High Availability Rancher on Kubernetes

Are you running Kubernetes in your homelab or in the enterprise? Do you want an easy way to manage and create Kubernetes clusters? Join me as we walk through installing Rancher on an existing high availability k3s cluster in this step-by-step tutorial.

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! Join me, it’s easy in this straightforward guide.

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install

Note: It’s advised you consult the Rancher Support Matrix to get the recommended version for all Rancher dependencies.

https://rancher.com/docs/rancher/v2.x/en/installation/install-rancher-on-k8s/#1-install-the-required-cli-tools

kubectl

install helm

curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/helm/helm/master/scripts/get-helm-3 | bash

add helm repo, stable

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

create rancher namespace

kubectl create namespace cattle-system

ssl configuration

user rancher generated (default)

install cert-manager

kubectl apply --validate=false -f https://github.com/jetstack/cert-manager/releases/download/v1.7.1/cert-manager.crds.yaml

create name-space for cert-manager

kubectl create namespace cert-manager

Add the Jetstack Helm repository

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

update helm repo

helm repo update

install cert-manager helm chart

*Note: If you receive an “Error: Kubernetes cluster unreachable” message when installing cert-manager, try copying

the contents of “/etc/rancher/k3s/k3s.yaml” to “~/.kube/config” to resolve the issue.*

helm install \
  cert-manager jetstack/cert-manager \
  --namespace cert-manager \
  --version v1.7.1

check rollout of cert-manager

kubectl get pods --namespace cert-manager

Be sure each pod is fully running before proceeding

Install Rancher with Helm

Note: If you have “.local” for your private TLD then Rancher will NOT finish the setup within the webUI

helm install rancher rancher-stable/rancher \
  --namespace cattle-system \
  --set hostname=rancher.example.com

check rollout

kubectl -n cattle-system rollout status deploy/rancher

you should see

Waiting for deployment "rancher" rollout to finish: 0 of 3 updated replicas are available...
Waiting for deployment "rancher" rollout to finish: 1 of 3 updated replicas are available...
Waiting for deployment "rancher" rollout to finish: 2 of 3 updated replicas are available...
deployment "rancher" successfully rolled out

check status

kubectl -n cattle-system rollout status deploy/rancher

you should see

deployment "rancher" successfully rolled out

load balancer

If you are using k3s you can use the traefik ingress controller that ships with k3s

run

kubectl get svc --all-namespaces -o wide

look for

kube-system     traefik                LoadBalancer   10.43.202.72   192.168.100.10   80:32003/TCP,443:32532/TCP   5d23h   app=traefik,release=traefik

then create a DNS entry for rancher.example.com 192.168.100.10

This can be a host entry on your machine, or a DNS entry in your local DNS system (router, pi hole, etc…)

otherwise you can use nginx

nginx lb

https://rancher.com/docs/rancher/v2.x/en/installation/resources/k8s-tutorials/infrastructure-tutorials/nginx/

other considerations

Separating Rancher Cluster from your User Cluster

https://rancher.com/docs/rancher/v2.x/en/overview/architecture-recommendations/#separation-of-rancher-and-user-clusters

Links

⚙️ See all the hardware I recommend at https://l.technotim.live/gear

🚀 Don’t forget to check out the 🚀Launchpad repo with all of the quick start source files