Version note. This guide is current as of late October 2026. At the time of writing the latest Harvester release is v1.9.0 (released 2026-09-16), with the 1.8.x and 1.7.x branches still receiving patches. RKE2 ships Kubernetes up to the 1.36 line. Component versions, CRD API groups and UI paths drift between releases — always check the support matrix and release notes for the exact versions you run before acting on anything here.

This guide is split into two parts. Part 1 surveys the wider Rancher ecosystem; Part 2 goes deep on Harvester, SUSE's Kubernetes-native hyperconverged infrastructure platform. Pages are meant to be read in order, but each stands on its own.

Part 1 — The Rancher ecosystem¶

1. Why the Rancher ecosystem exists — Why the SUSE Rancher ecosystem exists, its design philosophy, and how the community and Rancher Prime editions differ.
2. Ecosystem map — A map of the Rancher ecosystem — Rancher Manager, K3s, RKE2, Fleet, Longhorn, Harvester, NeuVector, Kubewarden, Elemental and more.
3. Kubernetes distributions: K3s and RKE2 — K3s and RKE2 compared — architecture, installation, configuration, HelmChartConfig, etcd snapshots and day-2 operations.
4. Rancher Manager — Rancher Manager architecture, installation with Helm, core concepts, cluster types and provisioning v2 cluster objects.
5. Fleet: GitOps at scale — Fleet GitOps in Rancher — GitRepos, Bundles, ClusterGroups, fleet.yaml target customizations and operational tips.
6. Longhorn: distributed block storage — Longhorn distributed block storage — architecture, V1 vs V2 data engines, features and capacity sizing heuristics.
7. Security and policy: NeuVector, Kubewarden, CIS — Security and policy in the Rancher stack — NeuVector runtime security, Kubewarden Wasm policies and CIS hardening.
8. Edge and OS lifecycle — Edge and OS lifecycle — SLE Micro, Elemental OS management and the System Upgrade Controller.
9. The supporting cast — Supporting tools in the Rancher ecosystem — Rancher Desktop, k3d, Hauler, Turtles, Rancher Backup, Kine, Spegel and more.

Part 2 — Harvester HCI¶

Foundations¶

10. Harvester: overview and architecture — Harvester HCI overview — the stack from bare metal to UI, how VMs run as pods, key CRDs, release cadence and what's new in v1.9.
11. Harvester hardware planning — Harvester hardware planning — minimums vs production sizing, common pitfalls and node roles including witness nodes.
12. Installing Harvester — Installing Harvester — ISO, USB and PXE methods, automated configuration files, iPXE example and a post-install checklist.

Core platform¶

13. Harvester networking in depth — Harvester networking in depth — cluster networks, VlanConfig, VM VLAN networks, Kube-OVN VPCs, storage network, load balancers and design patterns.
14. Harvester storage in depth — Harvester storage in depth — node-disk-manager, StorageClasses, external CSI, LVM local storage, Longhorn V2, encryption and overcommit.
15. Virtual machines: images, templates, cloud-init — Harvester virtual machines — images, creating VMs, cloud-init, the raw VirtualMachine object, run strategies, templates, Windows guests and console access.
16. Advanced VM features — Advanced Harvester VM features — live migration, maintenance mode, node failure, PCI/SR-IOV/vGPU passthrough, CPU pinning, hot-plug, scheduling and virtiofs.
17. Backup, snapshot, restore and DR — Harvester backup, snapshot, restore and disaster recovery — backup targets, restore options and a DR strategy example.
18. Harvester add-ons — Harvester add-ons — monitoring, logging, vm-import-controller, PCI devices, seeder, LVM CSI, descheduler and how to configure them.

Rancher and Kubernetes integration¶

19. Harvester + Rancher integration — Integrating Harvester with Rancher Manager — embedded vs external Rancher, importing a cluster and version compatibility.
20. Guest Kubernetes clusters on Harvester — Guest Kubernetes clusters on Harvester — RKE2/K3s provisioning from Rancher, Harvester CSI and cloud provider, load balancers and machine pool design.
21. Infrastructure as code — Harvester infrastructure as code — kubectl, the Harvester and Rancher2 Terraform providers, GitOps for VMs and Ansible.
22. Multi-tenancy and RBAC — Multi-tenancy and RBAC for Harvester through Rancher projects, roles, quotas and scoped networks.

Operations¶

23. Observability — Harvester observability — monitoring add-on, key alerts, log forwarding, events and support bundles.
24. Upgrades and lifecycle — Harvester upgrades and lifecycle — how the A/B upgrade works, upgrade discipline and air-gapped upgrades.
25. Air-gapped deployments — Air-gapped Harvester and Rancher deployments — registry mirrors, Hauler artifact stores and proxy configuration.
26. Troubleshooting playbook — Harvester troubleshooting playbook — node access, common symptoms and causes, useful commands and support bundles.
27. Migrating from VMware or OpenStack — Migrating from VMware vSphere or OpenStack to Harvester — concept mapping, vm-import-controller and a migration checklist.

Design and reference¶

28. Reference architectures — Harvester reference architectures — edge 2-node + witness, datacenter HCI, multi-site, and a worked sizing example.
29. Homelab path — A homelab learning path for Harvester and Rancher, from a single node to backups, upgrades and failure drills.
30. Gotchas and hard-won lessons — Hard-won lessons and gotchas for running Harvester in production.
31. Quick reference — Harvester quick reference — key settings, namespaces, default ports and useful links.