Provision Rancher & RKE Cluster

Dounpct

6 min readNov 27, 2022

In this Article I will show about how to create Rancher RKE Cluster

Objective

provision vm for rancher manger with Terraform
provision 3 vm for rke cluster with Terraform
set up rke cluster
test rke cluster
install rancher on rke cluster
access rancher

Prerequisite

Create UBuntu 20.04 onVCenter for RKE

Provision vm for rancher manger with Terraform

git clone https://github.com/dounpct/terraform-vm-rancher-manager.git

fill data in terraform.tfvars

terraform init
terraform plan
terraform apply

we can separate external tfvars that contain secret out of version control such as vsphere_password, vm_password and so on then we can run terraform with override var file
Example of terraform-rancher-manager.tfvars

vsphere_server      = "10.10.10.1"
vsphere_user        = "jiw@vsphere.local"

vsphere_datacenter  = "DC-01"
vsphere_datastore   = "DS01_PROD"
vsphere_cluster     = "D3P-01"
vsphere_pool        = "POOL-PROD-01"
vsphere_network     = "DVS_PROD_APP_VL001_10.100.100.0"

virtual_template    = "tt2d-jiw-test-ubuntu-template-02"
vm_cpu              = "2"
vm_memory           =  "4096"

network_gateway     = "10.100.100.1"
network_netmask     = "23"
host_domain         = "domain.local"

vm_user         = "jiw"

vsphere_password = "12345678"
vm_password = "12345678"

virtual_machines = {
    tt2d-jiw-test-RancherMng = {
      ip = "10.100.100.10"
    }
  }

dns_server_list = ["10.100.100.1","10.100.100.2"]

terraform apply -var-file="/mnt/d/work-github/tfvar-secret/terraform-rancher-manager.tfvars"

wait to provision

you can ssh to your vm

Provision 3 vm for rke cluster with Terraform

git clone https://github.com/dounpct/terraform-vm-rancher-rke.git

fill data in terraform.tfvars

fill 3 VM name and ip for RKE Cluster

virtual_machines = {
    tt2d-jiw-test-rancher-master-01 = {
      ip = ""
    }
    tt2d-jiw-test-rancher-master-02 = {
      ip = ""
    }
    tt2d-jiw-test-rancher-master-03 = {
      ip = ""
    }
  }

terraform init
terraform plan
terraform apply

we can separate external tfvars that contain secret out of version control such as vsphere_password, vm_password and so on then we can run terraform with override var file
Example of terraform-rancher-rke.tfvars

vsphere_server      = "10.10.10.1"
vsphere_user        = "jiw@vsphere.local"

vsphere_datacenter  = "DC-01"
vsphere_datastore   = "DS01_PROD"
vsphere_cluster     = "D3P-01"
vsphere_pool        = "POOL-PROD-01"
vsphere_network     = "DVS_PROD_APP_VL001_10.100.100.0"

virtual_template    = "tt2d-jiw-test-ubuntu-template-02"
vm_cpu              = "2"
vm_memory           =  "4096"

network_gateway     = "10.100.100.1"
network_netmask     = "23"
host_domain         = "domain.local"

vm_user         = "jiw"

vsphere_password = "12345678"
vm_password = "12345678"

virtual_machines = {
    tt2d-jiw-test-rancher-master-01 = {
      ip = "10.100.100.11"
    }
    tt2d-jiw-test-rancher-master-02 = {
      ip = "10.100.100.12"
    }
    tt2d-jiw-test-rancher-master-03 = {
      ip = "10.100.100.13"
    }
  }

dns_server_list = ["10.100.100.1","10.100.100.2"]

terraform apply -var-file="/mnt/d/work-github/tfvar-secret/terraform-rancher-rke.tfvars"

wait to provision

you can ssh to your vm

you can ssh from Rancher Manger to 3 vm for rke cluster (without password need)

Set up rke cluster

in rke Manager
download rke

wget https://github.com/rancher/rke/releases/download/v1.4.0/rke_linux-amd64

refer : https://github.com/rancher/rke/#latest-release

mv rke_linux-amd64 rke
chmod +x rke
sudo cp rke /usr/local/bin

check version kube compatible

rke config - list-version - all

I recommend to use only version v1.23.12-rancher1–1 because rancher chart stable still how version v2.6.9 now and some chart can not use when we install kubernetes version more than 1.24

example for rancher-vsphere-csi

create cluster.yml

cat > cluster.yml <<EOF
nodes:
  - address: x.x.x.x
    user: jiw
    role: [controlplane, etcd, worker]
  - address: x.x.x.x
    user: jiw
    role: [controlplane, etcd, worker]
  - address: x.x.x.x
    user: jiw
    role: [controlplane, etcd, worker]

cluster_name: rancher-manager-01
kubernetes_version: "v1.23.12-rancher1–1"

ingress:
  provider: nginx  
  options:
    use-forwarded-headers: "true"
EOF

change ip to your vm

we need 3 vm to create rke cluster each vm have all roles from rancher cluster reference

Architecture Recommendations | Rancher Manager

If you are installing Rancher on a single node, the main architecture recommendation that applies to your installation…

docs.ranchermanager.rancher.io

Example Cluster.yml https://rancher.com/docs/rke/latest/en/example-yamls/

rke up
#or
rke up --config ./rancher-cluster.yml

wait to finish

if error about network or not found node or role . check valid user and ip that vm manager can connect to 3 vm rke cluster
if you finish to fix may be you need to remove and run rke up again

rke remove
#wait
rke up

check or restart docker in 3 vm rke cluster :

sudo systemctl restart docker

Test rke cluster

curl -LO "https://dl.k8s.io/release/$(curl -L -s https://dl.k8s.io/release/stable.txt)/bin/linux/amd64/kubectl"
sudo install -o root -g root -m 0755 kubectl /usr/local/bin/kubectl
export KUBECONFIG=kube_config_cluster.yml
kubectl get nodes

Install rancher on rke cluster

in rancher manager

export KUBECONFIG=kube_config_cluster.yml

kubectl create namespace cattle-system

wget https://get.helm.sh/helm-v3.8.2-linux-amd64.tar.gz
tar -zxvf helm-v3.8.2-linux-amd64.tar.gz
sudo mv linux-amd64/helm /usr/local/bin/helm

helm repo add jetstack https://charts.jetstack.io
helm repo update

helm install \
cert-manager jetstack/cert-manager \
--namespace cert-manager \
--create-namespace \
--version v1.8.0 \
--set installCRDs=true \
--set webhook.timeoutSeconds=30

kubectl get Issuers,ClusterIssuers,Certificates,CertificateRequests,Orders,Challenges --all-namespaces

helm repo add rancher-stable https://releases.rancher.com/server-charts/stable

helm install rancher rancher-stable/rancher \
--namespace cattle-system \
--set hostname=<your-rancher-url> \
--set bootstrapPassword=<admin-password>

change <your-rancher-url> to your rancher url
change <admin-password> to your rancher admin password

get your admin password

kubectl get secret - namespace cattle-system bootstrap-secret -o go-template='{{.data.bootstrapPassword|base64decode}}{{ "\n" }}'

check component of rancher

kubectl get all -n cattle-system

Access rancher

set dns name <your-rancher-url> to one of 3 vm ip
nslookup <your-rancher-url> must point to one of 3 vm ip
https://<your-rancher-url>

fill Bootstrap Password with <admin-password>
fill New Password and Continue

Note: Password need complex and not too short

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Credit : TrueDigitalGroup