Files
rancher-docs/versioned_docs/version-2.8/reference-guides/rancher-security/hardening-guides/hardening-guides.md
T
2025-07-18 16:20:54 -07:00

3.5 KiB

title
title
Self-Assessment and Hardening Guides for Rancher
<head> </head>

Rancher provides specific security hardening guides for each supported Rancher version's Kubernetes distributions.

Rancher Kubernetes Distributions

Rancher uses the following Kubernetes distributions:

  • RKE, Rancher Kubernetes Engine, is a CNCF-certified Kubernetes distribution that runs entirely within Docker containers.
  • RKE2 is a fully conformant Kubernetes distribution that focuses on security and compliance within the U.S. Federal Government sector.
  • K3s is a fully conformant, lightweight Kubernetes distribution. It is easy to install, with half the memory requirement of upstream Kubernetes, all in a binary of less than 100 MB.

To harden a Kubernetes cluster that's running a distribution other than those listed, refer to your Kubernetes provider docs.

Hardening Guides and Benchmark Versions

Each self-assessment guide is accompanied by a hardening guide. These guides were tested alongside the listed Rancher releases. Each self-assessment guides was tested on a specific Kubernetes version and CIS benchmark version. If a CIS benchmark has not been validated for your Kubernetes version, you can use the existing guides until a guide for your version is added.

RKE Guides

Kubernetes Version CIS Benchmark Version Self Assessment Guide Hardening Guides
Kubernetes v1.25/v1.26/v1.27 CIS v1.7 Link Link

RKE2 Guides

Type Kubernetes Version CIS Benchmark Version Self Assessment Guide Hardening Guides
Rancher provisioned RKE2 Kubernetes v1.25/v1.26/v1.27 CIS v1.7 Link Link
Standalone RKE2 Kubernetes v1.27-v1.32 CIS v1.9 Link Link

K3s Guides

Type Kubernetes Version CIS Benchmark Version Self Assessment Guide Hardening Guides
Rancher provisioned K3s cluster Kubernetes v1.25/v1.26/v1.27 CIS v1.7 Link Link
Standalone K3s Kubernetes v1.26 up to v1.29 CIS v1.8 Link Link

Rancher with SELinux

Security-Enhanced Linux (SELinux) is a kernel module that adds extra access controls and security tools to Linux. Historically used by government agencies, SELinux is now industry-standard. SELinux is enabled by default on RHEL and CentOS.

To use Rancher with SELinux, we recommend installing the rancher-selinux RPM.