Cluster Management with Rancher and Longhorn

This covers deploying Rancher for cluster management and Longhorn for distributed persistent storage.

Rancher

helm repo add rancher-latest https://releases.rancher.com/server-charts/stable
kubectl create namespace cattle-system

Traefik is already handling ingress, so set tls=external:

helm install rancher rancher-stable/rancher \
  --namespace cattle-system \
  --set hostname=rancher.k3s.your.domain \
  --set tls=external \
  --set replicas=3

Create ingress.yml:

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apiVersion: traefik.io/v1alpha1
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kind: IngressRoute
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metadata:
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  name: rancher
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  namespace: cattle-system
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spec:
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  entryPoints:
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    - websecure
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  routes:
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    - match: Host(`rancher.k3s.your.domain`)
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      kind: Rule
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      services:
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        - name: rancher
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          port: 443
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      middlewares:
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        - name: default-headers
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  tls:
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    secretName: k3s-your-domain-tls

kubectl apply -f ingress.yml

Rancher Dashboard

Longhorn

Install prerequisites on the nodes you want to use for storage:

sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y open-iscsi nfs-common
sudo systemctl enable iscsid
sudo systemctl start iscsid

Label your three worker nodes for HA:

kubectl label node k3s-worker-1 storage.longhorn.io/node=true
kubectl label node k3s-worker-2 storage.longhorn.io/node=true
kubectl label node k3s-worker-3 storage.longhorn.io/node=true

Deploy (this manifest is patched to use the storage.longhorn.io/node=true label):

kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/meroxdotdev/merox.docs/refs/heads/master/K3S/cluster-deployment/longhorn.yaml

Verify:

kubectl get pods --namespace longhorn-system --watch
kubectl get nodes
kubectl get svc -n longhorn-system

Exposing Longhorn via Traefik

Create middleware.yml:

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apiVersion: traefik.io/v1alpha1
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kind: Middleware
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metadata:
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  name: longhorn-headers
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  namespace: longhorn-system
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spec:
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  headers:
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    customRequestHeaders:
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      X-Forwarded-Proto: "https"

Create ingress.yml:

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apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1
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kind: Ingress
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metadata:
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  name: longhorn-ingress
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  namespace: longhorn-system
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  annotations:
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    traefik.ingress.kubernetes.io/router.entrypoints: websecure
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    traefik.ingress.kubernetes.io/router.tls: "true"
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    traefik.ingress.kubernetes.io/router.middlewares: longhorn-system-longhorn-headers@kubernetescrd
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spec:
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  rules:
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  - host: storage.k3s.your.domain
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    http:
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      paths:
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      - path: /
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        pathType: Prefix
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        backend:
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          service:
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            name: longhorn-frontend
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            port:
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              number: 80
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  tls:
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  - hosts:
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    - storage.k3s.your.domain
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    secretName: k3s-your-domain-tls

Longhorn Storage Dashboard

Next Steps

Proceed to the Advanced Resources guide.

Cluster Management with Rancher and Longhorn

Rancher

Longhorn

Exposing Longhorn via Traefik

Next Steps

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