Skip to main content
Version: v2.5

API Tokens

By default, some cluster-level API tokens are generated with infinite time-to-live (ttl=0). In other words, API tokens with ttl=0 never expire unless you invalidate them. Tokens are not invalidated by changing a password.

You can deactivate API tokens by deleting them or by deactivating the user account.

Deleting tokens​

To delete a token,

  1. Go to the list of all tokens in the Rancher API view at https://<Rancher-Server-IP>/v3/tokens.

  2. Access the token you want to delete by its ID. For example, https://<Rancher-Server-IP>/v3/tokens/kubectl-shell-user-vqkqt

  3. Click Delete.

Here is the complete list of tokens that are generated with ttl=0:

TokenDescription
kubeconfig-*Kubeconfig token
kubectl-shell-*Access to kubectl shell in the browser
agent-*Token for agent deployment
compose-token-*Token for compose
helm-token-*Token for Helm chart deployment
telemetry-*Telemetry token
drain-node-*Token for drain (we use kubectl for drain because there is no native Kubernetes API)

Setting TTL on Kubeconfig Tokens​

Admins can set a global TTL on Kubeconfig tokens. Once the token expires the kubectl command will require the user to authenticate to Rancher.

  1. Disable the kubeconfig-generate-token setting in the Rancher API view at https://<Rancher-Server-IP/v3/settings/kubeconfig-generate-token. This setting instructs Rancher to no longer automatically generate a token when a user clicks on download a kubeconfig file. The kubeconfig file will now provide a command to login to Rancher.

  2. Edit the setting and set the value to false.

  3. Go to setting kubeconfig-token-ttl-minutes in the Rancher API view at https://<Rancher-Server-IP/v3/settings/kubeconfig-token-ttl-minutes. By default, kubeconfig-token-ttl-minutes is 960 (16 hours).

  4. Edit the setting and set the value to desired duration in minutes. Note: This value cannot exceed max-ttl of API tokens.(https://<Rancher-Server-IP/v3/settings/auth-token-max-ttl-minutes). auth-token-max-ttl-minutes is set to 1440 (24 hours) by default. auth-token-max-ttl-minutes would default to 0 allowing tokens to never expire.