Integrated with Dell Technologies (R)
The purpose of this document is to provide an overview and procedure of implementing SUSE (R) and partner offerings for SUSE Rancher, as a multi-cluster container management platform for organizations that deploy containerized workloads, orchestrated by Kubernetes. SUSE Rancher makes it easy to deploy, manage, and use Kubernetes everywhere, meet IT requirements, and empower DevOps teams.
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
While any developer or organization may simply start with a single, Kubernetes-based deployment, it is very common for that number of cluster instances to rapidly grow. While each of these may have specific focus areas, it becomes imperative to figure out how to use, manage, maintain and replicate all of these instances over time.
This is where SUSE Rancher leads the industry, being able to manage access, usage, infrastructure and applications across clusters, that are Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF[2]) conformant and certified[3], anywhere across edge, on-premise data centers, or cloud service providers. SUSE Rancher optimizes creating and managing Kubernetes clusters like:
and deployed across various supported infrastructure elements.
- 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 SUSE Rancher. This can be done in a variety of solution layered stacks, to become a fundamental component of a managing multiple Kubernetes ecosystems.
1.3 Audience #
This document is intended for IT decision makers, architects, system administrators and technicians who are implementing a flexible, software-defined Kubernetes management 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 #
Many organizations are deploying Kubernetes clusters everywhere — in the cloud, on-premises, and at the edge — to unify IT operations. Such organizations can realize dramatic benefits, including:
Consistently deliver a high level of reliability on any infrastructure
Improve DevOps efficiency with standardized automation
Ensure enforcement of security policies on any infrastructure
However, simply relying on upstream Kubernetes alone can introduce overhead and risk because Kubernetes clusters are typically deployed:
Without central visibility
Without consistent security policies
And must be managed independently
Deploying a scalable kubernetes requires consideration of a large ecosystem, encompassing many software and infrastructure components and providers. Further, the ability to continually address the needs and concerns of:
- Developers
For those who just focus on writing code to build their apps securely using a preferred workflow, providing a simple, push-button deployment mechanism of their containerized workloads where needed.
- IT Operators
General infrastructure requirements still rely upon traditional IT pillars are for the stacked, underlying infrastructure. Ease of deployment, availability, scalability, resiliency, performance, security and integrity are still core concerns to be addressed for administrative control and observability.
Beyond just the core infrastructure software layers of managed Kubernetes clusters, organizations may be also be impacted by:
- Compute Platform
Potential inconsistencies and impacts of multiple target system platforms for the distributed deployments of the cluster elements, across:
physical, baremetal, hypervisors and virtual machines
2.2 Business value #
By allowing operation teams to focus on infrastructure and developers to deploy code the way they want too, SUSE and the Rancher offerings helps bring products to market faster and accelerate an organization’s digital transformation.
SUSE Rancher is a fundamental part of the complete software stack for teams adopting containers. It provides DevOps teams with integrated tools for running containerized workloads while also addressing the operational and security challenges of managing multiple Kubernetes clusters across any targetedd infrastructure.
- Developers
SUSE Rancher makes it easy to securely deploy containerized applications no matter where the Kubernetes infrastructure runs -– in the cloud, on-premises, or at the edge. Using Helm or the App Catalog to deploy and manage applications across any or all these environments, ensuring multi-cluster consistency with a single deployment process.
- IT Operators
SUSE Rancher not only deploys and manages production-grade Kubernetes clusters from datacenter to cloud to the edge, it also unites them with centralized authentication, access control and observability. Further, it streamlines cluster deployment on bare metal or virtual machines and maintains them using defined security policies.
With this increased consistency of the 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 SUSE Rancher solution, along with the suggested target platforms and components.
3.1 Solution architecture #
The figure below illustrates the high-level architecture of the SUSE Rancher installation that manages multiple downstream Kubernetes clusters:
- Authentication Proxy
A user is authenticated via SUSE Rancher and then, if authorized, can access both the SUSE Rancher environment and the downstream clusters and workloads.
- API Server
This provides the programmatic interface back-end for a user, using command line interactions with SUSE Rancher and the managed clusters.
