Quick Start
This guide will help you quickly launch a cluster with default options.
New to Kubernetes? The official Kubernetes docs already have some great tutorials outlining the basics here.
Prerequisites
-
Make sure your environment fulfills the requirements. If NetworkManager is installed and enabled on your hosts, ensure that it is configured to ignore CNI-managed interfaces.
-
If the host kernel supports AppArmor, the AppArmor tools (usually available via the
apparmor-parser
package) must also be present prior to installing RKE2. -
The SUSE® Rancher Prime: RKE2 installation process must be run as the root user or through
sudo
.
Server Node Installation
SUSE® Rancher Prime: RKE2 provides an installation script that is a convenient way to install it as a service on systemd based systems. This script is available at https://get.rke2.io. To install SUSE® Rancher Prime: RKE2 using this method do the following:
-
Run the installer.
curl -sfL https://get.rke2.io | sh -
This will install the
rke2-server
service and therke2
binary onto your machine. Due to its nature, it will fail unless it runs as the root user or throughsudo
. -
Enable the rke2-server service.
systemctl enable rke2-server.service
-
Start the service.
systemctl start rke2-server.service
-
Follow the logs with the following command:
journalctl -u rke2-server -f
After running this installation:
-
The
rke2-server
service will be installed. Therke2-server
service will be configured to automatically restart after node reboots or if the process crashes or is killed. -
Additional utilities will be installed at
/var/lib/rancher/rke2/bin/
. They include:kubectl
,crictl
, andctr
. Note that these are not on your path by default. -
Two cleanup scripts,
rke2-killall.sh
andrke2-uninstall.sh
, will be installed to the path at:-
/usr/local/bin
for regular file systems -
/opt/rke2/bin
for read-only and brtfs file systems -
INSTALL_RKE2_TAR_PREFIX/bin
ifINSTALL_RKE2_TAR_PREFIX
is set
-
-
A kubeconfig file will be written to
/etc/rancher/rke2/rke2.yaml
. -
A token that can be used to register other server or agent nodes will be created at
/var/lib/rancher/rke2/server/node-token
.
If you are adding additional server nodes, you must have an odd number in total. An odd number is needed to maintain quorum. See the High Availability documentation for more details. |
Linux Agent (Worker) Node Installation
The steps on this section requires root level access or sudo
to work.
-
Run the installer.
curl -sfL https://get.rke2.io | INSTALL_RKE2_TYPE="agent" sh -
This will install the
rke2-agent
service and therke2
binary onto your machine. Due to its nature, it will fail unless it runs as the root user or throughsudo
. -
Enable the rke2-agent service.
systemctl enable rke2-agent.service
-
Configure the rke2-agent service.
mkdir -p /etc/rancher/rke2/ vim /etc/rancher/rke2/config.yaml
Content for config.yaml:
server: https://<server>:9345 token: <token from server node>
The
rke2 server
process listens on port9345
for new nodes to register. The Kubernetes API is still served on port6443
, as normal. -
Start the service.
systemctl start rke2-agent.service
-
Follow the logs with the following command:
journalctl -u rke2-agent -f
Each machine must have a unique hostname. If your machines do not have unique hostnames, set the |
Windows Agent (Worker) Node Installation
Windows Support works with Calico or Flannel as the CNI for the RKE2 cluster.
-
Prepare the Windows Agent Node.
The Windows Server Containers feature needs to be enabled for the RKE2 agent to work.
-
Open a new Powershell window with Administrator privileges.
powershell -Command "Start-Process PowerShell -Verb RunAs"
-
In the new Powershell window, run the following command to install the containers feature.
Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName containers –All
This will require a reboot for the
Containers
feature to properly function.
-
-
Download the install script.
Invoke-WebRequest -Uri https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rancher/rke2/master/install.ps1 -Outfile install.ps1
This script will download the
rke2.exe
Windows binary onto your machine. -
Configure the rke2-agent for Windows.
New-Item -Type Directory c:/etc/rancher/rke2 -Force Set-Content -Path c:/etc/rancher/rke2/config.yaml -Value @" server: https://<server>:9345 token: <token from server node> "@
To learn more about the config.yaml file, refer to the Configuration Options documentation.
-
Configure the PATH.
$env:PATH+=";c:\var\lib\rancher\rke2\bin;c:\usr\local\bin" [Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable( "Path", [Environment]::GetEnvironmentVariable("Path", [EnvironmentVariableTarget]::Machine) + ";c:\var\lib\rancher\rke2\bin;c:\usr\local\bin", [EnvironmentVariableTarget]::Machine)
-
Run the installer.
./install.ps1
-
Start the Windows RKE2 Service.
rke2.exe agent service --add
Each machine must have a unique hostname. |
Don’t forget to start the RKE2 service with:
Start-Service rke2
If you would prefer to use CLI parameters only instead, run the binary with the desired parameters.
rke2.exe agent --token <> --server <>