Bare Metal - PXE Coreos / Rancher Kubernetes

Rancher 1.x
1

I currently use ipxe /matchbox to automatically boot machines into coreos,
which mounts both an ssd and a raid 6 array and configures the network, ssh key etc…

it works great.

to evaluate rancher:

I currently ran the command to start the management node
sudo docker run -d --restart=unless-stopped -p 10.0.0.1:8080:8080 rancher/server:stable

then I create the kubernetes environment,

then I manually add the local host and other 2 physical nodes by copy pasting the commands provided by the add node web process.

my rancher / kubernetes is now live

excellent.

now I would like this setup to a bit more permanent and survive a reboot.

What is the best practice for maintaining this configuration /state? is there a command I can run on new nodes to auto join the cluster? or does this have to be done manually through the web interface?

Thanks in advance!

2

looks like i am going to ditch rancher and use PXE+matchbox+bootkube instead. Rancher adds an extra layer of complexity and seems to make a few things less flexible inside of kubernetes.