index.en.md

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Creating the RKE2 Cluster	32

In the following module, you will complete the outcomes listed below:

1. Use the Rancher Manager to create a 6 node RKE2 Cluster.
2. Access the manage the newly created RKE2 Cluster using the Rancher Manager.

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Creating the RKE2 Cluster

Cluster Management

Step 1:

Start in the Rancher Manager. Open the side menu by clicking the hamburger button at the top left of the page. In the side menu, click Cluster Management.

Step 2:

Cluster Management is one the most powerful features of the Rancher Manager. You are able to create, import, and manage any type of Kubernetes cluster. We are going to start by creating an Rancher RKE2 Cluster. We will import an EKS Cluster later in the workshop.

For now, you can only view and access the local cluster. This cluster has the Rancher Manager deployed on it and is known as the management cluster. In production deployments, workloads should run only downstream clusters. This allows the two types of clusters to scale independently and prevents a workload from impacting the resources and operation of the Rancher Manager.

Cloud Credentials

Step 1:

Next, we will add AWS credentials to allow Rancher Manager to create and manage Amazon EKS clusters. In the left menu, click Cloud Credentials. You will not see any credentials yet.

Step 2:

In the top right corner, click on Create. Here you will see all the cloud service providers that you can use with the Rancher Manager. We're going to use AWS, so click on Amazon.

Step 3:

AWS CloudFormation created an AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) user when the workshop was provisioned. Next, we will retrieve the credentials for that user from CloudFormation. Just like when we were Exploring the Cluster, go to the AWS Console and navigate to Cloud Formation. Click on the rke2-eks-cluster stack and then click on Outputs tab.

In the Outputs tab, you should see the CloudCredentialKey and CloudCredentialSecret. Let's copy and paste both those values into the Rancher Manager. Below is the information you need to input before clicking "Create". Ensure to update Default Region to us-east-1.

• Name: aws
• Access Key: CloudCredentialKey
• Secret Key: CloudCredentialSecret
• Default Region: us-east-1

Note: Storing IAM User access keys in CloudFormation Outputs is convenient for a workshop environment, but it is NOT a good security practice. Manage your access keys carefully and use temporary security credentials instead whenever possible. For more information, see Managing access keys for IAM users.

Creating the Cluster

Step 1:

Now that we have a Cloud Credential added to the Rancher Manager, let's create a cluster. In the left menu, click Clusters, then click Create. Just like the Cloud Credential menu, you can see all the available Cloud Providers that you can use to create a cluster. Select Amazon EC2.

Step 2:

Here you can see all the available options you can use to configure cluster creation. We will use most of the default values, but feel free to explore as we move through the process. Make sure to include all the values below:

Cluster Information:

• Cloud Credential: aws
• Cluster Name: rke2-cluster
• Cluster Description: rke2 downstream cluster

Machine Pools:

• pool1 (default name)
  • Pool Name: cp-nodes
  • Machine Count: 3
  • Roles: etcd && Control Plane
  • Region: us-east-1
  • Zone: A
  • Instance Type: m5.xlarge
  • Root Disk Size: 128
  • VPC/Subnet: ___-private-1
  • Show Advanced (drop down): Use only private address

Add a new pool with the plus sign on the left pool list panel.

• pool2 (default name)
  • Pool Name: wk-nodes
  • Machine Count: 3
  • Roles: Worker
  • Region: us-east-1
  • Zone: A
  • Instance Type: m5.xlarge
  • Root Disk Size: 128
  • VPC/Subnet: ___-private-1
  • Show Advanced (drop down): Use only private address

Cluster Configuration:

No changes are required in this section, but feel free to explore the different configuration options.

Once you are ready to create the cluster, click on Create.

Step 3:

Here you will see the rke2-cluster listed in the menu we saw before with all the clusters under management of the Rancher Manager.

Step 4:

Select rke2-cluster. You will see that it is starting to create resources on AWS and each of the nodes are in different states. The cluster creation process will take roughly 5 to 10 minutes.

Feel free to continue exploring the Cluster Management feature while you wait for the cluster to create.

Step 5:

Once the cluster nodes have been provisioned, you will see each node and the cluster is marked as Running.

You can select the newly created cluster and explore it. Open the side menu and click on rke2-cluster.

Step 6:

Here you will notice this is the same view that we saw under Exploring the Cluster. You are able to do everything you were able to do before, but now in the created RKE2 cluster.

Completed!

We're done! We created an RKE2 Cluster on EC2 using the Rancher Manager. Let's move on to import an Amazon EKS Cluster into Rancher.