AppImage is a brilliant way to have executable linux apps to every distro, without the need of re-packaging or re-build them. Without getting into too many details, it uses FUSE (Filesystem in Userspace) and SquashFS to bundle the app into one file.

AppImages require FUSE to run. Filesystem in Userspace (FUSE) is a system that lets non-root users mount filesystems.

So here are my personal notes on how to create Mozilla Firefox 68.3.0esr binary archive to an AppImage file.

download

Let’s begin by gathering all necessaries files

export VERSION=68.3.0esr

curl -sLO https://github.com/AppImage/AppImageKit/releases/download/continuous/appimagetool-x86_64.AppImage

curl -sL https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/$VERSION/linux-x86_64/en-US/firefox-$VERSION.tar.bz2 | tar xjf -

configuration files

we need 3 files, under the firefox directory

• AppRun (executable shell script)
• Icon (.png,.svg,.xpm)
• firefox.desktop (freedesktop.org desktop file)

AppRun

this is our guide, this file will start our application inside the AppImage mount.

#!/bin/sh
cd "$(dirname "$0")"
exec ./firefox "$@"

or

cat > firefox/AppRun <<EOF
#!/bin/sh
cd "\$(dirname "\$0")"
exec ./firefox "\$@"

EOF

Dont forget to make it executable

chmod +x firefox/AppRun

Icon

There is an image within firefox directory that we can use as firefox icon:

./firefox/browser/chrome/icons/default/default128

firefox.desktop

for more info check here: Desktop Entry Specification

[Desktop Entry]
Categories=Network;WebBrowser;
Icon=/browser/chrome/icons/default/default128
Name=Mozilla Firefox
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Version=1.0

or

cat > firefox/firefox.desktop <<EOF
[Desktop Entry]
Categories=Network;WebBrowser;
Icon=/browser/chrome/icons/default/default128
Name=Mozilla Firefox
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Version=1.0
EOF

In the Icon attribute, it must be an absolute path, not relative.

Perms

Give execute permission to appimagetool

chmod +x appimagetool-x86_64.AppImage

Build your AppImage

./appimagetool-x86_64.AppImage --no-appstream firefox/

Mozilla Firefox

if everything is okay, you will see this:

ls -l Mozilla_Firefox-x86_64.AppImage

and you can run it !

./Mozilla_Firefox-x86_64.AppImage

if you want to run a specific profile:

./Mozilla_Firefox-x86_64.AppImage --profile $(pwd)/.mozilla/firefox/ichznbon.test/

Mount

When you are running your AppImage, you will notice that there is a new mount point in our system (fusermount)

$ mount | grep -i firefox
Mozilla_Firefox-x86_64.AppImage on /tmp/.mount_MozillshcmPB type fuse.Mozilla_Firefox-x86_64.AppImage (ro,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=347,group_id=347)

and if you look really careful, you will see that it is mounted under /tmp/ !

$ ls /tmp/.mount_MozillshcmPB
application.ini     firefox          icons               libmozsqlite3.so  libplc4.so       minidump-analyzer     Throbber-small.gif
AppRun              firefox-bin      libfreeblpriv3.chk  libmozwayland.so  libplds4.so      omni.ja               updater
browser             firefox-bin.sig  libfreeblpriv3.so   libnspr4.so       libsmime3.so     pingsender            updater.ini
chrome.manifest     firefox.desktop  liblgpllibs.so      libnss3.so        libsoftokn3.chk  platform.ini          update-settings.ini
crashreporter       firefox.sig      libmozavcodec.so    libnssckbi.so     libsoftokn3.so   plugin-container
crashreporter.ini   fonts            libmozavutil.so     libnssdbm3.chk    libssl3.so       plugin-container.sig
defaults            gmp-clearkey     libmozgtk.so        libnssdbm3.so     libxul.so        precomplete
dependentlibs.list  gtk2             libmozsandbox.so    libnssutil3.so    libxul.so.sig    removed-files

That’s it !

Your first AppImage bundle linux package.

Docker Notes

FUSE · AppImage/AppImageKit Wiki · GitHub

docker run --cap-add SYS_ADMIN --cap-add MKNOD --device /dev/fuse:mrw --rm -ti ubuntu:18.04 bash

 apt-get update

 apt-get -y install curl libfuse2 file 

 export VERSION=68.3.0esr

 curl -sLO https://github.com/AppImage/AppImageKit/releases/download/continuous/appimagetool-x86_64.AppImage

 curl -sL https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/$VERSION/linux-x86_64/en-US/firefox-$VERSION.tar.bz2 | tar xjf -

 cat > firefox/AppRun <<EOF
#!/bin/sh
cd "\$(dirname "\$0")"
exec ./firefox "\$@"
EOF

 cat > firefox/firefox.desktop <<EOF
[Desktop Entry]
Categories=Network;WebBrowser;
Icon=/browser/chrome/icons/default/default128
Name=Mozilla Firefox
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Version=1.0
EOF

 chmod +x appimagetool-x86_64.AppImage

 ./appimagetool-x86_64.AppImage --no-appstream firefox/

appimagetool, continuous build (commit 64321b7), build 2111 built on 2019-11-23 22:20:53 UTC
WARNING: gpg2 or gpg command is missing, please install it if you want to create digital signatures
Using architecture x86_64
/firefox should be packaged as Mozilla_Firefox-x86_64.AppImage
Deleting pre-existing .DirIcon
Creating .DirIcon symlink based on information from desktop file
Generating squashfs...
Parallel mksquashfs: Using 8 processors
Creating 4.0 filesystem on Mozilla_Firefox-x86_64.AppImage, block size 131072.
[===========================================================================================================================|] 1583/1583 100%