- Data Store
The purpose of this service is to capture the configuration and state of SUSE Rancher and the managed clusters to aid in backup and recovery processes.
- Cluster Controller
Interacting with a cluster agent on the downstream cluster, the cluster controller allows the communication path for users and services to leverage for workloads and cluster management.
When set up, users can interact with SUSE Rancher through the Web-based user interface (UI), the command line interface (CLI), and programatically through the application programming interface (API). Depending upon the assigned roles, group membership and privileges, a user could:
manage all clusters, users, roles, projects
deploy new clusters, import other clusters, or remove existing ones
manage workloads across respective or labelled clusters
simply view clusters or workloads, or benefit from what is running
For the best performance and security, the recommended deployment is a dedicated Kubernetes cluster for the SUSE Rancher management server. Running user workloads on this cluster is not advised. After deploying SUSE Rancher, one can then create or import clusters for orchestrated workloads.
4 Component model #
This section describes the various components being used to create a SUSE Rancher solution deployment, in the perspective of top to bottom ordering. When completed, the SUSE Rancher instance enables the management of multiple, downstream Kubernetes clusters.
4.1 Component overview #
By using:
Software
Multi-cluster Management Server - SUSE Rancher
Kubernetes Platform - K3s
Linux Operating System - SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
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 - SUSE Rancher #
SUSE Rancher is a Kubernetes native multi-cluster container management platform. It addresses these challenges by delivering the following key functions, as shown in the following figure:
- Certified Kubernetes Distributions
SUSE Rancher supports management of any CNCF certified Kubernetes distribution for:
development, edge, branch workloads, SUSE offerings like K3s, a CNCF certified lightweight distribution of Kubernetes
workload infrastructures, either on-premise or public-cloud based, SUSE offerings like Rancher Kubernetes Engine (RKE) or Rancher Kubernetes Engine Government (RKE2), as CNCF certified Kubernetes distributions for both bare-metal and virtualized servers
the public cloud, hosted Kubernetes services like
- Simplified Cluster Operations and Infrastructure Management
SUSE Rancher provides simple, consistent cluster operations including provisioning and templates, configuration and lifecycle version management, along with visibility and diagnostics.
- Security and Authentication
SUSE Rancher integrates and utilizes existing directory services, to automate processes and apply a consistent set of identity and access management (IAM) plus security policies for all the managed clusters, no matter where they are running.
- Policy Enforcement and Governance
SUSE Rancher includes audit and security guideline enforcement, monitoring and logging functions, along with user, network and workload policies distributed across all managed clusters.
- Platform Services
SUSE Rancher also provides a rich catalog of services for building, deploying and scaling containerized applications, including app packaging, logging, monitoring and service mesh.
For a production implementation of SUSE Rancher, deploying upon a Kubernetes platform is required and the next sections describe the suggested component layering approach.
4.3 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 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.
4.4 Software - SUSE Linux Enterprise Server #
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) is an adaptable and easy-to-manage platform that allows developers and administrators to deploy business-critical workloads on-premises, in the cloud and at the edge. It is a Linux operating system that is adaptable to any environment – optimized for performance, security and reliability. As a multimodal operating system that paves the way for IT transformation in the software-defined era, this simplifies multimodal IT, makes traditional IT infrastructure efficient and provides an engaging platform for developers. As a result, one can easily deploy and transition business-critical workloads across on-premises and public cloud environments.
Designed for interoperability, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server integrates into classical Unix and Windows environments, supports open standard interfaces for systems management, and has been certified for IPv6 compatibility. This modular, general purpose operating system runs on four processor architectures and is available with optional extensions that provide advanced capabilities for tasks such as real time computing and high availability clustering. SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is optimized to run as a high performing guest on leading hypervisors and supports an unlimited number of virtual machines per physical system with a single subscription. This makes it the perfect guest operating system for virtual computing.
4.5 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
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.
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
4.5.1 Dell EMC PowerEdge R640 Rack Servers #
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
- 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.
4.5.2 Dell EMC PowerEdge R740 Rack Servers #
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
- 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
4.5.3 Dell EMC PowerEdge R650 Rack Servers #
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
- 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
4.5.4 Dell EMC PowerEdge R750 Rack Servers #
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
- 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
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 SUSE Rancher 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:
and details are covered for each layer in the following sections.
