Rancher and k3s. It is a modest setup with 32GB of RAM and 32 CPU cores.

Rancher and k3s In this article, we will discuss how to install and configure Rancher K3s on a Linux machine. For other Kubernetes distributions, refer to the distribution's documentation for the port requirements for cluster nodes. Aug 12, 2025 · K3s and Rancher on Raspberry Pi 4 Cluster . If you import a cluster from an external cloud platform but don't register it, you won't be able to upgrade the Kubernetes version from Rancher. The Nvidia GPU is Rancher Prime offers SLA backed enterprise grade support for Rancher and access to trusted delivery mechanisms to manage and operate your Kubernetes deployments with a high degree of confidence. Prerequisites Two This guide will help you quickly launch a cluster with default options. Apr 5, 2025 · Kubernetes is a powerful tool for managing containerized workloads, but its full distribution can be heavy and complex. Upgrading your K3s clusterUpgrades Upgrading your K3s cluster Manual Upgrades describes several techniques for upgrading your cluster manually. Whether you’re setting up a… Consult the Installation page for greater detail on installing and configuring K3s. These steps also apply to air-gapped installs with Helm. If the K3s cluster is managed by Rancher, you should use the Rancher UI to manage upgrades. It has also been known as RKE Government. It is a modest setup with 32GB of RAM and 32 CPU cores. Rancher needs to be installed on a supported Kubernetes version. This blog also assumes you’re running Ubuntu or a similar Linux distro. K3s is a highly available, certified Kubernetes distribution designed for production workloads in unattended, resource-constrained, remote locations or inside IoT appliances. com Dec 15, 2024 · In this tutorial, we’ll walk through the process of setting up Rancher on a K3s cluster. Liquid Web explains how to install and configure Rancher on K3s. We often use it to maintain single node K3S clusters. The Rancher platform is a multi-cluster manager for Kubernetes. It is secure by default with reasonable defaults for lightweight environments The name field should follow the Helm chart naming conventions, in addition to Kubernetes rules for object names and IDs. For convenience, export the IP address and port of your proxy into an environment variable and set up the HTTP_PROXY variables for your current shell on every node: Rancher - Rancher is an open source container management platform that includes full distributions of Kubernetes, Apache Mesos and Docker Swarm, and makes it simple to operate container clusters on any cloud or infrastructure platform. Simple, Consistent Multi-Cluster Management SUSE Rancher Prime support for Any Certified Kubernetes Distribution: Whether it's public cloud offerings like EKS, AKS, and GKE, or on-premises deployments with Rancher Kubernetes Engine 2 (RKE2) and K3s, SUSE Rancher Prime provides support for any CNCF-certified Kubernetes distribution. Both k3OS and k3s upgrades are Jan 24, 2024 · Here is an overview of Rancher LXC Proxmox. Rancher K3s If you do not have a Kubernetes cluster, the scenarios in this section will guide on creating a Rancher K3s Kubernetes cluster on either your VMware vSphere infrastructure or on an Azure VM and onboard it as an Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes cluster in an automated fashion using either ARM template or Terraform. This handles helm, load balancers, ingress controllers, and most everything automatically depending on what Ansible "playbook" you run. The possible TLS settings depend on the used ingress controller: nginx-ingress-controller (default for RKE2): Default TLS Version and Ciphers. Rancher, the open-source multi-cluster orchestration platform, lets operations teams deploy, manage and secure enterprise Kubernetes. Empower your agency with cutting-edge technology. . g. Running Rancher in a highly available Kubernetes cluster When you install Rancher inside of a Kubernetes cluster, TLS is offloaded at the cluster's ingress controller. K3k, Kubernetes in Kubernetes, is a tool that empowers you to create and manage isolated K3s clusters within your existing Kubernetes environment. K8s. For RKE2 and K3s installations, you don't have to install the Ingress controller manually because one is installed by default. Jun 29, 2024 · This detailed guide walks you through setting up a robust and automated deployment pipeline using ArgoCD on a Rancher-managed K3S cluster with RKE Kubernetes. It wraps Kubernetes and other components in a single, simple launcher. It's possible to enable debug logs for rancher-machine by