Introduction

Starting with Turtles v0.9.0, the process used for importing CAPI clusters into Rancher is now based on a different controller logic. If you are a new user of Turtles, you can proceed normally and simply install the extension. If you have been using previous versions of Turtles and are upgrading to v0.9.0, we recommend you take a look at the migration mechanisms and their implications:

Rancher Turtles is a Kubernetes Operator that provides integration between Rancher Manager and Cluster API (CAPI) with the aim of bringing full CAPI support to Rancher. With Rancher Turtles, you can:

Automatically import CAPI clusters into Rancher, by installing the Rancher Cluster Agent in CAPI provisioned clusters.
Configure the CAPI Operator.

Demo

This demo shows how to use the Rancher UI to install Rancher Turtles, create/import a CAPI cluster, and install monitoring on the cluster:

Prerequisites

Name Version Details

Name	Version	Details
Kubernetes cluster	`>=1.30.0`
Helm	`>=3.12.0`
Rancher	`>=2.9.0`	Using helm based installation on any kubernetes cluster directly or on a newly created Amazon, Azure or Google service based options.
Cert-manager	`>=v1.15.2`	Using helm based installation or via kubectl apply.
Cluster API Operator	`>=v0.13.0`	Using Rancher UI (recommended) or Helm install (for development use cases)
Cluster API	`v1.7.3`
Rancher Turtles	`>v0.12.0`	Using Rancher UI (recommended) or Helm install (for advanced use cases)

Kubernetes cluster

>=1.30.0

Helm

>=3.12.0

Rancher

>=2.9.0

Using helm based installation on any kubernetes cluster directly or on a newly created Amazon, Azure or Google service based options.

Cert-manager

>=v1.15.2

Using helm based installation or via kubectl apply.

Cluster API Operator

>=v0.13.0

Using Rancher UI (recommended) or Helm install (for development use cases)

Cluster API

v1.7.3

Rancher Turtles

>v0.12.0

Using Rancher UI (recommended) or Helm install (for advanced use cases)

Reference Guides

This section focuses on implementation details including architecture, how Rancher Turtles integrates with Rancher, and Helm Chart configuration values.

Tasks

In this section we cover additional operational tasks including basic CAPIProvider installation, an example AWS infrastructure provider install using CAPIProvider, and upgrade instructions for early adopters of Rancher Turtles.

Security

Rancher Turtles meets SLSA Level 3 requirements as an appropriate hardened build platform, with consistent build processes, and provenance distribution. This section contains more information on security-related topics:

SLSA