
Note

The following section’s content is ordered and described from the bottom layer up to the top.

5.2 Compute Platform

The base, starting configuration can reside all within a single server. Based upon the relatively small resource requirements for a K3s deployment, a viable approach is to deploy as a virtual machine (VM) on the target nodes, on top of an existing hypervisor, like KVM. For physical host, there are tools that can be used during the setup of the server, see below.

The Integrated Dell Remote Access Controller (iDRAC) is designed for secure local and remote server management and helps IT administrators deploy, update and monitor Dell EMC PowerEdge servers anywhere, anytime.

The Virtual Media function allows the remote usage of software image files (ISO files), which can be used for installing operating systems or updating servers.

5.3 SUSE Linux Enterprise Micro

As the base software layer, use an enterprise-grade Linux operating system. For example, SUSE Linux Enterprise Micro.

Preparation(s)

To meet the solution stack prerequisites and requirements, SUSE operating system offerings, like SUSE Linux Enterprise Micro can be used.

  1. Ensure these services are in place and configured for this node to use:

    • Domain Name Service (DNS) - an external network-accessible service to map IP Addresses to host names

    • Network Time Protocol (NTP) - an external network-accessible service to obtain and synchronize system times to aid in time stamp consistency

    • Software Update Service - access to a network-based repository for software update packages. This can be accessed directly from each node via registration to

      • the general, internet-based SUSE Customer Center (SCC) or

      • an organization’s SUSE Manager infrastructure or

      • a local server running an instance of Repository Mirroring Tool (RMT)

        Note
        Note

        During the node’s installation, it can be pointed to the respective update service. This can also be accomplished post-installation with the command line tool named SUSEConnect.

Deployment Process

On the compute platform node, install the noted SUSE operating system, by following these steps:

  1. Download the SUSE Linux Enterprise Micro product (either for the ISO or Virtual Machine image)

    • Identify the appropriate, supported version of SUSE Linux Enterprise Micro by reviewing the support matrix for SUSE Rancher versions Web page.

  2. The installation process is described and can be performed with default values by following steps from the product documentation, see Installation Quick Start

    Tip
    Tip

    Adjust both the password and the local network addressing setup to comply with local environment guidelines and requirements.

Deployment Consideration(s)

To further optimize deployment factors, leverage the following practices:

  • Automation

    • To reduce user intervention, unattended deployments of SUSE Linux Enterprise Micro can be automated

      • for ISO-based installations, by referring to the AutoYaST Guide

      • for raw-image based installation, by configuring the Ignition and Combustion tooling as described in the Installation Quick Start

5.4 K3s

Preparation(s)
  1. Identify the appropriate, desired version of the K3s binary (for example vX.YY.ZZ+k3s1) by reviewing

    • the "Supported K3s Versions" associated with the respective SUSE Rancher version from "K3s Downstream Clusters" section, or

    • the "Releases" on the Download Web page.

  2. On the target node with a default installation of SUSE Linux Enterprise Micro operating system, log in to the node either as root or as a user with sudo privileges and install a required package for the next layer.

    sudo transactional-update pkg install apparmor-parser
    sudo reboot
  3. For the underlying operating system firewall service, either

    • enable and configure the necessary inbound ports or

    • stop and completely disable the firewall service.

Deployment Process

Perform the following steps to install the first K3s server on one of the nodes to be used for the Kubernetes control plane

  1. Set the following variable with the noted version of K3s, as found during the preparation steps.

    K3s_VERSION=""
  2. Install the version of K3s with embedded etcd enabled:

    curl -sfL https://get.k3s.io | \
            INSTALL_K3S_VERSION=${K3s_VERSION} \
            INSTALL_K3S_EXEC='server --cluster-init --write-kubeconfig-mode=644' \
            sh -s -
    • Since SELinux is resident on SUSE Linux Enterprise Micro, the K3s install command will include another required package "k3s-selinux" as a transactional-update in a new snapshot. So a reboot is required to access the installed package and complete the deployment.

      systemctl reboot
      Tip
      Tip

      To address Availability and possible scaling to a multiple node cluster, etcd is enabled instead of using the default SQLite datastore.