setting environment variables when launching Rancher. Setting up Infrastructure for a High Availability K3s Kubernetes Cluster This tutorial is intended to help you provision the underlying infrastructure for a Rancher management server. Feb 14, 2025 · Solving Network Access Issues for K3s Pods in Rancher Understanding Pod Network Limitations in K3s 🛜 When setting up a Kubernetes cluster with Rancher and K3s, networking can become a major … Feb 17, 2025 · K3s is a lightweight, easy-to-install Kubernetes distribution designed for simplicity and efficiency. If you have a Docker installation of Rancher Jul 24, 2021 · My journey of installing a (multi-master) K3s cluster with Rancher using Multipass and Hyper-V on Windows. 0. These requirements are baseline for K3s and its packaged components, and do not include resources consumed by the workload itself. K3s is highly available and production-ready. It has a lot of the alpha and cloud plugins cleaned up, while also using a relational database (in this case, RDS) instead of etcd for backend storage. the container needs to be run privileged) and the ports are available. The binary is deployed on servers with two different k3s roles (k3s-server or k3s-agent). Rancher Machine Debug Logs If you need to troubleshoot the creation of objects in your infrastructure provider of choice, rancher-machine debug logs might be helpful to you. K3s is a fully conformant production-ready Kubernetes distribution with the following changes: It is packaged as a single binary. docs. In both single-node setups, Rancher can be installed with Helm on the Kubernetes cluster in the same way that it would be installed on any other cluster. K3s is a CNCF sandbox project that delivers a lightweight yet powerful certified Kubernetes distribution. This method is only available RKE2 and K3s clusters that have the authorized cluster endpoint enabled. With Docker, we can spin up a multi-node k3s cluster on a single machine. It uses k3d to create containerized k3s clusters. 1 Message to Customers: This is a new format for the Rancher Support Matrices and RKE1 & RKE2 now have dedicated pages for each version. It adds support for sqlite3 as the default storage backend. This means the Kubernetes cluster that you install Rancher in must contain an Ingress controller. For the most up-to-date information, check open and pinned issues on the K3s Project Issue Tracker. The recommended infrastructure for the Rancher-only Kubernetes cluster differs depending on whether Rancher will be installed on a K3s Kubernetes cluster, an RKE Kubernetes cluster, or a single Docker container Ingress Controller The Rancher UI and API are exposed through an Ingress. Since I am currently working for a company that uses kubernetes extensively, I Jan 22, 2024 · Explore the seamless synergy between Rancher and k3s for efficient Kubernetes management. 7. So what about Windows? Sep 24, 2021 · K3s — A Rancher-developed lightweight Kubernetes distribution. io | sh -s - --disable traefik --node-name Dec 18, 2024 · Rancher K3s is a lightweight, easy-to-install Kubernetes distribution that is designed to run on resource-constrained environments such as edge devices, IoT devices, and development machines. Jun 6, 2024 · And this is part of the bootstrap. When Rancher creates a snapshot of an RKE2 or K3s cluster, the snapshot name is based on the type (whether the snapshot is manual or recurring) and the target (whether the snapshot is saved locally or uploaded to S3). This document covers requirements Learn How to Set up a K3s Kubernetes cluster in AWS, then implement secure GitOps using ArgoCD and Vault. Jan 29, 2024 · In general, for a test/dev install rancher docker deployment works flawlessly, if you follow the instructions ( e. However k3s is made by Rancher, so that is an easier combination (I guess). On your local PC, tweak the values of this script and run it to create the cluster Feb 7, 2021 · Running k3s server on WSL2 and then installing Rancher on it. Here's how to evaluate K3s vs. Sep 28, 2023 · I will walk you through the k3s and rancher installation and configuration steps in this article. Lightweight Kubernetes. Apr 14, 2025 · This script to setup k3s and rancher. The steps to set up RKE2 or K3s are shown below. Request a demo! The options below are available for Rancher-launched Kubernetes clusters and Registered K3s Kubernetes clusters. Architecture Servers and Agents A server node is defined as a host running the k3s server command, with control-plane and datastore components managed by K3s. The guide utilizes Terraform for Feb 7, 2010 · Rancher Manager v2. Jun 11, 2025 · Welcome to the first post in the series. k3d makes it very easy to create single- and multi-node k3s clusters in docker, e. 26. However, the differences between RKE and RKE2 were not clear to me. See full list on ranchermanager. Rancher Desktop can be run when offline, aka in air-gapped mode. Follow our easy steps to get started with Rancher 2. 