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Notes, guides, and things learned from the lab

SUSE Edge Image Builder (EIB)

Automating Infrastructure with Edge Image Builder

2026-07-17 18 min read

SUSE Edge Image Builder (EIB) turns a declarative YAML definition into a self-installing ISO with RKE2 baked in. How I stripped a six-Helm-chart, five-node observability cluster down to a single node to debug the ISO mechanism in a KVM VM first, then scaled it back up to five bare-metal boxes.

Infrastructure Automation SUSE Edge Image Builder RKE2
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SUSE Edge Image Builder (EIB) Networking & Security

From RKE2 Test Image to nftables Firewall Appliance

2026-07-17 8 min read

Same disposable single-node RKE2 test image the lenny cluster started from, repurposed entirely: Kubernetes stripped out, replaced with a two-NIC nftables WAN/LAN gateway. The ruleset, the sysctl flags that make it actually route, and testing it with two separate libvirt networks instead of one.

nftables Firewall Edge Image Builder Networking
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SUSE Edge Image Builder (EIB)

Defining a 3-Node Rancher Cluster with Edge Image Builder

2026-07-17 9 min read

A new EIB definition, separate from the lenny cluster: three RKE2 server nodes whose whole job is running Rancher Manager itself. Applying the chart-repo lesson lenny learned the hard way, verified against the real Helm repos before writing a single line — and everything that's still a deliberate placeholder since no hardware's been chosen yet.

Rancher Edge Image Builder RKE2 Helm
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