.. only:: not (epub or latex or html)

WARNING: You are looking at unreleased Cilium documentation.
Please use the official rendered version released here:
https://docs.cilium.io

.. _rke_install:

Installation using Rancher Kubernetes Engine

This guide walks you through installation of Cilium on standalone Rancher Kubernetes Engine (RKE) <https://www.rancher.com/products/secure-kubernetes-distribution>__ clusters, SUSE's CNCF-certified Kubernetes distribution with built-in security and compliance capabilities. RKE solves the common frustration of installation complexity with Kubernetes by removing most host dependencies and presenting a stable path for deployment, upgrades, and rollbacks.

If you're using the Rancher Management Console/UI to install your RKE clusters, head over to the :ref:Installation using Rancher <rancher_managed_rke_clusters> guide.

.. _rke1_cni_none:

Install a Cluster Using RKE1

The first step is to install a cluster based on the RKE1 Kubernetes installation guide <https://rke.docs.rancher.com/installation>. When creating the cluster, make sure to change the default network plugin <https://rancher.com/docs/rke/latest/en/config-options/add-ons/network-plugins/custom-network-plugin-example/> in the generated config.yaml file.

Change:

.. code-block:: yaml

network: options: flannel_backend_type: "vxlan" plugin: "canal"

To:

.. code-block:: yaml

network: plugin: none

Install a Cluster Using RKE2

The first step is to install a cluster based on the RKE2 Kubernetes installation guide <https://docs.rke2.io/install/quickstart>. You can either use the RKE2-integrated Cilium version <https://docs.rke2.io/install/network_options#install-a-cni-plugin> or you can configure the RKE2 cluster with cni: none (see doc <https://docs.rke2.io/reference/server_config>__), and install Cilium with Helm. You can use either method while the directly integrated one is recommended for most users.

Cilium power-users might want to use the cni: none method as Rancher is using a custom rke2-cilium Helm chart <https://github.com/rancher/rke2-charts/tree/main-source/packages/rke2-cilium>__ with independent release cycles for its integrated Cilium version. By instead using the out-of-band Cilium installation (based on the official Cilium Helm chart <https://github.com/cilium/charts>__), power-users gain more flexibility from a Cilium perspective.

Deploy Cilium

.. tabs::

.. group-tab:: Helm v3

    Install Cilium via ``helm install``:

    .. cilium-helm-install::
       :namespace: $CILIUM_NAMESPACE

.. group-tab:: Cilium CLI

    .. include:: cli-download.rst

    Install Cilium by running:

    .. parsed-literal::

        cilium install |CHART_VERSION|

.. include:: k8s-install-validate.rst

.. include:: next-steps.rst