😎 I decided to roll with k3s as my base. To find out which versions of Kubernetes are supported for your Rancher version, refer to the Rancher Support Matrix. traefik (default for K3s): TLS Options. Apr 3, 2024 · In this blog post, I’ll walk you through setting up K3s and Rancher on a Hetzner VPS, but it’ll probably apply to any server environment. Still, as a normal Kubernetes distribution, the control plane needs to be hosted in a Linux OS. In this guide, we’ll build a multi-node k3s cluster where each node runs as a Docker container—a You can now provision K3s Kubernetes clusters on top of the Harvester cluster in Rancher v2. When you use Rancher to install Kubernetes on new nodes in an infrastructure provider, resources (containers/virtual network interfaces) and Jan 29, 2022 · Starting a K3S Cluster Managed by Rancher On the machine you wish to start a K3s cluster on, go through the same node clean up process. Optimized for edge and IoT applications, K3s is a highly available, certified Kubernetes application geared for use in unattended, remote, resource-constrained environments. OpenShift, including an in-depth look at available software, features, and when to use each platform. Do not follow the steps on this page unless you have disabled version management in Rancher. Rancher will enable you to deploy Kubernetes clusters managed by cloud providers, import existing Kubernetes clusters, or deploy K3s (for short, it is a lighter version of K8s) or K8s clusters. These instructions assume you have set up two nodes, a load balancer, a DNS record, and an external MySQL database as described in this section. K3d helps to run k3s inside a Docker container. Mar 1, 2021 · Install a Rancher Labs Kubernetes distribution (k3s) on a Raspberry Pi cluster. In the future I will be looking to upgrade the RAM. It is specifically designed to only have what is needed to run k3s. Uninstalling K3s details how to remove K3s from a host. Learn more. Installing k3s is simple: Mar 1, 2021 · Install a Rancher Labs Kubernetes distribution (k3s) on a Raspberry Pi cluster. Here's a rundown of the commands I threw in my terminal. Now, in Rancher, click side menu > Cluster Management For Rancher installs on a K3s or RKE2 Kubernetes cluster, refer to the tabs below. Rancher UI: Use the Rancher UI to select options that are commonly customized when setting up a Kubernetes cluster. Additionally the OS is designed to be managed by kubectl once a cluster is bootstrapped. It can also be used as a basis for upgrading through third-party Infrastructure-as-Code tools like Terraform. Managing Packaged Components details how to disable packaged components, or install your own using auto-deploying manifests. Also, remember that your node and Rancher server need to find each other though a DNS service (overwriting your /etc/hosts file will not work since Rancher does not take your system’s /etc/hosts file). This guide takes you through deploying Rancher on k3s using Helm Charts, offering essential steps This section contains advanced information describing the different ways you can run and manage K3s, as well as steps necessary to prepare the host OS for K3s use. This process allows you to use the node for other purposes. The following picture shows the K3S architecture (source K3S). Using a config file allows you to set any of the options available in an K3s installation. k3d is a lightweight wrapper to run k3s (Rancher Lab’s minimal Kubernetes distribution) in docker. Mar 11, 2021 · In this blog, we compare Rancher vs. rancher. Make sure your nodes meet the requirements before proceeding. k3OS is a Linux distribution designed to remove as much OS maintenance as possible in a Kubernetes cluster. In this section, you will provision the underlying infrastructure for your Rancher management server in an air gapped environment. In my previous post I mentioned that I was running pi-hole as “the spine” of my homelab. To find out which versions of Kubernetes are supported for your Rancher version, refer to the Rancher support matrix. 