Control Plane

This document helps you install DevZero self-hosted Control Plane on a single-node Rancher Kubernetes cluster.

For a detailed overview of the DevZero Control Plane, click here

What is Rancher?

Rancher is like a control panel for Kubernetes clusters. It gives you an easy-to-use interface where you can manage multiple clusters, monitor workloads, and handle storage or permissions—all from one place. In this setup, we’ll run Rancher on a single server using Docker.

Why use Rancher?

The main reasons to use Rancher are:

It simplifies Kubernetes management.
You get a dashboard to see everything happening in your cluster.
It’s great for small setups or testing environments.

Prerequisites

The following tools and resources are needed to setup a DevZero Control Plane hosted on Rancher:

docker
helm
kubectl
Enough resources to run Rancher on a single-node Kubernetes cluster.

Steps to set up Control Plane on Rancher

Run Rancher on Docker

Run Rancher in a container with this command:

docker run -d --privileged --restart=unless-stopped   --mount -p 9080:80 -p 9443:443   --name rancher-server rancher/rancher:latest

Get the Container ID of the docker container running the Rancher:

docker ps

Get your password to log in to the rancher platform from this command:

docker logs <container-id> 2>&1 | grep "Bootstrap Password:"

Connect with Rancher Cluster

Rancher Dashboard

Update your local kubeconfig with the download kubeconfig of the rancher cluster:

mv local.yaml ~/.kube/config

Set up Local Storage

Apply this manifest to create the required resources to use local storage in persistentvolumeclaim:

kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rancher/local-path-provisioner/refs/heads/master/deploy/local-path-storage.yaml

Set the created storageclass as default:

kubectl patch storageclass local-path -p '{"metadata": {"annotations":{"storageclass.kubernetes.io/is-default-class":"true"}}}'

Install DevZero Control Plane

Install the CRDs for the Control Plane:

helm pull oci://registry-1.docker.io/devzeroinc/dz-data-plane-crds
helm install dz-control-plane-crds oci://registry-1.docker.io/devzeroinc/dz-control-plane-crds -n devzero --create-namespace

Install the Control Plane:

helm pull oci://registry-1.docker.io/devzeroinc/dz-control-plane
helm install dz-control-plane oci://registry-1.docker.io/devzeroinc/dz-control-plane -n devzero --set domain=<your-domain> --set issuer.email=support@devzero.io --set credentials.registry=docker.io/devzeroinc --set credentials.username=<docker-user> --set credentials.password=<docker-pswd> --set credentials.email=garvit3835@gmail.com --set backend.licenseKey=<your-backend-license-key>

Contact the DevZero team at support@devzero.io to get your credentials and license key.

Unseal the Vault

Once the installation is complete, get the keys to unseal the Vault:

kubectl exec -n devzero dz-control-plane-vault-0 -- vault operator init

Copy three unseal keys out of the five in the output and unseal the vault with these commands:

kubectl exec -n devzero dz-control-plane-vault-0 -- vault operator unseal <UNSEAL_KEY_1>
kubectl exec -n devzero dz-control-plane-vault-0 -- vault operator unseal <UNSEAL_KEY_2>
kubectl exec -n devzero dz-control-plane-vault-0 -- vault operator unseal <UNSEAL_KEY_3>

Fix Prometheus DaemonSet Configuration

To resolve the root filesystem mount issue with the Prometheus container running in a Rancher cluster, edit the Prometheus DaemonSet:

kubectl edit daemonset dz-control-plane-prometheus-node-exporter -n devzero

Remove the hostPath with path: /root and mountPath: /host/root

Setting up Data Plane on a Rancher Cluster

To set up the data plane in the same cluster, follow the guide for Setting up the Data Plane on Rancher from here.

Control Plane

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