Exportable Squashfs 4.0 filesystem, gzip compressed, data block size 131072
    compressed data, compressed metadata, compressed fragments,
    compressed xattrs, compressed ids
    duplicates are removed
Filesystem size 71064.05 Kbytes (69.40 Mbytes)
    36.14% of uncompressed filesystem size (196646.16 Kbytes)
Inode table size 5305 bytes (5.18 Kbytes)
    60.46% of uncompressed inode table size (8774 bytes)
Directory table size 1026 bytes (1.00 Kbytes)
    54.78% of uncompressed directory table size (1873 bytes)
Number of duplicate files found 3
Number of inodes 81
Number of files 67
Number of fragments 7
Number of symbolic links  1
Number of device nodes 0
Number of fifo nodes 0
Number of socket nodes 0
Number of directories 13
Number of ids (unique uids + gids) 1
Number of uids 1
    root (0)
Number of gids 1
    root (0)
Embedding ELF...
Marking the AppImage as executable...
Embedding MD5 digest
Success

Please consider submitting your AppImage to AppImageHub, the crowd-sourced
central directory of available AppImages, by opening a pull request
at https://github.com/AppImage/appimage.github.io

final notes:

 du -h Mozilla_Firefox-x86_64.AppImage
70M Mozilla_Firefox-x86_64.AppImage

 ls -l Mozilla_Firefox-x86_64.AppImage
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 72962088 Dec 26 21:55 Mozilla_Firefox-x86_64.AppImage

 file Mozilla_Firefox-x86_64.AppImage
Mozilla_Firefox-x86_64.AppImage: ELF 64-bit LSB executable, x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked, interpreter /lib64/l, for GNU/Linux 2.6.18, stripped

 ldd Mozilla_Firefox-x86_64.AppImage
    not a dynamic executable

original post on LibreOps

A couple months ago, we announced a public and free DNS service, so people can have encrypted DNS in their browsers and systems. We support both DNS over HTTPS (DoH) and DNS over TLS and our DoH service has two endpoints, the default /dns-query and one for blocking trackers and ads /ads. You can visit our page for more info.

dns

What is DNS?

Domain Name Service in a nutshell is when you are asking directions to find where Wikipedia is in the internet. Your browser does not know, so it will ask your computer. Your computer will ask your internet provider and your internet provider will ask someone else till they find the correct answer. In the end, your browser will know where to go and this is how you are visiting Wikipedia.

You need to trust all the above parties, to give you the correct answer and everybody knows that you are visiting Wikipedia.

doh

What is DoH (DNS Queries over HTTPS)?

It’s the implementation of RFC 8484. This is a way for your browser to ask where to find Wikipedia, without exposing to everybody that you want to visit Wikipedia! Still you need someone to ask for directions, but now both your question and the answer are encrypted. So you have privacy.

let’s get technical

What is RFC 8484?

In the above rfc, your client (eg. browser) asks your DNS via HTTP/2 representational state transfer (REST). DoH clients and servers need to sent a application/dns-message content (question/answer) and encode both the question and the answer in a bace64url message. Usually is GET, but POST is also supported on some servers.

doh-cli

So, today, we introduce doh-cli, a simple command line DoH client, written in python. You can use doh-cli as a binary client in your system. We support a few DoH public servers to test, and of course both LibreDNS DoH endpoints

You can see the code here:

• Source Code
• PyPi

install it

It is super easy

pip install doh-cli

or if python3 is not your default python

pip3 install doh-cli

howto use it?

Just ask your favorite DoH server (default is https://doh.libredns.gr/dns-query)

eg.

doh-cli libredns.gr A

and use help to see all the options

doh-cli --help

Why default output is json?

With modern tools and with multiline output, it is best to support a serialized format so you can use doh-cli with your tools. But if you dont like it:

doh-cli --output plain libredns.gr A

You can see all the options and help, on the project’s page.

A few day ago, I was introduced to xip.io.
TLDR; You can have hostname for any IP Address!

ipname.me

$ dig +short @ipname.me www.192-168-1-1-ipname.me
192.168.1.1

project

It uses the powerdns pipe backend to run a (187 lines) bash script, that strips the IP from the hostname and returns the IP. This works so well, that a few services depends on xip!

I was playing with the idea of using dnsdist to do that with the embedded Lua supports that dnsdist has. And the proof-of-concept result is about 10lines of Lua code.

The project is here: ipname on github

ifconfig

But not only returns you an IP Address for any (dynamic) hostname you ask, but you can also use this free & public service as a what-is-my-ip project over DNS.

