Whether you're configuring Rancher to run in a single-node or high-availability setup, each node running Rancher Server must meet the following requirements.

{{% tabs %}} {{% tab "Operating Systems and Docker" %}} Rancher is supported on the following operating systems and their subsequent non-major releases with a supported version of Docker.

If you are using RancherOS, make sure you switch the Docker engine to a supported version using:
sudo ros engine switch docker-17.03.2-ce

Docker Documentation: Installation Instructions

{{% /tab %}} {{% tab "Hardware" %}} Hardware requirements scale based on the size of your Rancher deployment. Provision each individual node according to the requirements.

Deployment Size Clusters Nodes vCPUs RAM
Small Up to 5 Up to 50 4 16GB
Medium Up to 100 Up to 500 8 32GB
Large Over 100 Over 500 Contact Rancher


{{% /tab %}} {{% tab "Networking" %}}

Node IP address

Each node used (either for the Single Node Install, High Availability (HA) Install or nodes that are used in clusters) should have a static IP configured. In case of DHCP, the nodes should have a DHCP reservation to make sure the node gets the same IP allocated.

Port requirements

When deploying Rancher in an HA cluster, certain ports on your nodes must be open to allow communication with Rancher. The ports that must be open change according to the type of machines hosting your cluster nodes. For example, if your are deploying Rancher on nodes hosted by an infrastructure, port 22 must be open for SSH. The following diagram depicts the ports that are opened for each cluster type.

Cluster Type Port Requirements Basic Port Requirements

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