--- title: Rancher Linode Quick Start Guide description: Read this step by step guide to quickly deploy a Rancher server with a single-node downstream Kubernetes cluster attached. --- The following steps will quickly deploy a Rancher server on Linode in a single-node K3s Kubernetes cluster, with a single-node downstream Kubernetes cluster attached. :::caution The intent of these guides is to quickly launch a sandbox that you can use to evaluate Rancher. These guides are not intended for production environments. For comprehensive setup instructions, see [Installation](../../installation-and-upgrade/installation-and-upgrade.md). ::: ## Prerequisites :::caution Deploying to Linode will incur charges. ::: - [Linode Account](https://linode.com): The Linode account to run provision server and cluster under. - [Linode Personal Access Token](https://www.linode.com/docs/products/tools/api/guides/manage-api-tokens/): A Linode Personal Access Token to authenticate with. - [Terraform](https://www.terraform.io/downloads.html): Used to provision the server and cluster on Linode. ## Getting Started 1. Clone [Rancher Quickstart](https://github.com/rancher/quickstart) to a folder using `git clone https://github.com/rancher/quickstart`. 2. Go into the Linode folder containing the Terraform files by executing `cd quickstart/rancher/linode`. 3. Rename the `terraform.tfvars.example` file to `terraform.tfvars`. 4. Edit `terraform.tfvars` and customize the following variables: - `linode_token` - The Linode Personal Access Token mentioned above. - `rancher_server_admin_password` - Admin password for created Rancher server. See [Setting up the Bootstrap Password](../../installation-and-upgrade/resources/bootstrap-password.md#password-requirements) for password requirements. 5. **Optional:** Modify optional variables within `terraform.tfvars`. See the [Quickstart Readme](https://github.com/rancher/quickstart) and the [Linode Quickstart Readme](https://github.com/rancher/quickstart/tree/master/rancher/linode) for more information. Suggestions include: - `linode_region` - The target Linode region to provision the server and cluster in. - Default: `eu-central` - For a complete list of regions, see the [official Region Availability page](https://www.linode.com/global-infrastructure/availability/). - `prefix` - The prefix for all created infrastructure. - `linode_type` - The type/plan that all infrastructure Linodes should use. - Default: `g6-standard-2` - For a complete list of plans, see the [official Plan Types page](https://www.linode.com/docs/products/compute/compute-instances/plans/). 6. Run `terraform init`. 7. To initiate the creation of the environment, run `terraform apply --auto-approve`. Then wait for output similar to the following: ``` Apply complete! Resources: 15 added, 0 changed, 0 destroyed. Outputs: rancher_node_ip = xx.xx.xx.xx rancher_server_url = https://rancher.xx.xx.xx.xx.sslip.io workload_node_ip = yy.yy.yy.yy ``` 8. Paste the `rancher_server_url` from the output above into the browser and log in when prompted. The default username is `admin` and the password is defined in `rancher_server_admin_password`. 9. `ssh` into the Rancher Server using the `id_rsa` key generated in `quickstart/rancher/linode`. #### Result Two Kubernetes clusters are deployed on your Linode account, one running Rancher Server and the other ready for experimentation deployments. Please note that while this setup is a great way to explore Rancher functionality, a production setup should follow our high availability setup guidelines. SSH keys for the VMs are auto-generated and stored in the module directory. ### What's Next? Use Rancher to create a deployment. For more information, see [Creating Deployments](../deploy-workloads/deploy-workloads.md). ## Destroying the Environment 1. From the `quickstart/rancher/linode` folder, execute `terraform destroy --auto-approve`. 2. Wait for confirmation that all resources have been destroyed.