Rancher 2.5 vs Rancher 2.6 - whats the point?

Rancher
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Can someone explain whats the plan for rancher 2.5.X?

I mean - I love rancher 2.5 simplicity, its much cleaner and user friendly than 2.6 version. But how long 2.5 will be still updated to next minor versions? Is it still worth to install new 2.5 than 2.6? Any differences in the future?

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I managed to get this URL, it shows the dates for Rancher support phases.
https://www.suse.com/lifecycle/

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Couldn’t agree more. 2.5 provides GUI for general IT persons. 2.6 feels like it’s for devs only.

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2.6 contains all the functionality of 2.5 and much more. If there are specific features that aren’t obvious or seem confusing please let us know.

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@RichardC ,

I have migrated Rancher from 2.5 to 2.6, most of the things are not working. Even my helmv3 also not working.

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I had trouble migrating from 2.5 to 2.6 as well. Been a few months though so I’m going to try again soon. Otherwise, we will somehow have to build out a new Rancher environment using 2.6 and migrate what clusters we can (can RKE clusters built via Rancher 2.2/2.3/2.4 even be transferred to a Rancher 2.6 environment?)

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Fwiw- Just did a 2.5.15 → 2.6.7 upgrade today and it was successful. I was not able to use AD because my “GODEBUG=x509ignoreCN=0” env var seems to be ignored, and it choked on our AD server’s TLS cert, but after disabling TLS for the AD auth stuff, it works fine. (Just need that last one figured out…)

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While I liked the pre 2.6 interface, to me the best way to describe it is the difference between a consumer and enterprise interface. 2.6 is more condensed and easier to get a broader understanding of the cluster. And easier to drill in deeper when one needs to.

There is definitely a learning curve going from 2.5 to 2.6 - can’t find anything at first. And takes a lot longer to do something that you used to quickly do. But once you get past the learning curve (which is really just due to legacy knowledge) I find it to be a lot more powerful and actually easier to use.

Perhaps the analogy between a Tesla and a Porsche applies. Both will get you there. But one is a lot more fun driving… :wink: