Skip to content

Getting started with Rancher

Quick start

Run Rancher with Docker

To have a quick look at Rancher UI, follow the procedure given at rancher.com/quick-start. More details on Installing Rancher on a Single Node Using Docker documentation.

  • Open a terminal and use Docker CLI to run Rancher container
# starts Rancher container
docker run --name local_rancher --privileged -d --restart=unless-stopped -p 3001:443 rancher/rancher
# waits few seconds to make sure Rancher is running
curl -k -L https://localhost:3001/dashboard
# gets the generated password
docker logs local_rancher 2>&1 | grep "Bootstrap Password:"
# prints the processes running in Rancher container (k3d, containerd, coredns, rancher in particular)
docker exec -it local_rancher ps -ef

  • Open local Rancher dashboard

    • Ignore the invalid certificate warning
    • Login the password copied in the previous steps
    • Set the password that you want, agree with terms and conditions and click on Continue
    • You are now on Rancher home page! Here you see the list of Kubernetes clusters managed by Rancher
    • Click on the local, which is the one running Rancher
    • Explore the UI with on the left the menu to access all Kubernetes resources, on the top specific actions and the user menu
    • Open a Kubectl shell and inspect the running containers
    # inspects the running container
kubectl get pods -A
# displays the applications installed by Helm (fleet and webhooks)
helm list --all-namespaces

  • Use the terminal to clean resources

# stops Rancher container
docker stop local_rancher
# delete Rancher container
docker rm local_rancher