6 support matrix which contains this information in a single view. When used with SUSE Rancher Prime, K3s is ideal for running production workloads with reliability for years Dec 19, 2020 · Join me as we walk through installing Rancher on an existing high availability k3s cluster in this step-by-step tutorial. Step 1 – Configure Passthrough (If required) For this environment, vSphere is used and therefore PCI Passthrough is required to present the GPU to the VM. Learn more about K3s and how they work! Mar 25, 2023 · K3S and Rancher together provide a lightweight yet powerful solution for managing Kubernetes clusters. Nov 14, 2023 · Enough chit-chat, let's get our hands dirty. Monitoring and Alerting The rancher-monitoring application can quickly deploy leading open-source monitoring and alerting solutions onto your cluster. yaml can be used to provide access to the Kubernetes cluster. Install Kubernetes Once the infrastructure is ready, you can continue with setting up a Kubernetes cluster to install Rancher in. Jan 30, 2024 · Installing Kubernetes with K3S Once the VM is up and running with Ubuntu Server, we're ready to install Kubernetes. Apr 19, 2022 · Rancher K3s: Kubernetes on Proxmox Containers Using LXC containers and K3s to spin up a K8s cluster with NGINX Ingress Controller For a long time now, I’ve self-hosted most of my online services … This section intended to help you set up an alternative method to access a Rancher-launched cluster. This guide will help you discover Rancher, install and start it, and then create an on-premise Kubernetes cluster deployed on Rocky Linux servers. k3d is a lightweight wrapper to run k3s (a minimal Kubernetes distribution, which is used by Rancher Desktop as well) in docker. Dec 14, 2022 · K3s and Rancher Kubernetes Engine (RKE2) are two Kubernetes distributions from the SUSE Rancher container platform. Nov 30, 2022 · K3s is probably the hottest Kubernetes distro right now. That pihole instance is running on my home server. Rancher AWS Quick Start Guide The following steps will quickly deploy a Rancher server on AWS in a single-node K3s Kubernetes cluster, with a single-node downstream Kubernetes cluster attached. Refer to the documentation on Advanced Options and Configuration and the server and agent command documentation for more in-depth coverage. for local development on Kubernetes. Here is a video tutorial; continue reading for a list of written instructions. Contribute to harvester/rancherd development by creating an account on GitHub. See the Advanced Options documentation for more The way K3s is backed up and restored depends on which type of datastore is used. You will also set up the private container image registry that must be available to your Rancher node(s). 6. k3s. In K3S all kubernetes processes are consolidated within one single binary. SUSE discussion forums. Rancher Azure Quick Start Guide The following steps will quickly deploy a Rancher server on Azure in a single-node K3s Kubernetes cluster, with a single-node downstream Kubernetes cluster attached. These CA certificates are valid for 10 years, and are not automatically renewed. K3s is designed to be a lightweight and easy-to-use Kubernetes distribution, while RKE2 is a more full-featured distribution that supports more advanced features and customization options. Jul 21, 2023 · At the time of writing this, k3s version v1. The recommended infrastructure for the Rancher-only Kubernetes cluster differs depending on whether Rancher will be installed on a K3s Kubernetes cluster, an RKE Kubernetes cluster, or a single Docker container. k3s Azure ARM template You can now provision K3s Kubernetes clusters on top of the Harvester cluster in Rancher v2. Supported Kubernetes Platforms for Rancher Manager An easy and fun way to setup your own kubernetes cluster in your laptop computer with K3S, Rancher and Helm. Additionally, we’ll deploy Rancher, a powerful Rancher allows easy provision of K3s across a range of platforms including Amazon EC2, DigitalOcean, Azure, vSphere, or existing servers. Rancher will be installed on the Linux machine. To specify the K3s (Kubernetes) version, use the INSTALL_K3S_VERSION The Rancher Prime Difference Powered by Rancher and 100% open source with zero lock-in, Rancher Prime is the comprehensive cloud native platforms for enterprise looking to manage their multi-cluster, hybrid or multi-cloud workloads alongside their application development pipelines. k3s - Certified Kubernetes distribution designed for production workloads in unattended, resource-constrained, remote locations or inside IoT appliances Explore K3 Kubernetes Edge Computing solutions for resilient and efficient government operations. Install a supported version of Docker software on the Linux host, then run the Rancher server. If the K3s cluster was imported (registered) into