The instuctions are outdated now, but will leave here for education purposes.

02/2022

---

K3S Cluster Setup with etcd embedded DB, Managed with Rancher

Setting up a HA K3S Cluster with embedded etcd DB, Rancher, metallb and traefik2

I have to give credit to TechnoTim

(This is based on his guide But I opted to use embedded etcd db instead of an external db and show how to crate it from start to end.)

---

Part 1:

Setting up and configure Nginx LB for K3S API servers.

You can install Nginx on a Linux machine or in a Docker Container

Installing Nginx on Ubuntu. sudo apt install -y nginx

Uninstall Nginx (for any reason you may need to). sudo apt purge nginx* libnginx* && sudo apt autoremove

If you are using a container then all you need is the config you'll find below.

Otherwise if installing on a VM uncomment the load_module line

Nginx conf file found in: /etc/nginx/nginx.conf

Example configuration for K3S

#Uncomment this next line if you are NOT running nginx in docker
#load_module /usr/lib/nginx/modules/ngx_stream_module.so;

events {}

stream {
  upstream k3s_servers {
    server ip_address:6443;
    server ip_address:6443;
	server ip_address:6443;
  }

  server {
    listen 6443;
    proxy_pass k3s_servers;
  }
}

---

Part 2

Installing K3S.

I will be choosing to run version v1.20.5+k3s1 so do a before running the script. export INSTALL_K3S_VERSION=v1.20.5+k3s1

Run the on first server only (as it enables Etcd).

export INSTALL_K3S_VERSION=v1.20.5+k3s1
curl -sfL https://get.k3s.io | sh -s - server --cluster-init --node-taint CriticalAddonsOnly=true:NoExecute --tls-san ip_address_of_lb --write-kubeconfig-mode 644 --disable traefik --disable servicelb

To get the K3S_TOKEN run the following on the first server sudo cat /var/lib/rancher/k3s/server/node-token

Run on the other Server nodes.

export INSTALL_K3S_VERSION=v1.20.5+k3s1
curl -sfL https://get.k3s.io | sh -s - server --server https://ip_address_lb:6443 --token longe_token_here --node-taint CriticalAddonsOnly=true:NoExecute --tls-san ip_address_of_lb --write-kubeconfig-mode 644 --disable traefik --disable servicelb

Run on the worker nodes.

export INSTALL_K3S_VERSION=v1.20.5+k3s1
k3s_token="long_token_here"
k3s_url="https://ip_address_of_lb:6443"
curl -sfL https://get.k3s.io | K3S_URL=${k2s_url} K3S_TOKEN=${k3s_token} sh -

**Important: **

You need to install kubectl on your dev machine to manage the cluster. - Install Kubectl Then copy your kube config to you dev machine.

• To view your kube config on a server do: sudo cat /etc/rancher/k3s/k3s.yaml
• Past the config to your dev machine at ~/.kube/config Note: Be sure to update the server: to your load balancer IP Address or Hostname.

---

Part 3

Installing Rancher.

Note: It's advised you consult the Rancher Support Matrix to get the recommended version for all Rancher dependencies.

https://rancher.com/docs/rancher/v2.x/en/installation/install-rancher-on-k8s/#1-install-the-required-cli-tools

Install Helm curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/helm/helm/master/scripts/get-helm-3 | bash

Add the Helm stable repository. helm repo add rancher-stable https://releases.rancher.com/server-charts/stable

Create rancher namespace kubectl create namespace cattle-system

SSL configuration

Use rancher generated (default)

• Install cert-manager

kubectl apply --validate=false -f https://github.com/jetstack/cert-manager/releases/download/v1.2.0/cert-manager.crds.yaml

• Create name-space for cert-manager. kubectl create namespace cert-manager

• Add the Jetstack Helm repository. helm repo add jetstack https://charts.jetstack.io

• Update Helm repository. helm repo update

• Install cert-manager helm chart

Note: If you receive an "Error: Kubernetes cluster unreachable" message when installing cert-manager, try copying the contents of "/etc/rancher/k3s/k3s.yaml" to "~/.kube/config" to resolve the issue.

helm install \
  cert-manager jetstack/cert-manager \
  --namespace cert-manager \
  --version v1.2.0

Check rollout of cert-manager kubectl get pods --namespace cert-manager

Now we can proceed to install Rancher.

helm install rancher rancher-stable/rancher \
  --namespace cattle-system \
  --set hostname=rancher.example.com \
  --version 2.5.7

(Note: here we are installing version 2.5.7 change if needed.)

