Harvester is a modern, open, interoperable, hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) solution built on Kubernetes. It is an open-source alternative designed for operators seeking a cloud-native HCI solution. Harvester runs on bare metal servers and provides integrated virtualization and distributed storage capabilities. In addition to traditional virtual machines (VMs), Harvester supports containerized environments automatically through integration with Rancher. It offers a solution that unifies legacy virtualized infrastructure while enabling the adoption of containers from core to edge locations.
Harvester is an enterprise-ready, easy-to-use infrastructure platform that leverages local, direct attached storage instead of complex external SANs. It utilizes Kubernetes API as a unified automation language across container and VM workloads. Some key features of Harvester include:
The following diagram outlines a high-level architecture of Harvester:
To get the Harvester server up and running the following minimum hardware is required:
Type | Requirements |
---|---|
CPU | x86_64 only. Hardware-assisted virtualization is required. 8-core processor minimum for testing; 16-core or above required for production |
Memory | 32 GB minimum; 64 GB or above required for production |
Disk Capacity | 250 GB minimum for testing (180 GB minimum when using multiple disks); 500 GB or above required for production |
Disk Performance | 5,000+ random IOPS per disk (SSD/NVMe). Management nodes (first three nodes) must be fast enough for etcd |
Network Card | 1 Gbps Ethernet minimum for testing; 10Gbps Ethernet required for production |
Network Switch | Trunking of ports required for VLAN support |
We recommend server-class hardware for best results. Laptops and nested virtualization are not officially supported.
You can use the ISO to install Harvester directly on the bare-metal server to form a Harvester cluster. Users can add one or many compute nodes to join the existing cluster.
To get the Harvester ISO, download it from the Github releases.
During the installation, you can either choose to create a new Harvester cluster or join the node to an existing Harvester cluster.
Harvester Installer
option.
Create a new Harvester cluster
: Select this option to create an entirely new Harvester cluster.Join an existing Harvester cluster
: Select this option to join an existing Harvester cluster. You need the VIP and cluster token of the cluster you want to join.Install Harvester binaries only
: If you choose this option, additional setup is required after the first bootup.Installation disk
: The disk to install the Harvester cluster on.Data disk
: The disk to store VM data on. Choosing a separate disk to store VM data is recommended.Persistent size
: If you only have one disk or use the same disk for both OS and VM data, you need to configure persistent partition size to store system packages and container images. The default and minimum persistent partition size is 150 GiB. You can specify a size like 200Gi or 153600Mi.HostName
of the node.mgmt-bo
, and the IP address can either be configured via DHCP or statically assigned.
DNS Servers
. Use commas as a delimiter to add more DNS servers. Leave blank to use the default DNS server.VIP Mode
. This VIP is used to access the cluster or for other nodes to join the cluster.
cluster token
. This token will be used for adding other nodes to the cluster.Password
to access the node. The default SSH user is rancher
.NTP servers
to make sure all nodes' times are synchronized. This defaults to 0.suse.pool.ntp.org
. Use commas as a delimiter to add more NTP servers.HTTP URL
. For example, your GitHub public keys https://github.com/<username>.keys
can be used.HTTP URL
here.https://your-virtual-ip
. You can use F12
to switch from the Harvester console to the Shell and type exit
to go back to the Harvester console.
admin
user when logging in for the first time.
NOTE:
- <version>* means the release branch is under active support and will have periodic follow-up patch releases.
- Latest release means the version is the latest release of the newest release branch.
- Stable release means the version is stable and has been widely adopted by users.
- EOL means that the software has reached the end of its useful life and no further code-level maintenance will be provided. You may continue to use the software within the terms of the licensing agreement.
https://github.com/harvester/harvester/releases
Release | Version | Type | Release Note (Changelog) | Upgrade Note |
---|---|---|---|---|
1.3* | 1.3.1 | Latest | 🔗 | 🔗 |
1.2* | 1.2.2 | Stable | 🔗 | 🔗 |
1.1* | 1.1.3 | EOL | 🔗 | 🔗 |
Find more documentation here.
Check out this demo to get a quick overview of the Harvester UI.
Harvester is 100% open-source software. The project source code is spread across a number of repos:
Name | Repo Address |
---|---|
Harvester | https://github.com/harvester/harvester |
Harvester Dashboard | https://github.com/harvester/dashboard |
Harvester Installer | https://github.com/harvester/harvester-installer |
Harvester Network Controller | https://github.com/harvester/harvester-network-controller |
Harvester Cloud Provider | https://github.com/harvester/cloud-provider-harvester |
Harvester Load Balancer | https://github.com/harvester/load-balancer-harvester |
Harvester CSI Driver | https://github.com/harvester/harvester-csi-driver |
Harvester Terraform Provider | https://github.com/harvester/terraform-provider-harvester |
If you need any help with Harvester, please join us at either our Slack #harvester channel or forums where most of our team hangs out at.
If you have any feedback or questions, feel free to file an issue.
Copyright (c) 2024 Rancher Labs, Inc.
Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at
http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.
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