Rancher, Rancher will by default manage the system-upgrade-controller deployment and plans. Managing Server Roles details how to set up K3s with dedicated control-plane or etcd servers. Nodes only need to join a cluster and then all aspects of the OS can be managed from Kubernetes. Learn How to Set up a K3s Kubernetes cluster in AWS, then implement secure GitOps using ArgoCD and Vault. For those who don’t know Rancher, Rancher is an enterprise container management platform built for organizations with multiple teams that deploy containers in production across multiple cloud Bootstrap Rancher and k3s/rke2. Rancher provisioned clusters: To access an RKE2/K3s cluster the cluster must have the authorized cluster endpoint enabled, and you must have already downloaded the cluster's kubeconfig file from the Rancher UI. K3s is a lightweight Kubernetes distribution created by Rancher Labs, and it is fully certified by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF). For versions of RKE1 & RKE2 before 1. Oct 31, 2023 · In this comprehensive guide, we’ll walk through the process of setting up a Kubernetes cluster using k3s on an on-premise infrastructure. Aug 15, 2025 · K3S Installation K3S is a lightweight kubernetes built for IoT and edge computing, provided by the company Rancher. When used with Rancher, K3s is simple to install, lightweight yet high availability Kubernetes distribution that can be easily managed within the Rancher orchestration platform. Dec 19, 2020 · Are you running Kubernetes in your homelab or in the enterprise? Do you want an easy way to manage and create Kubernetes clusters? Do you want high availability Rancher? Join me as we walk through stalling Rancher on an existing high availability k3s cluster in this step-by-step tutorial. This guide walks you through the installation process, from prerequisites to deploying Rancher with SSL. Etcd3, MariaDB, MySQL, and Postgres are also supported. Refer to the Helm Best Practices documentation to learn more. Rancher's K3s and RKE2 are both open-source Kubernetes distributions that can be used to deploy and manage containerized applications. K3s bundles all k8s components into combined processes and presents it all in a simple server-and-agent model that’s easy to use and fast to deploy. Jun 24, 2022 · When I joined SUSE I heard about our Kubernetes distributions: Rancher Kubernetes Engine (RKE), RKE2 and K3s. First of all, we need to set up the Rancher control plane node on something within our test environment. You’ll learn when it makes sense to use RKE2 2. In this example, using a gift from me to my homelab, a cheap Nvidia T400 GPU which is on the supported list for the operator. In this section, you'll learn how to configure the K3s server. Everyone talks about it – whether compared with other Kubernetes distributions or in getting started guides. K3s comes with Rancher's Local Path Provisioner and this enables the ability to create persistent volume claims out of the box using local storage on the respective node. Nov 21, 2022 · This post outlines the necessary steps to leverage the Nvidia GPU operator in a K3s cluster. See Configuring Version Management for RKE2 and K3s Clusters for more Sep 10, 2024 · Install Kubernetes rancher K3s Title: 🚀 Setting Up a Lightweight Kubernetes Cluster with K3s 💻 Introduction In recent years, Kubernetes has become the go-to choice for orchestrating … In this blog I’ll explain how to install Rancher on a high-available k3s kubernetes cluster with an embedded etcd database and kube-vip as the load balancer in front of the kubernetes controlplane. Contribute to k3s-io/k3s development by creating an account on GitHub. k3d makes it very easy to create single- and multi-node k3s clusters in K3s generates self-signed Certificate Authority (CA) Certificates during startup of the first server node. If you are not running the most recent release of K3s, make sure to also search closed issues and release notes to ensure that your issue has Sep 10, 2025 · When is K3s best, and when should you opt for Kubernetes? That depends on what you need. Setup the control node Starting on the control node, we'll run the following command to setup K3s: curl -fsL https://get. I did start with Minukube at first, since it's praised as the easiest to start with. Mar 7, 2022 · Currently I have a Hyve Zeuss 1U server running in my home lab. We install Rancher, configure a load balancer, install and configure helm, install cert-manager, configure Rancher, walk through the GUI, scale up our cluster, and set up a health check and liveness check! This section covers the configuration options that