    • Monitor the progress of the installation: watch -c "kubectl get deployments -A"

      • The K3s deployment is complete when elements of all the deployments (coredns, local-path-provisioner, metrics-server, and traefik) show at least "1" as "AVAILABLE"

      • Use Ctrl+c to exit the watch loop after all deployment pods are running

Deployment Consideration(s)

To further optimize deployment factors, leverage the following practices:

  • Availability

    • A full high-availability K3s cluster is recommended for production workloads. The etcd key/value store (aka database) requires an odd number of servers (aka master nodes) be allocated to the K3s cluster. In this case, two additional control-plane servers should be added; for a total of three.

      1. Deploy the same operating system on the new compute platform nodes, then log in to the new nodes as root or as a user with sudo privileges.

      2. Execute the following sets of commands on each of the remaining control-plane nodes:

        • Set the following additional variables, as appropriate for this cluster

          # Private IP preferred, if available
          FIRST_SERVER_IP=""
          
          # From /var/lib/rancher/k3s/server/node-token file on the first server
          NODE_TOKEN=""
          
          # Match the first of the first server
          K3s_VERSION=""
        • Install K3s

          curl -sfL https://get.k3s.io | \
          	INSTALL_K3S_VERSION=${K3s_VERSION} \
          	K3S_URL=https://${FIRST_SERVER_IP}:6443 \
          	K3S_TOKEN=${NODE_TOKEN} \
          	K3S_KUBECONFIG_MODE="644" INSTALL_K3S_EXEC='server' \
          	sh -
        • Monitor the progress of the installation: watch -c "kubectl get deployments -A"

          • The K3s deployment is complete when elements of all the deployments (coredns, local-path-provisioner, metrics-server, and traefik) show at least "1" as "AVAILABLE"

          • Use Ctrl+c to exit the watch loop after all deployment pods are running

            Note
            Note

            This can be changed to the normal Kubernetes default by adding a taint to each server node. See the official Kubernetes documentation for more information on how to do that.

        • (Optional) In cases where agent nodes are desired, execute the following sets of commands, using the same "K3s_VERSION", "FIRST_SERVER_IP", and "NODE_TOKEN" variable settings as above, on each of the agent nodes to add it to the K3s cluster:

          curl -sfL https://get.k3s.io | \
          	INSTALL_K3S_VERSION=${K3s_VERSION} \
          	K3S_URL=https://${FIRST_SERVER_IP}:6443 \
          	K3S_TOKEN=${NODE_TOKEN} \
          	K3S_KUBECONFIG_MODE="644" \
          	sh -

After this successful deployment of the K3s solution, review the product documentation for details on how to directly use this Kubernetes cluster. Furthermore, by reviewing the SUSE Rancher product documentation this solution can also be:

  • imported (refer to sub-section "Importing Existing Clusters"), then

  • managed (refer to sub-section "Cluster Administration") and

  • accessed (refer to sub-section "Cluster Access") to address orchestration of workloads, maintaining security and many more functions are readily available.

6 Summary

Using components and offerings from SUSE and the Rancher portfolio plus Dell EMC PowerEdge Rack Servers streamline the ability to quickly and effectively engage in a digital transformation, taking advantage of cloud-native resources and disciplines. Using such technology approaches lets you deploy and leverage transformations of infrastructure into a durable, reliable enterprise-grade environment.

Simplify

Simplify and optimize your existing IT environments

  • Using K3s enables you to quickly and simply deploy a Kubernetes cluster in a wide array of locations, across edge, branch, core and cloud.

Modernize

Bring applications and data into modern computing

  • With K3s, the digital transformation to containerized applications can progress since both developers and production can leverage these deployments for the actual workloads.

Accelerate

Accelerate business transformation through the power of open source software

  • Given the open source nature of K3s and the minimal underlying software components, you can expand into a very distributed ecosystem, bringing computing to where the data exists or arrives, to answer the necessary business needs.

7 References

White Papers

8 Glossary

  • Document Scope

    Reference Configuration

    A guide with the basic steps to deploy the layered stack of components from both the SUSE and partner portfolios. This is considered a fundamental basis to demonstrate a specific, tested configuration of components.

