rancher-upgrade

What problem does it solve?

Plan and sequence COMMUNITY-edition Rancher upgrades across air-gapped multi-cluster fleets — a management/"hosting" Rancher cluster plus the downstream RKE2/K3s clusters it provisions. Covers the community release model (2.11→2.14, community-vs-Prime cadence, EOL), the Kontainer Driver Metadata (KDM) downstream- Kubernetes support matrix that decides which downstream k8s minors each Rancher version can manage (and the stranding risk when a host-Rancher bump outruns its sub-clusters), cross-cluster upgrade ordering, the embedded-CAPI→Rancher-Turtles migration, Fleet coupling, cert-manager/Helm/backup prerequisites, backup- restore-operator + etcd rollback, and the air-gapped upgrade procedure (which images/charts/KDM to mirror). Community editions only; Prime-gated content is flagged and excluded. Companion to k8s-components-checker, which owns the management-cluster k8s compatibility verdict; this skill owns the upgrade methodology and downstream coordination.

Core Features & Use Cases

• Cross-cluster upgrade planning and sequencing (management cluster first, downstream scheduling)
• KDM compatibility awareness and fleet-wide coordination
• Air-gap upgrade procedures with backup prerequisites and rollback considerations
• Companion to k8s-components-checker for end-to-end upgrade methodology

Quick Start

Begin by validating your Rancher admin kubeconfig, backing up the management cluster (BRO + etcd snapshot), and following the per-minor runbook to guide the upgrade steps.