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 SUSE Rancher 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 Server #
As the base software layer, use an enterprise-grade Linux operating system. For example, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server.
- Preparation(s)
To meet the solution stack prerequisites and requirements, SUSE operating system offerings, like SUSE Linux Enterprise Server can be used.
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)
NoteDuring 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:
Download the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server product (either for the ISO or Virtual Machine image)
Identify the appropriate, supported version of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server by reviewing the support matrix for SUSE Rancher versions Web page.
The installation process is described and can be performed with default values by following steps from the product documentation, see Installation Quick Start
TipAdjust 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:
To reduce user intervention, unattended deployments of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server can be automated
for ISO-based installations, by referring to the AutoYaST Guide
5.4 K3s #
- Preparation(s)
Identify the appropriate, desired version of the K3s binary (for example vX.YY.ZZ+k3s1) by reviewing
the "Installing SUSE Rancher on K3s" associated with the respective SUSE Rancher version, or
the "Releases" on the Download Web page.
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
Set the following variable with the noted version of K3s, as found during the preparation steps.
K3s_VERSION=""
Install the version of K3s with embedded etcd enabled:
curl -sfL https://get.k3s.io | \ INSTALL_K3S_VERSION=${K3s_VERSION} \ INSTALL_K3S_EXEC='server --cluster-init --write-kubeconfig-mode=644' \ sh -s -
TipTo address Availability and possible scaling to a multiple node cluster, etcd is enabled instead of using the default SQLite datastore.
Monitor the progress of the installation:
watch -c "kubectl get deployments -A"
The K3s deployment is complete when elements of all the deployments (coredns, local-path-provisioner, metrics-server, and traefik) show at least "1" as "AVAILABLE"
Use Ctrl+c to exit the watch loop after all deployment pods are running
- Deployment Consideration(s)
To further optimize deployment factors, leverage the following practices:
A full high-availability K3s cluster is recommended for production workloads. The etcd key/value store (aka database) requires an odd number of servers (aka master nodes) be allocated to the K3s cluster. In this case, two additional control-plane servers should be added; for a total of three.
Deploy the same operating system on the new compute platform nodes, then log in to the new nodes as root or as a user with sudo privileges.
Execute the following sets of commands on each of the remaining control-plane nodes:
Set the following additional variables, as appropriate for this cluster
# Private IP preferred, if available FIRST_SERVER_IP="" # From /var/lib/rancher/k3s/server/node-token file on the first server NODE_TOKEN="" # Match the first of the first server K3s_VERSION=""
Install K3s
curl -sfL https://get.k3s.io | \ INSTALL_K3S_VERSION=${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
By default, the K3s server nodes are available to run non-control-plane workloads. In this case, the K3s default behavior is perfect for the SUSE Rancher server cluster as it does not require additional agent (aka worker) nodes to maintain a highly available SUSE Rancher server application.
NoteThis 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=${NODE_TOKEN} \ K3S_KUBECONFIG_MODE="644" \ sh -
5.5 SUSE Rancher #
- Preparation(s)
For the respective node’s firewall service, either
enable and configure the necessary inbound ports or
stop and completely disable the firewall service.
Determine the desired SSL configuration for TLS termination
Rancher-generated TLS certificate NOTE: This is the easiest way of installing SUSE Rancher with self-signed certificates.
Let’s Encrypt
Bring your own certificate
Obtain a Helm binary matching the respective Kubernetes version for this SUSE Rancher implementation.
NoteEnable the respective kubeconfig setting for kubectl , K3s - /etc/rancher/k3s/k3s.yml, to be leveraged by helm command.
- Deployment Process
While logged in to the node, as root or with sudo privileges, install SUSE Rancher:
Install cert-manager
Set the following variable with the desired version of cert-manager
CERT_MANAGER_VERSION=""
NoteAt this time, the most current, supported version of cert-manager is v1.5.1
Create the cert-manager CRDs and apply the Helm Chart resource manifest
kubectl apply -f https://github.com/cert-manager/cert-manager/releases/download/${CERT_MANAGER_VERSION}/cert-manager.crds.yaml # Add the Jetstack Helm repository helm repo add jetstack https://charts.jetstack.io # Update your local Helm chart repository cache helm repo update # Install the cert-manager Helm chart helm install cert-manager jetstack/cert-manager \ --namespace cert-manager \ --create-namespace \ --version ${CERT_MANAGER_VERSION}
Check the progress of the installation, looking for all pods to be in running status:
kubectl get pods --namespace cert-manager
Add the SUSE Rancher helm chart repository:
helm repo add rancher-stable https://releases.rancher.com/server-charts/stable
Create a namespace for SUSE Rancher
kubectl create namespace cattle-system
Prepare to use the Helm Chart for SUSE Rancher:
Set the following variable to the host name of the SUSE Rancher server instance
HOSTNAME=""
NoteThis host name should be resolvable to an IP address of the K3s host, or a load balancer/proxy server that supports this installation of SUSE Rancher.
Set the following variable to the number of deployed K3s nodes planned to host the SUSE Rancher service
REPLICAS=""
Set the following variable to the desired version of SUSE Rancher server instance
RANCHER_VERSION=""
Install the SUSE Rancher Helm Chart
helm install rancher rancher-stable/rancher \ --namespace cattle-system \ --set hostname=${HOSTNAME} \ --set replicas=${REPLICAS} \ --version=${RANCHER_VERSION}
Monitor the progress of the installation:
kubectl -n cattle-system rollout status deploy/rancher
(Optional) Create an SSH tunnel to access SUSE Rancher:
NoteThis optional step is useful in cases where NAT routers and/or firewalls prevent the client Web browser from reaching the exposed SUSE Rancher server IP address and/or port. This step requires that a Linux host is accessible through SSH from the client system and that the Linux host can reach the exposed SUSE Rancher service. The SUSE Rancher host name should be resolvable to the appropriate IP address by the local workstation.
Create an SSH tunnel through the Linux host to the IP address of the SUSE Rancher server on the NodePort, as noted in Step 3:
ssh -N -D 8080 user@Linux-host
On the local workstation Web browser, change the SOCKS Host settings to "127.0.0.1" and port "8080".
NoteThis will route all traffic from this Web browser through the remote Linux host. Be sure to close the tunnel and revert the SOCKS Host settings when you are done.
Connect to the SUSE Rancher Web UI:
On a client system, use a Web browser to connect to the SUSE Rancher service, via HTTPs.
Provide a new Admin password.
ImportantOn the second configuration page, ensure the "Rancher Server URL" is set to the host name specified when installing the SUSE Rancher Helm Chart and the port is 443.
- Deployment Consideration(s)
To further optimize deployment factors, leverage the following practices
In instances where a load balancer is used to access a K3s cluster, deploying two additional K3s cluster nodes, for a total of three, will automatically make SUSE Rancher highly available.
The basic deployment steps described above are for deploying SUSE Rancher with automatically generated, self-signed security certificates. Other options are to have SUSE Rancher create public certificates via Let’s Encrypt associated with a publicly resolvable host name for the SUSE Rancher server, or to provide preconfigured, private certificates.
This deployment of SUSE Rancher uses the K3s etcd key/value store to persist its data and configuration, which offers several advantages. With a multi-node cluster and this resiliency through replication, having to provide highly-available storage is not needed. In addition, backing up the K3s etcd store protects the cluster and the installation of SUSE Rancher and permits restoration of a given state.
After this successful deployment of the SUSE Rancher solution, review the product documentation for details on how downstream Kubernetes clusters can be:
deployed (refer to sub-section "Setting up Kubernetes Clusters in Rancher") or
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 workload, 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 SUSE Rancher enables you to simplify Kubernetes cluster deployment and management of the infrastructure components.
- Modernize
Bring applications and data into modern computing
With SUSE Rancher, the digital transformation to containerized applications can be extended, in a distributed computing context, to benefit from the ability both to manage many target clusters, for each of the respective user bases, and to simplify the actual workload deployments.
