---
title: "RealTheory Collector Minimum Requirements"
slug: "realtheory-collector-minimum-requirements"
updated: 2026-10-30T11:22:34Z
published: 2026-10-30T11:22:34Z
canonical: "resources.realtheory.io/realtheory-collector-minimum-requirements"
---

> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://resources.realtheory.io/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# RealTheory Collector Minimum Requirements

Before you can successfully add the RealTheory collector to your Kubernetes cluster, you must ensure the following minimum requirements have been satisfied.

## Minimum Requirements

### Kubernetes

The RealTheory collector is currently supported on the following versions of Kubernetes:

- 
- 1.36
- 1.35
- 1.34
- 1.33
- 1.32
- 1.31
- 1.30
- 1.29
- 1.28
- 1.27
- 1.26
- 1.25

**See Also** [How to Verify the Cluster is Running a Supported Version of Kubernetes](https://resources.realtheory.io/docs/how-to-verify-the-cluster-is-running-a-supported-version-of-kubernetes)

### Metrics Server

The RealTheory collector requires the Metrics Server to be installed on the Kubernetes cluster. The Metrics Server is an aggregator of resource usage data in your Kubernetes cluster. For more information on the Kubernetes Metrics Server, including installation instructions, please visit [https://github.com/kubernetes-sigs/metrics-server](https://github.com/kubernetes-sigs/metrics-server). The Metrics Server is automatically installed with some managed versions of Kubernetes. The following table indicates which managed Kubernetes offerings include the Metrics Server as part of the standard offering.

| Managed Kubernetes Offering | Includes Metrics Server | More information |
| --- | --- | --- |
| AKS | Yes |  |
| GKE | Yes |  |
| EKS | No | [How to install the Metrics Server on EKS](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/eks/latest/userguide/metrics-server.html) |

**See Also** [How To Verify the Metrics Server is Installed in the Cluster](https://resources.realtheory.io/docs/how-to-verify-the-metrics-server-is-installed-in-the-cluster)

### NVIDIA DCGM Exporter for GPU Metrics

To collect GPU metrics, the RealTheory Collector requires NVIDIA DCGM Exporter on each GPU Node. This requirement applies only to clusters with NVIDIA GPUs.

**See Also** [Enabling GPU Metric Collection](/v1/docs/enabling-gpu-metric-collection).

### RBAC

To successfully install the RealTheory collector in your cluster, you must have the appropriate RBAC access; specifically you must have the ability to create a service account, a cluster role, a cluster role binding, and a deployment.

#### Configuration Structure

The RealTheory Collector configuration document is made up of five sections:

- Namespace
- ServiceAccount
- ClusterRole
- ClusterRoleBinding
- Deployment

**Namespace**

This section is used to define a dedicated namespace for the RealTheory collector to run in.

**ServiceAccount**

This section is used to define a service account, which provides an identity for the RealTheory collector.

**ClusterRole**

This section defines a cluster role, which is a set of permissions that can be assigned to resources within a cluster. This cluster role grants read access (get, watch, and list) to the Kubernetes control plane and other APIs.

**ClusterRoleBinding**

This section defines a cluster role binding, which grants the Service Account for the collector the ability to read objects across all namespaces.

**Deployment**

This section defines a deployment to launch the RealTheory collector pod within the real-theory-system namespace with a service account identity.

**See Also** [How To Verify You Have the Appropriate RBAC Permissions To Install the RealTheory Collector](https://resources.realtheory.io/docs/how-to-verify-you-have-the-appropriate-rbac-permissions-to-install-the-realtheory-collector)