are available in Rancher for a new or existing K3s Kubernetes cluster. In this blog I’ll explain how to install Rancher on a high-available k3s kubernetes cluster with an embedded etcd database and kube-vip as the load balancer in front of the kubernetes controlplane. It enables efficient multi-tenancy, streamlined experimentation, and robust resource isolation, minimizing infrastructure costs by allowing you to run multiple lightweight Kubernetes clusters on the same physical host. The --name option can be used to override the base name of the snapshot when creating one-time snapshots with the RKE2 or K3s CLI. Nov 12, 2020 · K3s — A Rancher-developed lightweight Kubernetes distribution. Cluster Config File: Instead of using the Rancher UI to choose Kubernetes options for the cluster, advanced users can create a K3s config file. Apr 1, 2025 · Kubernetes can sometimes feel like trying to keep track of octopus tentacles during an earthquake. 24. Rancher has three key products that integrate into the Kubernetes space: Rancher, a cluster manager Rancher Kubernetes Engine (RKE), a Kubernetes distribution that runs on Docker K3s, a lightweight version of Kubernetes. You will need to retrieve the IP address of that machine so that you can access Rancher from your local workstation Use Ansible to automate the installation & deployment of k3s and/or Rancher across your VMs (aka nodes). By following a quick start guide, setting up K3S on our Ubuntu server becomes a breeze. This article will explain the similarities and differences between the projects. 3+ using the built-in Harvester node driver. Luckily, Rancher intentionally makes this pretty easy. Apr 1, 2025 · Let's dive into how to deploy K3s, get Rancher MCM running, set up vCluster operator, and create virtual clusters that would make even hardcore Kubernetes enthusiasts smile. We’ll cover prerequisites like setting up an Ingress Controller, configuring a Domain Name, enabling SSL with Let’s Encrypt, and editing the agent-tls-mode before registering your existing cluster to Rancher. x, please refer to the combined Rancher 2. Standard Rancher management of Kubernetes clusters including all outlined cluster management capabilities. 5, the application is powered by Prometheus, Grafana, Alertmanager, the Prometheus Operator, and the Prometheus adapter. For this guide, I am going to be using Ubuntu based Linux system for any examples. Thankfully, we have a trio of technologies that work together to make your life easier. Introduced in Rancher v2. You can use several Kubernetes engines to host Rancher: RKE (also known as RKE1), RKE2, K3s, EKS, AKS and GKE. An agent node is defined as a host running the k3s agent command, without any datastore or control-plane components. If you are new to Kubernetes, the official Kubernetes docs have great tutorials covering basics that all cluster administrators should be familiar with. GitHub Gist: instantly share code, notes, and snippets. Sep 8, 2023 · I will walk you through the k3s and rancher installation and configuration steps in this article. Jan 27, 2012 · Four containers will be started: k3s-server k3s-agent-1 k3s-agent-2 rancherui-init k3s-server and k3s-agents will form the cluster, while rancherui-init is an initialization container that will install Cert-manager and Rancher-UI in the cluster once all nodes and default pods are ready, without requiring privileged access. To keep things lightweight and beginner-friendly, we'll use K3S, a minimalistic version of Kubernetes developed by the Rancher team. To specify the K3s version, use the INSTALL_K3S_VERSION environment variable when running the K3s installation script. For information on how K3s components work together, refer to the Architecture page. The Known Issues are updated periodically and designed to inform you about any issues that may not be immediately addressed in the next upcoming release. We have an automation in ansible to set up a new VM with K3S, cert-manager, and Rancher. Our LXC/LXD Support team is here to help you with your questions and concerns. You will need to create manually/script/IaC a Kubernetes cluster to run Rancher. May 28, 2022 · Playing with Kubernetes using k3d and Rancher Kubernetes is a container orchestration system that is considered the standard for deploying containerized applications. Eventhough Rancher Desktop doesn't have in-built multi node/cluster functionality, you can use k3d with Rancher Desktop to accomplish the same. Either project can be used to run a production-ready cluster; however, they target different use cases and consequently possess unique characteristics. Apr 26, 