- Accelerate
Accelerate business transformation through the power of open source software
Given the open source nature of SUSE Rancher and the underlying software components, you can simplify management and make significant IT savings as you scale orchestrated microservice deployments anywhere you need to and for whatever use cases are needed, in an agile and innovative way.
7 References #
A Buyer’s Guide to Enterprise Kubernetes Management Platforms - https://info.rancher.com/enterprise-kubernetes-management-buyers-guide
How to Build an Enterprise Kubernetes Strategy - https://info.rancher.com/how-to-build-enterprise-kubernetes-strategy
Kubernetes Management - https://info.rancher.com/kubernetes-management-for-dummies-rancher-and-suse-0-0
SUSE - https://training.suse.com/
Rancher - https://rancher.com/training/
SUSE - https://www.suse.com
SUSE Customer Center (SCC) - https://scc.suse.com
Products
SUSE Rancher - https://rancher.com/products/rancher/ (documentation)
Rancher Kubernetes Engine (RKE) - https://rancher.com/products/rke/ (documentation)
SUSE Linux Enterprise Micro (SLEMicro) - https://www.suse.com/products/micro/ (documentation)
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) - https://www.suse.com/products/server/ (documentation)
SUSE Manager - https://www.suse.com/products/suse-manager/ (documentation)
SUSE Repository Mirroring Tool (RMT) - https://www.suse.com/products/server/ (documentation)
Projects
Rancher Kubernetes Engine Government (RKE2) - https://github.com/rancher/rke2 (documentation)
Dell - https://www.dell.com/en-us
Dell EMC PowerEdge Rack Servers - https://i.dell.com/sites/csdocuments/Product_Docs/en/poweredge-rack-servers-quick-reference-guide.pdf
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[7]
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[8]
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[9]
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[10]
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[11]
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[12]
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[13]) 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.
[7] link: Reference Architecture
[8] link: Infrastructure-as-Code
[9] link: Availability
[10] link: Data Integrity
[12] link: Proof of Concept
[13] link: Minimum Viable Product
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.
Role | Qty | SKU | Component | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|
Example 1 | 1-3 | Dell EMC PowerEdge R640 |
| |
1 | 321-BCQQ |
| ||
2 | 338-BTSI |
| ||
12 | 370-AEVN |
| ||
1 | 405-AAJU |
| ||
1 | 385-BBKT |
| ||
1 | 330-BBGN |
| ||
1 | 406-BBLG |
| ||
1 | 406-BBLD |
| ||
1 | 450-ADWS |
| ||
2 min – 8 max | 400-BELT |
| ||
2 | 400-AZQO |
| ||
1 | 403-BCHI |
| ||
Example 2 | 1-3 | Dell EMC PowerEdge R740 |
| |
1 | 321-BCRC |
| ||
1 | 338-BTSI |
| ||
12 | 370-AEVN |
| ||
1 | 405-AANK |
| ||
1 | 385-BBKT |
| ||
1 | 330-BBHD |
| ||
1 | 406-BBLG |
| ||
1 | 406-BBLE |
| ||
1 | 450-ADWM |
| ||
1 | 403-BCHP |
| ||
1 to 24 | 400-AZQO |
| ||
1 to 12 | 400-BLKD |
| ||
Example 3 | 1-3 | Dell EMC PowerEdge R650 |
| |
1 | 321-BGHH |
| ||
2 | 338-BZXK |
| ||
16 | 370-AEVQ |
| ||
1 | 450-AIQZ |
| ||
1 | 528-CRVW |
| ||
1 | 340-CUQN |
| ||
1 | 321-BGHG |
| ||
1 | 405-AAZE |
| ||
1 | 330-BBRP |
| ||
1 | 403-BCMB |
| ||
3 | 400-BLKD |
| ||
1 | 540-BCOF |
| ||
1 | 540-BCMQ |
| ||
Example 4 | 1-3 | Dell EMC PowerEdge R750 |
| |
1 | 321-BGEZ |
| ||
2 | 338-BZXK |
| ||
16 | 370-AEVQ |
| ||
1 | 450-AIQZ |
| ||
1 | 528-CRVW |
| ||
3 | 400-BLKD |
| ||
1 | 321-BGET |
| ||
1 | 330-BBRW |
| ||
1 | 540-BCNM |
| ||
1 | 403-BCMB |
| ||
1 | 405-AAZE |
| ||
1 | 540-BCOF |
|
9.2 Software bill of materials #
Sample set of software, support and services.
Role | Qty | SKU | Component | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|
Operating System | 1-3 | 874-006875 | SUSE Linux Enterprise Server,
| Configuration:
|
Kubernetes Management | 1 | R-0001-PS1 | SUSE Rancher,
| Configuration:
|
Rancher Management | 2 | R-0004-PS1 | Rancher 10 Nodes
| Configuration:
|
Consulting and Training | 1 | R-0001-QSO | Rancher Quick Start,
|
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 focusRancher=1 iIHV=1 iK3s=1 iRKE1=1 iRKE2=1 iRMT=1 iRancher=1 iSLEMicro=1 iSLES=1 iSUMa=1 layerK3s=1 layerSLES=1
10 Legal Notice #
Copyright © 2006–2024 SUSE LLC and contributors. All rights reserved.
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or (at your option) version 1.3; with the Invariant Section being this copyright notice and license. A copy of the license version 1.2 is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License".
SUSE, the SUSE logo and YaST are registered trademarks of SUSE LLC in the United States and other countries. For SUSE trademarks, see https://www.suse.com/company/legal/.
Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. All other names or trademarks mentioned in this document may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.
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.
11 GNU Free Documentation License #
Copyright © 2000, 2001, 2002 Free Software Foundation, Inc. 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA. Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.
0. PREAMBLE#
The purpose of this License is to make a manual, textbook, or other functional and useful document "free" in the sense of freedom: to assure everyone the effective freedom to copy and redistribute it, with or without modifying it, either commercially or noncommercially. Secondarily, this License preserves for the author and publisher a way to get credit for their work, while not being considered responsible for modifications made by others.
This License is a kind of "copyleft", which means that derivative works of the document must themselves be free in the same sense. It complements the GNU General Public License, which is a copyleft license designed for free software.
We have designed this License in order to use it for manuals for free software, because free software needs free documentation: a free program should come with manuals providing the same freedoms that the software does. But this License is not limited to software manuals; it can be used for any textual work, regardless of subject matter or whether it is published as a printed book. We recommend this License principally for works whose purpose is instruction or reference.
1. APPLICABILITY AND DEFINITIONS#
This License applies to any manual or other work, in any medium, that contains a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it can be distributed under the terms of this License. Such a notice grants a world-wide, royalty-free license, unlimited in duration, to use that work under the conditions stated herein. The "Document", below, refers to any such manual or work. Any member of the public is a licensee, and is addressed as "you". You accept the license if you copy, modify or distribute the work in a way requiring permission under copyright law.
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The "Invariant Sections" are certain Secondary Sections whose titles are designated, as being those of Invariant Sections, in the notice that says that the Document is released under this License. If a section does not fit the above definition of Secondary then it is not allowed to be designated as Invariant. The Document may contain zero Invariant Sections. If the Document does not identify any Invariant Sections then there are none.
The "Cover Texts" are certain short passages of text that are listed, as Front-Cover Texts or Back-Cover Texts, in the notice that says that the Document is released under this License. A Front-Cover Text may be at most 5 words, and a Back-Cover Text may be at most 25 words.
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The "Title Page" means, for a printed book, the title page itself, plus such following pages as are needed to hold, legibly, the material this License requires to appear in the title page. For works in formats which do not have any title page as such, "Title Page" means the text near the most prominent appearance of the work’s title, preceding the beginning of the body of the text.
A section "Entitled XYZ" means a named subunit of the Document whose title either is precisely XYZ or contains XYZ in parentheses following text that translates XYZ in another language. (Here XYZ stands for a specific section name mentioned below, such as "Acknowledgements", "Dedications", "Endorsements", or "History".) To "Preserve the Title" of such a section when you modify the Document means that it remains a section "Entitled XYZ" according to this definition.
