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RKE2 Setup 🔥

ℹ RKE2 Requirements :
Resources Limits
4GB MEMORY (we recommend at least 8GB)
2 CPU (we recommend at least 4CPU)
60GB STORAGE

âš  We turn off the firewall to avoid problems in the future. We update the packages and clean up any files left over from previous installations.

Ubuntu:

# Ubuntu instructions 
# stop the software firewall
systemctl disable --now ufw
# get updates, install nfs, and apply
apt update
apt install nfs-common -y  
apt upgrade -y
# clean up
apt autoremove -y

Now that we have all the nodes up to date, let's focus on rancher1. While this might seem controversial, curl | bash does work nicely. The install script will use the tarball install for Ubuntu and the RPM install for Rocky/Centos. Please be patient, the start command can take a minute. Here are the rke2 docs and install options for reference.

RKE2 Server Install

#rancher1
curl -sfL https://get.rke2.io | INSTALL_RKE2_TYPE=server sh -

mkdir -p /etc/rancher/rke2/
cat << EOF > /etc/rancher/rke2/config.yaml
kube-apiserver-arg: "kubelet-preferred-address-types=InternalIP,ExternalIP,Hostname"
EOF

# enable and start
systemctl enable --now rke2-server.service

Success

Let's validate everything worked as expected. Run a systemctl status rke2-server and make sure it is active.

Quote

If you want to install a specific version use the following command ;

curl -sfL https://get.rke2.io | INSTALL_RKE2_CHANNEL=v1.24 INSTALL_RKE2_TYPE=server sh -

Perfect! 🎊 Now we can start talking Kubernetes. We need to symlink the kubectl cli on rancher1 that gets installed from RKE2.

# add kubectl conf
echo 'export PATH=$PATH:/var/lib/rancher/rke2/bin KUBECONFIG=/etc/rancher/rke2/rke2.yaml' >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc

# check node status
kubectl get node

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In addition these commands can be used for KUBECONFIG

# simlink all the things - kubectl
ln -s $(find /var/lib/rancher/rke2/data/ -name kubectl) /usr/local/bin/kubectl

# add kubectl conf
export KUBECONFIG=/etc/rancher/rke2/rke2.yaml

We will also need to get the token from rancher1.

# save this for rancher2 and rancher3
cat /var/lib/rancher/rke2/server/node-token

RKE2 Agent Install

The agent install is VERY similar to the server install. Except that we need an agent config file before starting. We will start with rancher2. We need to install the agent and setup the configuration file.

# we add INSTALL_RKE2_TYPE=agent
curl -sfL https://get.rke2.io | INSTALL_RKE2_TYPE=agent sh -

# create config file
mkdir -p /etc/rancher/rke2/ 

# change the ip to reflect your rancher1 ip
echo "server: https://$RANCHER1_IP:9345" > /etc/rancher/rke2/config.yaml

# change the Token to the one from rancher1 /var/lib/rancher/rke2/server/node-token 
echo "token: $TOKEN" >> /etc/rancher/rke2/config.yaml

# enable and start
systemctl enable --now rke2-agent.service

If you want to add your Node as control plane, etcd replace here with below code

Example

systemctl enable --now rke2-agent.service

systemctl enable --now rke2-server.service

Rinse and repeat. Run the same install commands on rancher2, rancher3. Next we can validate all the nodes are playing nice by running kubectl get node -o wide on rancher1.

Run this code ! 🔥

'To check that Kubernetes is running'
kubectl get node

Important Installations Notes

If you are having problems with installations, make sure there are no problems with instances' accessing each other (For Example --Ssh connection--: Permission Denied)

Check below steps if RKE2-Server or RKE2-Agent is not working

  • Rancher1 instances Node Token is correct ?
  • Instances IP address is Correct ?
  • Instance Ports is open (9345, 6443) ?