Frequently Asked Questions¶

Common questions about kMetal — what it is, how it's delivered, and what to expect when you adopt it. If your question isn't here, contact Clastix.

About kMetal¶

What is kMetal?

kMetal is a Kubernetes platform for bare metal, built by Clastix. It unifies bare metal, virtualization, networking, and the operating system under a single cloud-native control plane. kMetal extends Kamaji (Hosted Control Planes) with a complete operational ecosystem for running multi-tenant Kubernetes at scale.

Is kMetal open source or commercial?

kMetal is a commercial product. The underlying technology stack is open source (Kubernetes, Kamaji, KubeVirt, Kube-OVN, Kairos, Capsule), but the integrated platform, packaging, and support are commercial. See the Commercial section for licensing and support details.

Who is kMetal built for?

kMetal is built for three audiences:

Enterprises running private clouds on hardware they already own.
Cloud Providers offering Kubernetes-as-a-Service to their customers.
AI Factories running GPU fleets with tenant isolation.

All three audiences share the same architecture: hosted control planes, multi-tenancy, immutable OS, and a single Kubernetes-native API.

What is the relationship between kMetal and Clastix?

Clastix is the company behind kMetal. Clastix also maintains Kamaji (upstream Hosted Control Plane operator) and contributes to other open-source Kubernetes projects. kMetal is Clastix's flagship product — the integrated, supported, production-grade platform.

Technology¶

What infrastructure does kMetal run on?

kMetal runs on bare metal. Workloads (including tenant control planes and tenant worker nodes) run as virtual machines on KubeVirt, which uses KVM — the Linux-kernel-native hypervisor — directly on bare metal. There is no separate hypervisor product to license or operate alongside Kubernetes, and no nested virtualization. The under cluster itself is a Kubernetes cluster running on bare metal.

How does kMetal compare to vanilla Kamaji?

Kamaji provides Hosted Control Planes. kMetal is the full platform around Kamaji — it adds tenant networking (Kube-OVN), virtualization (KubeVirt), immutable OS (Kairos), multi-tenancy (Capsule), declarative image building, and a unified operational surface. Kamaji is one of the components; kMetal is the integrated product.

What Kubernetes versions are supported?

See the current Helm Values reference and Release Notes for the supported version matrix. kMetal tracks recent stable Kubernetes releases on both the under cluster and tenant clusters; the two are versioned independently.

Does kMetal support multi-tenancy out of the box?

Yes. Multi-tenancy is a first-class concern in kMetal, not an add-on. Each tenant gets an isolated Kubernetes control plane (via Kamaji), an isolated network (via Kube-OVN VPCs), and isolated worker nodes (via KubeVirt VMs). Tenant boundaries are enforced through Capsule policies, RBAC, and network isolation.

Adoption¶

Can I evaluate kMetal before purchasing?

Yes. Clastix offers a structured evaluation through the Explorer Program — guided setup, architecture review, and technical support during the evaluation period. See Evaluation for details, or contact Clastix to start.

Where do I download kMetal?

kMetal is distributed as Helm charts and container images via an OCI registry. Access is provisioned after you sign up for evaluation or purchase a license. See the Install kMetal page for installation details.

Is there a community edition?

There is no separate "community edition" of kMetal itself. However, all upstream components (Kamaji, KubeVirt, Kube-OVN, Capsule, Kairos) are open source and freely available — you can compose them yourself without kMetal. kMetal exists for organizations that want the integrated, supported, production-grade platform.

Support¶

How do I get support?

Commercial support is included with every kMetal license. Contact channels are scoped to your support tier; see License & Support for the matrix. For pre-sales questions or evaluation support, contact Clastix.

How do I report a bug or request a feature?

Both go through your Clastix support channel. For evaluation users, bug reports and feature requests can be sent via the contact form.