Rancher

Rancher is a complete software stack for teams adopting containers. It addresses the operational and security challenges of managing multiple Kubernetes clusters.

When to Use

• Multi-Cluster: Manage EKS, AKS, GKE, and on-prem RKE2 clusters from a single pane of glass.
• User Management: Unified Auth (SSO) across all clusters.
• Edge: Manage thousands of small K3s clusters (retail/IoT).

Core Concepts

RKE2

Rancher’s Government-grade Kubernetes distribution. Secure by default, FIPS compliant.

Fleet

GitOps at scale. Deploy bundles of resources to 10,000 clusters simultaneously.

Cluster Explorer

A rich UI for interacting with Kubernetes resources (CRDs, logs, shells) without needing kubectl setup locally.

Best Practices (2025)

Do:

• Use Fleet: For managing deployments across many clusters. It’s built into Rancher.
• Use RKE2/K3s: For the downstream clusters provided by Rancher.
• Centralize Auth: Hook Rancher up to your OIDC/AD provider once, and get RBAC across all clusters.

Don’t:

• Don’t expose Rancher UI publicly: It’s the keys to the kingdom. Put it behind a VPN or strict Identity Aware Proxy.

References

• Rancher Documentation