The Document may include Warranty Disclaimers next to the notice which states that this License applies to the Document. These Warranty Disclaimers are considered to be included by reference in this License, but only as regards disclaiming warranties: any other implication that these Warranty Disclaimers may have is void and has no effect on the meaning of this License.
2. VERBATIM COPYING#
You may copy and distribute the Document in any medium, either commercially or noncommercially, provided that this License, the copyright notices, and the license notice saying this License applies to the Document are reproduced in all copies, and that you add no other conditions whatsoever to those of this License. You may not use technical measures to obstruct or control the reading or further copying of the copies you make or distribute. However, you may accept compensation in exchange for copies. If you distribute a large enough number of copies you must also follow the conditions in section 3.
You may also lend copies, under the same conditions stated above, and you may publicly display copies.
3. COPYING IN QUANTITY#
If you publish printed copies (or copies in media that commonly have printed covers) of the Document, numbering more than 100, and the Document’s license notice requires Cover Texts, you must enclose the copies in covers that carry, clearly and legibly, all these Cover Texts: Front-Cover Texts on the front cover, and Back-Cover Texts on the back cover. Both covers must also clearly and legibly identify you as the publisher of these copies. The front cover must present the full title with all words of the title equally prominent and visible. You may add other material on the covers in addition. Copying with changes limited to the covers, as long as they preserve the title of the Document and satisfy these conditions, can be treated as verbatim copying in other respects.
If the required texts for either cover are too voluminous to fit legibly, you should put the first ones listed (as many as fit reasonably) on the actual cover, and continue the rest onto adjacent pages.
If you publish or distribute Opaque copies of the Document numbering more than 100, you must either include a machine-readable Transparent copy along with each Opaque copy, or state in or with each Opaque copy a computer-network location from which the general network-using public has access to download using public-standard network protocols a complete Transparent copy of the Document, free of added material. If you use the latter option, you must take reasonably prudent steps, when you begin distribution of Opaque copies in quantity, to ensure that this Transparent copy will remain thus accessible at the stated location until at least one year after the last time you distribute an Opaque copy (directly or through your agents or retailers) of that edition to the public.
It is requested, but not required, that you contact the authors of the Document well before redistributing any large number of copies, to give them a chance to provide you with an updated version of the Document.
4. MODIFICATIONS#
You may copy and distribute a Modified Version of the Document under the conditions of sections 2 and 3 above, provided that you release the Modified Version under precisely this License, with the Modified Version filling the role of the Document, thus licensing distribution and modification of the Modified Version to whoever possesses a copy of it. In addition, you must do these things in the Modified Version:
Use in the Title Page (and on the covers, if any) a title distinct from that of the Document, and from those of previous versions (which should, if there were any, be listed in the History section of the Document). You may use the same title as a previous version if the original publisher of that version gives permission.
List on the Title Page, as authors, one or more persons or entities responsible for authorship of the modifications in the Modified Version, together with at least five of the principal authors of the Document (all of its principal authors, if it has fewer than five), unless they release you from this requirement.
State on the Title page the name of the publisher of the Modified Version, as the publisher.
Preserve all the copyright notices of the Document.
Add an appropriate copyright notice for your modifications adjacent to the other copyright notices.
Include, immediately after the copyright notices, a license notice giving the public permission to use the Modified Version under the terms of this License, in the form shown in the Addendum below.
Preserve in that license notice the full lists of Invariant Sections and required Cover Texts given in the Document’s license notice.
Include an unaltered copy of this License.
Preserve the section Entitled "History", Preserve its Title, and add to it an item stating at least the title, year, new authors, and publisher of the Modified Version as given on the Title Page. If there is no section Entitled "History" in the Document, create one stating the title, year, authors, and publisher of the Document as given on its Title Page, then add an item describing the Modified Version as stated in the previous sentence.
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For any section Entitled "Acknowledgements" or "Dedications", Preserve the Title of the section, and preserve in the section all the substance and tone of each of the contributor acknowledgements and/or dedications given therein.
Preserve all the Invariant Sections of the Document, unaltered in their text and in their titles. Section numbers or the equivalent are not considered part of the section titles.
Delete any section Entitled "Endorsements". Such a section may not be included in the Modified Version.
