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Rancher Documentation
https://ranchermanager.docs.rancher.com/
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The "Launching Kubernetes on Windows Clusters" documentation should be revamped #1074

Open kourosh7 opened 7 months ago

kourosh7 commented 7 months ago

Summary

The Launching Kubernetes on Windows Clusters documentation should be revamped. It seems to have outdated info that was leftover from provisioning RKE1 Windows clusters which is now EOL.

Here are some items that I noticed are outdated/incorrect after provisioning a supported WIndows RKE2 cluster through Rancher:

  1. The first section on the page mentions RKE but it should be RKE2 since RKE1 Windows Clusters are EOL.
  2. The first section says, You can only add Windows nodes to a cluster if Windows support is enabled when the cluster is created. Windows support cannot be enabled for existing clusters. However, this is no longer the case on Windows RKE2 clusters.
  3. The first section says, Kubernetes 1.15+ is required. This should be updated to a supported K8s version
  4. The next session is titled: OS and Docker Requirements but Docker is not used in RKE2
  5. The Networking Requirements section says Rancher only supports Windows using Flannel as the network provider. But it is actually calico in RKE2
  6. The Tutorial: How to Create a Cluster with Windows Support says When you create or edit your cluster from the Rancher UI, you will see a Customize Node Run Command that you can run on each server to add it to your cluster. That has changed to the Registration Command
  7. In section 2. Create the Cluster on Existing Nodes, steps 5,6,7,8 are incorrect and should mention a supported K8s version, Calico instead of Flannel, and there is no longer an extra option to enable Windows Support or choose a Flannel Backend
  8. Section 3. Add Nodes to the Cluster should be updated for all three subsections (Add Linux Master Node, Add Linux Worker Node, Add Windows Worker Node). Once the cluster is created from the Cluster Configuration page, you will then have a Registration section which will allow you to select Node Roles in the Step 1 section. Then the Step 2 section will have the Registration Command you run on the nodes. The registration command for the Windows node will become available when the cluster has working Linux nodes with etcd, control plane, and worker roles active.
btat commented 7 months ago

Possibly related to https://github.com/rancher/rancher-docs/issues/997

sunilarjun commented 3 months ago

Hello @kourosh7! I had some questions regarding the page refresh with respect to RKE2:

  1. In the Kubernetes Version section where it states information on v1.15+/v1.21 K8s requirements, are these still needed here or can they be replaced with the support matrix for RKE2 for relevant Kubernetes version info?
  2. Are these descriptions about the two network options relevant here or are they more RKE1 material that can be removed?

Any guidance much appreciated, thank you!

kourosh7 commented 3 months ago

Hi @sunilarjun, sorry for the late reply.

  1. Not needed, I think it would be best to point to the support matrix
  2. Also not needed, those options link to flannel docs, and for rke2 we use calico
kourosh7 commented 3 months ago

For reference, you can see this RKE2 custom cluster created in Rancher using the flannel CNI does not give an option to register a Windows node: image image

Whereas, in this RKE2 custom cluster created in Rancher where calico is the CNI, you can clearly see an option to register a Windows node: image

sunilarjun commented 3 months ago

@kourosh7 Thank you for the response! I've adjusted my PR accordingly with the clarifications.