Now before we can access the Rancher UI we need to install a load balancer and expose it as a service.

Install Metal LB

Metal LB installation

Metal LB ConfigMap (note: replace the IP Address range with your own)

apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
  namespace: metallb-system
  name: config
data:
  config: |
    address-pools:
    - name: default
      protocol: layer2
      addresses:
      - 192.168.1.240-192.168.1.250

Exposing Rancher directly to your Metal LB

It's a good idea to do this until traefik is configured otherwise you won't have access to the Rancher Ui

kubectl expose deployment rancher -n cattle-system --type=LoadBalancer --name=rancher-lb --port=443

Check the service to see what IP it was given. Make note of the rancher-lb service EXTERNAL-IP kubectl get svc -n cattle-system -o wide

Now important to access the Rancher UI you need to create a local DNS entry for you URL that point to the IP Address it got from Metal LB.

example: rancher.domain.com = 192.16.1.240

Note: you can validate it by doing an nslookup rancher.domain.com

---

Part 4

Installing and configuring Traefik v2 as a Reverse Proxy.

Install Traefik 2

You can can choose between creating Ingress in Rancher or IngresRoute with traefik If you choose IngressRoute pleasse use the config in /configingress-route/traefik-config.yaml

• You must have a persistent volume set up already for acme.json certificate
• This uses cloudflare, check providers if you want to switch
• This will get wildcard certs
• This is pointed at staging, if you want production be sure comment staging the line (and delete your staging certs)

We will be installing this into the kube-system namespace, which already exists. If you are going to use anther namespace you will need change it everywhere.

add traefik helm repo and update

helm repo add traefik https://helm.traefik.io/traefik
helm repo update

create traefik-config.yaml with the contents from /config/traefik-config.yaml

this holds our cloudflare secrets along with a configmap

update this file with your values

apply the config

kubectl apply -f traefik-config.yaml

create traefik-chart-values.yaml with the contents from /config/traefik-chart-values.yaml

Update loadBalancerIP in traefik-chart-values.yaml with your Metal LB IP

Before running this, be sure you only have one default storage class set. If you are using Rancher it is Cluster>Storage>Storage Classes. Make sure only one is default.

create config then update the values

kubectl apply -f traefik-config.yaml

helm install traefik traefik/traefik --namespace=kube-system --values=traefik-chart-values.yaml

If all went well, you should now have traefik 2 installed and configured.

Exposing a service with traefik and Rancher Ingress

In Rancher go to Load Balancing

• create ingress
• choose a host name (service.example.com)
• choose a target (your workload)
• set the port to the exposed port within the container
• go to labels and annotations and add kubernetes.io/ingress.class = traefik-external
• note, traefik-external comes from --providers.kubernetesingress.ingressclass=traefik-external in traefik-chart-values.yml. If you used something else, you will need to set your label properly.
• when you visit your website (https://service.example.com) you should now see a certificate issues. If it's a staging cert, see the note about switching to production in traefik-chart-values.yaml. After changing, you will need to delete your certs in storage and reapply that file

kubectl delete -n kube-system persistentvolumeclaims acme-json-certs
kubectl apply -f traefik-config.yaml

Exposing a service with traefik IngressRoute

copy the contents os /config-ingress-route/kubernetes to your local machine

then run

kubectl apply -f kubernetes

This will create the deployment, service, and ingress.

Dashboard

First you will need htpassword to generate a password for your dashboard

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install apache2-utils

You can then genate one using this, be sure to swap your username and password

htpasswd -nb techno password | openssl base64

it should output

dGVjaG5vOiRhcHIxJFRnVVJ0N2E1JFpoTFFGeDRLMk8uYVNaVWNueG41eTAKCg==

copy traefik-dashboard-secret.yaml locally and update it with your credentials

then apply

kubectl apply -f traefik-config.yaml

copy traefik-dashboard-ingressroute.yaml and update it with your hostname

Save this in a secure place, it will be the password you use to access the traefik dashboard