Do not retitle any existing section to be Entitled "Endorsements" or to conflict in title with any Invariant Section.
Preserve any Warranty Disclaimers.
If the Modified Version includes new front-matter sections or appendices that qualify as Secondary Sections and contain no material copied from the Document, you may at your option designate some or all of these sections as invariant. To do this, add their titles to the list of Invariant Sections in the Modified Version’s license notice. These titles must be distinct from any other section titles.
You may add a section Entitled "Endorsements", provided it contains nothing but endorsements of your Modified Version by various parties—for example, statements of peer review or that the text has been approved by an organization as the authoritative definition of a standard.
You may add a passage of up to five words as a Front-Cover Text, and a passage of up to 25 words as a Back-Cover Text, to the end of the list of Cover Texts in the Modified Version. Only one passage of Front-Cover Text and one of Back-Cover Text may be added by (or through arrangements made by) any one entity. If the Document already includes a cover text for the same cover, previously added by you or by arrangement made by the same entity you are acting on behalf of, you may not add another; but you may replace the old one, on explicit permission from the previous publisher that added the old one.
The author(s) and publisher(s) of the Document do not by this License give permission to use their names for publicity for or to assert or imply endorsement of any Modified Version.
5. COMBINING DOCUMENTS#
You may combine the Document with other documents released under this License, under the terms defined in section 4 above for modified versions, provided that you include in the combination all of the Invariant Sections of all of the original documents, unmodified, and list them all as Invariant Sections of your combined work in its license notice, and that you preserve all their Warranty Disclaimers.
The combined work need only contain one copy of this License, and multiple identical Invariant Sections may be replaced with a single copy. If there are multiple Invariant Sections with the same name but different contents, make the title of each such section unique by adding at the end of it, in parentheses, the name of the original author or publisher of that section if known, or else a unique number. Make the same adjustment to the section titles in the list of Invariant Sections in the license notice of the combined work.
In the combination, you must combine any sections Entitled "History" in the various original documents, forming one section Entitled "History"; likewise combine any sections Entitled "Acknowledgements", and any sections Entitled "Dedications". You must delete all sections Entitled "Endorsements".
6. COLLECTIONS OF DOCUMENTS#
You may make a collection consisting of the Document and other documents released under this License, and replace the individual copies of this License in the various documents with a single copy that is included in the collection, provided that you follow the rules of this License for verbatim copying of each of the documents in all other respects.
You may extract a single document from such a collection, and distribute it individually under this License, provided you insert a copy of this License into the extracted document, and follow this License in all other respects regarding verbatim copying of that document.
7. AGGREGATION WITH INDEPENDENT WORKS#
A compilation of the Document or its derivatives with other separate and independent documents or works, in or on a volume of a storage or distribution medium, is called an "aggregate" if the copyright resulting from the compilation is not used to limit the legal rights of the compilation’s users beyond what the individual works permit. When the Document is included in an aggregate, this License does not apply to the other works in the aggregate which are not themselves derivative works of the Document.
If the Cover Text requirement of section 3 is applicable to these copies of the Document, then if the Document is less than one half of the entire aggregate, the Document’s Cover Texts may be placed on covers that bracket the Document within the aggregate, or the electronic equivalent of covers if the Document is in electronic form. Otherwise they must appear on printed covers that bracket the whole aggregate.
8. TRANSLATION#
Translation is considered a kind of modification, so you may distribute translations of the Document under the terms of section 4. Replacing Invariant Sections with translations requires special permission from their copyright holders, but you may include translations of some or all Invariant Sections in addition to the original versions of these Invariant Sections. You may include a translation of this License, and all the license notices in the Document, and any Warranty Disclaimers, provided that you also include the original English version of this License and the original versions of those notices and disclaimers. In case of a disagreement between the translation and the original version of this License or a notice or disclaimer, the original version will prevail.
If a section in the Document is Entitled "Acknowledgements", "Dedications", or "History", the requirement (section 4) to Preserve its Title (section 1) will typically require changing the actual title.
9. TERMINATION#
You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Document except as expressly provided for under this License. Any other attempt to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Document is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License. However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance.
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.