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Version: v2.8

Rancher Linode Quick Start Guide

The following steps will quickly deploy a Rancher server on Linode in a single-node K3s Kubernetes cluster, with a single-node downstream Kubernetes cluster attached.

caution

The intent of these guides is to quickly launch a sandbox that you can use to evaluate Rancher. These guides are not intended for production environments. For comprehensive setup instructions, see Installation.

Prerequisites

caution

Deploying to Linode will incur charges.

Getting Started

  1. Clone Rancher Quickstart to a folder using git clone https://github.com/rancher/quickstart.

  2. Go into the Linode folder containing the Terraform files by executing cd quickstart/rancher/linode.

  3. Rename the terraform.tfvars.example file to terraform.tfvars.

  4. Edit terraform.tfvars and customize the following variables:

  • linode_token - The Linode Personal Access Token mentioned above.
  • rancher_server_admin_password - Admin password for created Rancher server. See Setting up the Bootstrap Password for password requirements.
  1. Optional: Modify optional variables within terraform.tfvars. See the Quickstart Readme and the Linode Quickstart Readme for more information. Suggestions include:
  • linode_region - The target Linode region to provision the server and cluster in.
  • prefix - The prefix for all created infrastructure.
  • linode_type - The type/plan that all infrastructure Linodes should use.
  1. Run terraform init.

  2. To initiate the creation of the environment, run terraform apply --auto-approve. Then wait for output similar to the following:

    Apply complete! Resources: 15 added, 0 changed, 0 destroyed.

    Outputs:

    rancher_node_ip = xx.xx.xx.xx
    rancher_server_url = https://rancher.xx.xx.xx.xx.sslip.io
    workload_node_ip = yy.yy.yy.yy
  3. Paste the rancher_server_url from the output above into the browser and log in when prompted. The default username is admin and the password is defined in rancher_server_admin_password.

  4. ssh into the Rancher Server using the id_rsa key generated in quickstart/rancher/linode.

Result

Two Kubernetes clusters are deployed on your Linode account, one running Rancher Server and the other ready for experimentation deployments. Please note that while this setup is a great way to explore Rancher functionality, a production setup should follow our high availability setup guidelines. SSH keys for the VMs are auto-generated and stored in the module directory.

What's Next?

Use Rancher to create a deployment. For more information, see Creating Deployments.

Destroying the Environment

  1. From the quickstart/rancher/linode folder, execute terraform destroy --auto-approve.

  2. Wait for confirmation that all resources have been destroyed.