Create & Import Your First Cluster Using kubectl
This section will guide you through creating your first cluster and importing it into Rancher Manager using kubectl.
Prerequisites​
- Rancher Manager cluster with Rancher Turtles installed
- Cluster API providers installed for your scenario - we'll be using the Docker infrastructure and RKE2 bootstrap/control plane providers in these instructions - see Initialization for common providers using Turtles'
CAPIProvider - clusterctl CLI - see the releases
Create Your Cluster Definition​
To generate the YAML for the cluster, do the following (assuming the Docker infrastructure provider is being used):
- Open a terminal and run the following:
export CONTROL_PLANE_MACHINE_COUNT=1
export WORKER_MACHINE_COUNT=1
export KUBERNETES_VERSION=v1.30.0
clusterctl generate cluster cluster1 \
--from https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rancher-sandbox/rancher-turtles-fleet-example/templates/docker-rke2.yaml \
> cluster1.yaml
- View cluster1.yaml to ensure there are no tokens. You can make any changes you want as well.
The Cluster API quickstart guide contains more detail. Read the steps related to this section here.
- Create the cluster using kubectl
kubectl create -f cluster1.yaml
Mark Namespace or Cluster for Auto-Import​
To automatically import a CAPI cluster into Rancher Manager, there are 2 options:
- Label a namespace so all clusters contained in it are imported.
- Label an individual cluster definition so that it's imported.
Labeling a namespace:
kubectl label namespace default cluster-api.cattle.io/rancher-auto-import=true
Labeling an individual cluster definition:
kubectl label cluster.cluster.x-k8s.io cluster1 cluster-api.cattle.io/rancher-auto-import=true