    Reference Architectures⁠[4]

    A guide with the general steps to deploy and validate the structured solution components from both the SUSE and partner portfolios. This provides a shareable template of consistency for consumers to leverage for similar production ready solutions, including design considerations, implementation suggestions and best practices.

    Best Practice

    Information that can overlap both the SUSE and partner space. It can either be provided as a stand-alone guide that provides reliable technical information not covered in other product documentation, based on real-life installation and implementation experiences from subject matter experts or complementary, embedded sections within any of the above documentation types describing considerations and possible steps forward.

  • Factor(s)

    Automation⁠[5]

    Infrastructure automation enables speed through faster execution when configuring the infrastructure and aims at providing visibility to help other teams across the enterprise work quickly and more efficiently. Automation removes the risk associated with human error, like manual misconfiguration; removing this can decrease downtime and increase reliability. These outcomes and attributes help the enterprise move toward implementing a culture of DevOps, the combined working of development and operations.

    Availability⁠[6]

    The probability that an item operates satisfactorily, without failure or downtime, under stated conditions as a function of its reliability, redundancy and maintainability attributes. Some major objectives to achieve a desired service level objectives are:

    • Preventing or reducing the likelihood and frequency of failures via design decisions within the allowed cost of ownership

    • Correcting or coping with possible component failures via resiliency, automated failover and disaster-recovery processes

    • Estimating and analyzing current conditions to prevent unexpected failures via predictive maintenance

    Integrity⁠[7]

    Integrity is the maintenance of, and the insurance of the accuracy and consistency of a specific element over its entire lifecycle. Both physical and logical aspects must be managed to ensure stability, performance, re-usability and maintainability.

    Security⁠[8]

    Security is about ensuring freedom from or resilience against potential harm, including protection from destructive or hostile forces. To minimize risks, one mus manage governance to avoid tampering, maintain access controls to prevent unauthorized usage and integrate layers of defense, reporting and recovery tactics.

  • Deployment Flavor(s)

    Proof-of-Concept⁠[9]

    A partial or nearly complete prototype constructed to demonstrate functionality and feasibility for verifying specific aspects or concepts under consideration. This is often a starting point when evaluating a new, transitional technology. Sometimes it starts as a Minimum Viable Product (MVP⁠[10]) that has just enough features to satisfy an initial set of requests. After such insights and feedback are obtained and potentially addressed, redeployments may be used to iteratively branch into other realms or to incorporate other known working functionality.

    Production

    A deployed environment that target customers or users can interact with and rely upon to meet their needs, plus be operationally sustainable in terms of resource usage and economic constraints.

    Scaling

    The flexibility of a system environment to either vertically scale-up, horizontally scale-out or conversely scale-down by adding or subtracting resources as needed. Attributes like capacity and performance are often the primary requirements to address, while still maintaining functional consistency and reliability.

9 Appendix

The following sections provide a bill of materials listing for the respective component layer(s) of the described deployment.

9.1 Compute platform bill of materials

Sample set of computing platform models, components and resources.

RoleQtySKUComponentNotes

Example 1

1-3

 

Dell EMC PowerEdge R640

  • items below listed per node

 

1

321-BCQQ

  • 2.5 in. chassis with up to 10 hard drives, 8 NVMe drives, and 3 PCIe slots, 2 CPU only

 
 

2

338-BTSI

  • Intel Xeon Gold 6238 2.1 G, 22C/44 T, 10.4 GT/s, 30.25 M Cache, Turbo, HT (140 W) DDR4-2933

 
 

12

370-AEVN

  • 32 GB RDIMM, 3200 MT/s, Dual Rank

 
 

1

405-AAJU

  • HBA330 12 Gbps SAS HBA Controller (NON-RAID), minicard

 
 

1

385-BBKT

  • iDRAC9, Enterprise

 
 

1

330-BBGN

  • Riser Config 2, 3 x 16 LP

 
 

1

406-BBLG

  • Mellanox ConnectX-4 Lx Dual Port 25 GbE SFP 28 rNDC

 
 

1

406-BBLD

  • Mellanox ConnectX-4 Lx dual port 25 GbE SFP28 NIC, low profile

 
 

1

450-ADWS

  • Dual, hot-plug, redundant power supply (1+1), 750 W

 
 

2 min – 8 max

400-BELT

  • Dell 1.6 TB, NVMe, Mixed Use Express Flash, 2.5 SFF Drive, U.2, P4610 with Carrier

 
 

2

400-AZQO

  • 800 GB SSD SAS Mix Use 12 Gbps 512e 2.5 in Hot-plug AG Drive, 3 DWPD, 4380 TBW

 
 

1

403-BCHI

  • BOSS Cntrl + 2 M.2 240G, R1, LP1

 

Example 2

1-3

 

Dell EMC PowerEdge R740

  • items below listed per node

 

1

321-BCRC

  • Chassis up to 24 x 2.5 in. hard drives including 12 NVME drives, 2 CPU configuration

 
 

1

338-BTSI

  • Intel Xeon Gold 6238 2.1 G, 22C/44 T, 10.4 GT/s, 30.25 M Cache, Turbo, HT (140 W) DDR4-2933

 
 

12

370-AEVN

  • 32 GB RDIMM, 2933MT/s, Dual Rank

 
 

1

405-AANK

  • HBA330 controller adapter, low profile

 
 

1

385-BBKT

  • iDRAC9, Enterprise

 
 

1

330-BBHD

  • Riser Config 6, 5 x 8, 3 x1 6 slots

 
 

1

406-BBLG

  • Mellanox ConnectX-4 Lx Dual Port 25 GbE SFP28 rNDC

 
 

1

406-BBLE

  • Mellanox ConnectX-4 Lx Dual Port 25 GbE SFP28 network interface controller

 
 

1

450-ADWM

  • Dual, hot-plug, redundant power supply (1+1), 1100 W

 
 

1

403-BCHP

  • BOSS Cntrl + 2 M.2 240G, R1, FH

 
 

1 to 24

400-AZQO

  • 800 GB, 1.92 TB, or 3.84 TB SSD SAS mixed use 12 Gbps 512e 2.5 in. hot-plug AG drive with carrier, 3 DWPD, 4380 TBW, CK

 
 

1 to 12

400-BLKD

  • Dell 1.6 TB, 3.2 TB, or 6.4 TB, NVMe, mixed use express flash, 2.5 SFF drive, U.2, P4610 with carrier, CK

 

Example 3

1-3

 

Dell EMC PowerEdge R650

  • items below listed per node

 

1

321-BGHH

  • 2.5" Chassis with up to 8 Hard Drives (SAS/SATA), 3 PCIe Slots, 2 CPU

 
 

2

338-BZXK

  • Intel Xeon Gold 6330 2G, 42M, 205W

 
 

16

370-AEVQ

  • 16GB RDIMM, 3200MT/s, Dual Rank

 
 

1

450-AIQZ

  • Dual, Hot-plug, PSU 1+1, 1400W, MM

 
 

1

528-CRVW

  • iDRAC9 Datacenter 15G

 
 

1

340-CUQN

  • R650 Ship 4x3.5, 10x2.5

 
 

1

321-BGHG

  • 8x2.5 Chipset NVMe RAID Config, 2CPU

 
 

1

405-AAZE

  • PERC H755N Front

 
 

1

330-BBRP

  • Riser C0-2, 3x16 LP, HL

 
 

1

403-BCMB

  • BOSS-S2 Cntrl + 2 M.2 480G

 
 

3

400-BLKD

  • 1.6TB, NVMe, 2.5 Dr, MU, P5600

 
 

1

540-BCOF

  • Mlnx ConX5 DP 10/25Gbe SFP28 OCP3.0

 
 

1

540-BCMQ

  • Mlnx ContX-5 DP 25Gb SFP Adpt, LP

 

Example 4

1-3

 

Dell EMC PowerEdge R750

  • items below listed per node

 

1

321-BGEZ

  • 2.5" Chassis with up to 16 SAS/SATA Drives, 2 CPU

 
 

2

338-BZXK

  • Intel Xeon Gold 6330 2G, 42M, 205W

 
 

