How to install Rancher on k3s

k3s, k3OS, and k3d
1

Let me start by stating that I am a Linux novice and I’m entirely new to Rancher and Kubernetes.

I have a lab environment with vSphere 7 (licensed).

I want to install a simple Rancher environment which I can use to setup a vSphere Kubernetes Cluster.

I was advised to install K3s and then setup Rancher on that. My problem is that, installing K3s is very straight forward but once installed, how do I install Rancher? (is there a step-by-step guide with all commands?)

I followed a guide which directed readers to install Helm Chart, cert-manager and then Rancher.

The problem is that I get to the last part of cert-manager and then I get an error stating "could not connect to “127.0.0.1:8080” which makes sense because Kubernetes is running at h “127.0.0.1:6443”.

If I skip that step and move on to step 5, I get an error stating that it could not find the namespace.

Advice for a noob would be appreciated.

2

helm can’t find the info it needs to connect to k3s. You’ll need to set your KUBECONFIG environmental variable.

For example: export KUBECONFIG=/etc/rancher/k3s/k3s.yaml

This stack overflow answer can give you some more context: Error: Kubernetes cluster unreachable: Get "http://localhost:8080/version?timeout=32s": dial tcp 127.0.0.1:8080: connect: connection refused - Stack Overflow