rancher-upgradelisted

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.
air-gapped/skills · ★ 3 · AI & Automation · score 79

Install: claude install-skill air-gapped/skills

# rancher-upgrade Plan, sequence, and de-risk a **community-edition Rancher** upgrade across a real fleet: a management ("hosting") cluster and the downstream RKE2/K3s clusters it provisions. The hard part of a Rancher upgrade is almost never the `helm upgrade` itself — it's the **cross-cluster coordination**: a management-cluster Rancher bump silently changes which downstream Kubernetes versions the fleet can run, and getting the order wrong strands sub-clusters or forces a rebuild. **Community editions only.** SUSE Rancher Prime backports, Prime-only patches, and Prime support matrices are out of scope — flag them when they appear, never build a plan on them. House Rule #1. ## Companion to k8s-components-checker — who owns what This skill is the upgrade-methodology companion to `k8s-components-checker` (same repo), mirroring the `argo-cd-apps ↔ compat/argo-cd.md` split. The boundary is load-bearing — respect it to avoid drift: | Question | Skill | |----------|-------| | "Is Rancher version X compatible with the **management cluster's** k8s minor?" | **k8s-components-checker** — `references/compat/rancher.md` is the single source of truth for the mgmt-cluster k8s window per Rancher minor. **Cite it; never restate those numbers here.** | | "Is component Y (Cilium, Rook, …) OK on k8s 1.NN on one cluster?" | **k8s-components-checker** (per-cluster verdict) | | "How do I plan/sequence a Rancher version upgrade, and what happens to my **downstream** clusters?" | **this skill