16

370-AEVQ

  • 16GB RDIMM, 3200MT/s, Dual Rank

 
 

1

450-AIQZ

  • Dual, Hot-plug, PSU 1+1, 1400W, MM

 
 

1

528-CRVW

  • iDRAC9 Datacenter 15G

 
 

3

400-BLKD

  • 1.6TB, NVMe, 2.5 Dr, MU, P5600

 
 

1

321-BGET

  • 8x2.5" NVMe RAID

 
 

1

330-BBRW

  • Riser Config2,Full Length,4x16,2x8 slots

 
 

1

540-BCNM

  • Mlnx ContX-5 DP 25Gb SFP Adpt, FH

 
 

1

403-BCMB

  • BOSS-S2 Cntrl + 2 M.2 480G

 
 

1

405-AAZE

  • PERC H755N Front

 
 

1

540-BCOF

  • Mlnx ConX5 DP 10/25Gbe SFP28 OCP3.0

 

9.2 Software bill of materials

Sample set of software, support and services.

RoleQtySKUComponentNotes

Operating System

1-3

874-007864

SUSE Linux Enterprise Micro,

  • x86_64,

  • Priority Subscription,

  • 1 Year

Configuration:

  • per node (up to 16 cores, stackable)

Kubernetes Management

1

R-0001-PS1

SUSE Rancher,

  • x86-64,

  • Priority Subscription,

  • 1 Year

Configuration:

  • per deployed instance

Rancher Management

2

R-0004-PS1

Rancher 10 Nodes

  • x86-64 or aarch64,

  • Priority Subscription,

  • 1 Year,

Configuration:

  • requires priority server subscription

Consulting and Training

1

R-0001-QSO

Rancher Quick Start,

  • Go Live Services

 
Note
Note

For the software components, other support term durations are also available.

9.3 Documentation configuration / attributes

This document was built using the following AsciiDoc and DocBook Authoring and Publishing Suite (DAPS) attributes:

Appendix=1 ArchOv=1 Automation=1 Availability=1 BP=1 BPBV=1 CompMod=1 DepConsiderations=1 Deployment=1 FCTR=1 FLVR=1 GFDL=1 Glossary=1 HWComp=1 HWDepCfg=1 IHV-Dell-PowerEdge=1 IHV-Dell=1 Integrity=1 LN=1 PoC=1 Production=1 RA=1 RC=1 References=1 Requirements=1 SWComp=1 SWDepCfg=1 Scaling=1 Security=1 docdate=2022-03-28 env-daps=1 focusK3s=1 iIHV=1 iK3s=1 iRKE1=1 iRKE2=1 iRMT=1 iRancher=1 iSLEMicro=1 iSLES=1 iSUMa=1 layerSLEMicro=1

11 GNU Free Documentation License

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10. FUTURE REVISIONS OF THIS LICENSE

The Free Software Foundation may publish new, revised versions of the GNU Free Documentation License from time to time. Such new versions will be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to address new problems or concerns. See http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/.

Each version of the License is given a distinguishing version number. If the Document specifies that a particular numbered version of this License "or any later version" applies to it, you have the option of following the terms and conditions either of that specified version or of any later version that has been published (not as a draft) by the Free Software Foundation. If the Document does not specify a version number of this License, you may choose any version ever published (not as a draft) by the Free Software Foundation.

ADDENDUM: How to use this License for your documents

Copyright (c) YEAR YOUR NAME.
   Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
   under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2
   or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation;
   with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts.
   A copy of the license is included in the section entitled “GNU
   Free Documentation License”.

If you have Invariant Sections, Front-Cover Texts and Back-Cover Texts, replace the “ with…​Texts.” line with this:

with the Invariant Sections being LIST THEIR TITLES, with the
   Front-Cover Texts being LIST, and with the Back-Cover Texts being LIST.

If you have Invariant Sections without Cover Texts, or some other combination of the three, merge those two alternatives to suit the situation.

If your document contains nontrivial examples of program code, we recommend releasing these examples in parallel under your choice of free software license, such as the GNU General Public License, to permit their use in free software.