# Confused about RancherOS **URL:** \ **Category:** RancherOS\ **Created:** [August 16, 2016, 10:49am UTC](https://forums.suse.com/t/confused-about-rancheros/3717 "2016-08-16T10:49:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Jose\_Gato\_Luis](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/forums.suse.com/jose_gato_luis/32/6587_2.png) [@Jose\_Gato\_Luis](https://forums.suse.com/u/Jose_Gato_Luis)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2016, 10:49am UTC](https://forums.suse.com/t/confused-about-rancheros/3717/1 "2016-08-16T10:49:22Z")
Hi There, I am a little bit confused about RancherOS objective, I can guess it is really useful as a tinny OS you can use to run containers. The first time I hear bout it I thought in something like (semi)automatic way of registering your devices with your Rancher Server. Why RancherOS does not directly include a Rancher Agent? What I am trying to do is to have an .img file that you burn in your device and this automatically appears in your Rancher server (passing some configuration with cloud-config is ok). I am going in the wrong direction with RancherOS? Many thanks ---
**Author:** ![vincent](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/forums.suse.com/vincent/32/7156_2.png) [@vincent](https://forums.suse.com/u/vincent)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2016, 12:49am UTC](https://forums.suse.com/t/confused-about-rancheros/3717/2 "2016-08-17T00:49:23Z")
RancherOS is a minimal OS to get Docker on a host. This is convenient if you’re using Rancher because you probably don’t need to do much on the underlying hosts. But Rancher does not require RancherOS, and vice-versa. The Rancher agent needs installation-specific keys, so it can’t just automatically work. Rather than having some special syntax and integration for it, you can start the Rancher agent with cloud-config just like any other container in RancherOS: [http://docs.rancher.com/os/cloud-config/#launching-containers-in-rancheros](http://docs.rancher.com/os/cloud-config/#launching-containers-in-rancheros)