2023 · Rancher Desktop, K3s and Traefik ingress controller - Dockerfile RKE2 is Rancher's enterprise-ready next-generation Kubernetes distribution. In this section, you'll learn how to deploy an RKE2/K3s Kubernetes cluster in VMware vSphere. We install Rancher, configure a load balancer, install and configure helm, install cert-manager, configure The admin kubeconfig file stored at /etc/rancher/k3s/k3s. Before upgrading Kubernetes, back up your cluster. Nov 10, 2024 · Introduction Rancher is a web gui for administering kubernetes clusters. K3k offers both "shared" mode The following instructions will guide you through upgrading a Rancher server that was installed on a Kubernetes cluster with Helm. Automated Upgrades describes how to perform Kubernetes-native automated upgrades using Rancher's system-upgrade-controller. Sep 16, 2024 · K3s is a lightweight Kubernetes distribution by Rancher. These instructions assume you have a Linux virtual machine that you will communicate with from your local workstation. Whether you're configuring K3s to run in a container or as a native Linux service, each node running K3s should meet the following minimum requirements. Both servers and agents run the kubelet, container runtime, and CNI. Separation of Rancher and User Clusters A user cluster is a downstream Kubernetes cluster that runs your apps and services. To set up a single-node K3s cluster, run the Rancher server installation command on just one node instead of two nodes. Let's dive into how to deploy K3s, get Rancher MCM running, set up vCluster operator, and create virtual clusters that Requirements K3s is very lightweight, but has some minimum requirements as outlined below. Easy to install, half the memory, all in a binary of less than 100 MB. When Rancher creates the cluster, it generates a kubeconfig file that includes additional kubectl context (s) for accessing your cluster. Learn the Basics Whether you are new to containers or trying to take your first steps with Kubernetes in production, learning paths can guide you through the process by focusing on foundational knowledge paired with practical progression. Architecture Recommendations If you are installing Rancher on a single node, the main architecture recommendation that applies to your installation is that the node running Rancher should be separate from downstream clusters. For more information about each installation option, refer to this page. k3s, a lightweight Kubernetes variant from Rancher, trims the fat while keeping the essentials, making it perfect for development, testing, or resource-limited environments. Jul 25, 2025 · Unlock K3s monitoring with Prometheus! Learn to enable control plane metrics for better observability and alerts in your Kubernetes cluster in this step by step guide. k3s Azure ARM template Rancher Desktop bundles together essential tools for developing and testing cloud-native applications from your desktop. The last three engines are cloud-specific, so if you are going for on-premise you should focus on RKE1, RKE2 or K3s. For those who don’t know Rancher, Rancher is an enterprise container management platform built for organizations with multiple teams that deploy containers in production across multiple cloud Apr 18, 2022 · Setting Up the Container OS & K3s Now that we've got the containers up and running, we will set up Rancher K3s on them. Jul 24, 2021 · My journey of installing a (multi-master) K3s cluster with Rancher using Multipass and Hyper-V on Windows. The following options also apply to imported RKE2 clusters that you have registered. Version-specific Removing Kubernetes Components from Nodes This section describes how to disconnect a node from a Rancher-launched Kubernetes cluster and remove all of the Kubernetes components from the node. For us, we standardized this whole setup on Rocky Linux. 7-rc1+k3s1 is the latest version that Rancher supports, so I’ll install k3s with that version. Helm CLI Quick Start These instructions capture a quick way to set up a proof-of-concept Rancher installation. Cloud-Native Infrastructure Manage your entire cloud-native stack with Rancher Prime, covering OS, storage, VMs, containers, and more — on one platform. For this test Rancher installation, we installed it on k3s on the Rocky This page focuses on the options that are commonly used when setting up K3s for the first time. Security & Performance Secure your Kubernetes with Rancher Prime with zero-trust full lifecycle container management, advanced policy management and insights. gpvuqpt cfeku lmihtgnw jex eqobyyn pkhnrp ppyki sxbg fsx fpr vcmt ubwte iprugfwp cuxanvh gdwtjgsor