Production installation with Kubernetes

tutorial

You can save time by using hosted Mender, a secure Mender Server ready to use, maintained by the Mender developers.

This section is a step by step tutorial for deploying the Mender Server for production environments, and will cover relevant security and reliability aspects of Mender production installations. Most of the steps are the same whether you are installing the Open Source or Enterprise edition of the Mender Server, but some extra are highlighted for the latter.

You will use the Helm chart to deploy to production the Mender backend services on a Kubernetes cluster.

Please read the following Requirements and resources section to understand what combinations are validated by Northern.tech.

Requirements and resources

The requirements listed below are what Northern.tech tests internally and supports for production installations of the mender server. Alternative providers might technically work as well, but are not officially supported.

Hardware Requirements

Here are the hardware requirements for the Mender Server (excluding the database and artifact storage requirements):

Currently, the MongoDB setup included in the Helm Chart only supports x86_64 architecture. If you want to use arm64, you will need to set up an external MongoDB cluster.

  • Architectures: x86_64, arm64
  • small size (up to 100 devices): 8 GB RAM, 4 vCPUs
  • medium size (up to 10K devices): 16 GB RAM, 8 vCPUs
  • large size (up to 100K devices): 24 GB RAM, 16 vCPUs

Platform and software dependencies

Please note the list below are service dependencies of the Mender Server. We specify the minimum versions Mender Server was tested with but we don't define a maintenance strategy if you choose to self host the services.

For example, fixing a CVE in self hosted Mongo DB or troubleshooting a restart loop in a self hosted Artifact storage is not provided as part of Mender Server support. We suggest using a dedicated hosting for these services if you lack a maintenance strategy for self hosting within your own cluster. The services deployed as part of the Mender Server helm charts are for evaluation only.

Artifact storage:

  • Azure blob storage
  • S3 compatible:
    • AWS S3
    • Cloudflare R2
    • GCP - S3 compatible API only
    • Minio
    • SeaweedFS

Mongo DB: Mender supports MongoDB in both Standalone (single node) and Replica set mode. We recommend using a replica set for high availability production environments, and you can choose to host your own cluster or use the MongoDB Atlas managed service.

  • Supported versions:
    • MongoDB 8.0
    • MongoDB 7.0
    • MongoDB 6.0
  • Minimum user role:
    • regular usage: readWriteAnyDatabase@admin on the Cluster for general usage
    • Storage Provider Tenants only: atlasAdmin@admin on the Cluster - for those who are using the Storage Provider Tenants feature on Mender.

Redis:

  • Redis 7.4, 8.0, 8.2
    • ElasticCache (AWS)
    • AzureCache
    • Memorystore (GCP)
    • Self hosted

Nats:

  • NATS 2.9

Whatever the supported Kubernetes version for:

Helm CLI version:

  • 3.10

Resources

To deploy a production-grade Mender Server, you will need Kubernetes worker nodes providing at least 4 GB of RAM, 4 vCPUs and 10 GB for the persistent volumes.

The Mender backend is available for the x86 and arm64 architecture only.

We welcome contributions to improve this documentation. To submit a change, use the Edit link at the top of the page or email us at .