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wonderful-rain-13345

03/26/2023, 1:17 PM
One of the big questions I've had is what exactly to make these images with that rke2 uses. Images using the Ubuntu server iso and using packer to configure were very flaky and when the clusters did deploy they failed often when adding nodes. I am using vSphere btw. I discovered the Ubuntu cloud images which come in various formats. I used the ova which weighs in at ~650mb! Not only do these deploy faster because of their size, RKE2 likes them more! I have clusters deploying in various configurations in like 3 minutes! Wish I would have known about this sooner 😅
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refined-analyst-8898

03/26/2023, 1:57 PM
Glad you found a solution. Are you saying that you are using Rancher Manager to deploy RKE2 clusters with nodes running in vSphere, and you needed to figure out how to compose the disk images for the nodes?
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wonderful-rain-13345

03/26/2023, 2:32 PM
Yes exactly. I was previously using https://github.com/David-VTUK/Rancher-Packer to make images.
I loved how the deprecated docker bootable iso was so simple to use for RKE1.
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An option to use prepackaged images to deploy would be awesome. Ubuntu cloud images would be great, save me the need to update the ova and convert to template
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refined-analyst-8898

03/26/2023, 5:56 PM
Would that be a vSphere feature? I know in Harvester I can create images from the cloud image qcow2 file, then use the image as a volume on a VM.
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wonderful-rain-13345

03/26/2023, 6:02 PM
Oh I was thinking that could be an option on the vsphere driver for rancher
Like instead of choosing a VM template from a library or whatever there could be an option to use cloud images, which rancher would download and push to vsphere
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refined-analyst-8898

03/26/2023, 6:03 PM
That would be convenient.
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wonderful-rain-13345

03/26/2023, 6:03 PM
In my renewed mental model, I think image maintenance is perhaps an anti pattern. A better way could be to use manifests to update the host's configuration
Or addendums cloudinit