Getting Started
Welcome to the Kubernerdes Enclave documentation — a self-sustaining, air-gap-ready Kubernetes cluster running Rancher Government Solutions (RGS) Carbide on a fleet of Intel NUCs.
What You'll Build
A fully operational, on-premises Kubernetes platform consisting of:
- 4× Intel NUC nodes — one admin/bootstrap host plus a 3-node Harvester hypervisor cluster
- Harvester HCI — open-source hyperconverged infrastructure for VMs and Kubernetes workloads
- Rancher Manager — multi-cluster management UI deployed on a 3-node K3s cluster inside Harvester
- Infrastructure services — ISC DHCP, BIND DNS, HAProxy load balancer, Keepalived VIP failover
- RGS Carbide — hardened, FIPS-capable distribution layer for supply-chain-secure container images
The enclave is designed to boot from bare metal with PXE, operate without internet access after initial provisioning, and recover from single-node failures.
Architecture Overview
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ CIDR: 10.10.12.0/22 │
│ │
│ nuc-00 (admin) nuc-01/02/03 (Harvester cluster) │
│ ┌──────────────────┐ ┌──────────────────────────────┐ │
│ │ KVM hypervisor │ │ Harvester HCI │ │
│ │ │ │ VIP: 10.10.12.100 │ │
│ │ ┌──────────────┐ │ │ ┌──────────────────────┐ │ │
│ │ │ nuc-00-01 │ │ │ │ rancher-01/02/03 │ │ │
│ │ │ DHCP + DNS │ │ │ │ K3s HA cluster │ │ │
│ │ └──────────────┘ │ │ │ VIP: 10.10.12.210 │ │ │
│ │ ┌──────────────┐ │ │ └──────────────────────┘ │ │
│ │ │ nuc-00-02 │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ DNS secondary│ │ │ 10.10.12.101-103 │ │
│ │ └──────────────┘ │ └──────────────────────────────┘ │
│ │ ┌──────────────┐ │ │
│ │ │ nuc-00-03 │ │ │
│ │ │ HAProxy + │ │ │
│ │ │ Keepalived │ │ │
│ │ └──────────────┘ │ │
│ │ │ │
│ │ Apache + TFTP │ │
│ │ (PXE server) │ │
│ └──────────────────┘ │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
Node Roles
| Host | IP | Role |
|---|---|---|
| nuc-00 | 10.10.12.10 | Admin host: KVM, PXE (Apache/TFTP), infra VMs |
| nuc-00-01 | 10.10.12.8 | DHCP (ISC), DNS primary (BIND) |
| nuc-00-02 | 10.10.12.9 | DNS secondary (BIND) |
| nuc-00-03 | 10.10.12.93 | HAProxy, Keepalived |
| harvester-edge (VIP) | 10.10.12.100 | Harvester API/UI virtual IP |
| nuc-01 | 10.10.12.101 | Harvester node 1 |
| nuc-02 | 10.10.12.102 | Harvester node 2 |
| nuc-03 | 10.10.12.103 | Harvester node 3 |
| rancher (VIP) | 10.10.12.210 | Keepalived VIP for Rancher Manager |
| rancher-01 | 10.10.12.211 | Rancher Manager K3s node 1 (Harvester VM) |
| rancher-02 | 10.10.12.212 | Rancher Manager K3s node 2 (Harvester VM) |
| rancher-03 | 10.10.12.213 | Rancher Manager K3s node 3 (Harvester VM) |
Day 0/1/2 Framework
This documentation is organized around the standard operational lifecycle:
| Phase | Focus | Where to Start |
|---|---|---|
| Day 0 | Design & planning | Day 0 Overview |
| Day 1 | Initial deployment | Day 1 Overview |
| Day 2 | Ongoing operations | Day 2 Overview |
Prerequisites
Before diving in, you should be comfortable with:
- Linux command line (SSH,
systemctl,journalctl) - Basic networking concepts (subnets, VLANs, DNS, DHCP)
- YAML — for Kubernetes manifests and Harvester config
- Kubernetes basics (pods, deployments, services)
- KVM/libvirt virtualization concepts
Source Repository
The automation and configuration source lives at: 👉 enclave.kubernerdes.com
The repo contains Ansible playbooks, shell scripts, network configs, and Helm values files that implement everything described in this documentation.