$ dig +short @ipname.me googleyahoo.com
116.202.176.26

PS The code also validates the IPv4 Addresses!

In this blog post I will describe the easiest installation of a DoH/DoT VM for personal use, using dnsdist.

Next I will present a full installation example (from start) with dnsdist and PowerDNS.

Server Notes: Ubuntu 18.04
Client Notes: Archlinux

Every {{ }} is a variable you need to change.
Do NOT copy/paste without making the changes.

Login to VM

and became root

$ ssh {{ VM }}
$ sudo -i

from now on, we are running commands as root.

TLDR;

dnsdist DoH/DoT

If you just need your own DoH and DoT instance, then dnsdist will forward your cleartext queries to another public DNS server with the below configuration.

cat > /etc/dnsdist/dnsdist.conf <<EOF

-- resets the list to this array
setACL("::/0")
addACL("0.0.0.0/0")

addDOHLocal('0.0.0.0', '/etc/dnsdist/fullchain.pem', '/etc/dnsdist/privkey.pem')
addTLSLocal('0.0.0.0', '/etc/dnsdist/fullchain.pem', '/etc/dnsdist/privkey.pem')

newServer({address="9.9.9.9:53"})
EOF

You will need -of course- to have your certificates before hand.
That’s It !

a DoH/DoT using dnsdist and powerdns

For people that need a more in-depth article, here are my notes on how to setup from scratch an entire VM with powerdns recursor and dnsdist.

Let’s Begin:

Enable PowerDNS Repos

Add key

curl -sL https://repo.powerdns.com/FD380FBB-pub.asc | apt-key add -
OK

Create PowerDNS source list

cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/powerdns.list <<EOF
deb [arch=amd64] http://repo.powerdns.com/ubuntu bionic-dnsdist-14 main
deb [arch=amd64] http://repo.powerdns.com/ubuntu bionic-rec-42 main
EOF

cat > /etc/apt/preferences.d/pdns <<EOF
Package: pdns-* dnsdist*
Pin: origin repo.powerdns.com
Pin-Priority: 600
EOF

Update System and Install packages

apt-get update
apt-get -qy install dnsdist pdns-recursor certbot

You may see errors from powerdns, like

  failed: E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

ignore them for the time being.

PowerDNS Recursor

We are going to setup our recursor first and let’s make it a little interesting.

PowerDNS Configuration

cat > /etc/powerdns/recursor.conf <<EOF
config-dir=/etc/powerdns
hint-file=/etc/powerdns/root.hints
local-address=127.0.0.1
local-port=5353
lua-dns-script=/etc/powerdns/pdns.lua
etc-hosts-file=/etc/powerdns/hosts.txt
export-etc-hosts=on
quiet=yes
setgid=pdns
setuid=pdns
EOF

chmod 0644 /etc/powerdns/recursor.conf
chown pdns:pdns /etc/powerdns/recursor.conf

Create a custom response

This will be handy for testing our dns from cli.

cat > /etc/powerdns/pdns.lua <<EOF
domainame = "test.{{ DOMAIN }}"
response  = "{{ VM_ipv4.address }}"

function nxdomain(dq)
    if dq.qname:equal(domainame) then
        dq.rcode=0 -- make it a normal answer
        dq:addAnswer(pdns.A, response)
        dq.variable = true -- disable packet cache
        return true
    end
    return false
end
EOF

chmod 0644 /etc/powerdns/pdns.lua
chown pdns:pdns /etc/powerdns/pdns.lua

AdBlock

Let’s make it more interesting, block trackers and ads.

cat > /usr/local/bin/update.stevenBlack.hosts.sh <<EOF
#!/bin/bash

# Get StevenBlack hosts
curl -sLo /tmp/hosts.txt https://raw.githubusercontent.com/StevenBlack/hosts/master/hosts

touch /etc/powerdns/hosts.txt

# Get diff
diff -q <(sort -V /etc/powerdns/hosts.txt | column -t) <(sort -V /tmp/hosts.txt | column -t)
DIFF_STATUS=$?

# Get Lines
LINES=`grep -c ^ /tmp/hosts.txt`

# Check & restart if needed
if [ "${LINES}" -gt "200" -a "${DIFF_STATUS}" != "0" ]; then
    mv -f /tmp/hosts.txt /etc/powerdns/hosts.txt
    chmod 0644 /etc/powerdns/hosts.txt
    chown pdns:pdns /etc/powerdns/hosts.txt
    systemctl restart pdns-recursor
fi

# vim: sts=2 sw=2 ts=2 et
EOF

chmod +x /usr/local/bin/update.stevenBlack.hosts.sh
/usr/local/bin/update.stevenBlack.hosts.sh

Be Careful with Copy/Paste. Check the $ dollar sign.

OpenNic Project

Is it possible to make it more interesting ?
Yes! by using OpenNIC Project, instead of the default root NS

cat > /usr/local/bin/update.root.hints.sh <<EOF
#!/bin/bash

# Get root hints
dig . NS @75.127.96.89 | egrep -v '^;|^$' > /tmp/root.hints

touch /etc/powerdns/root.hints

# Get diff
diff -q <(sort -V /etc/powerdns/root.hints | column -t) <(sort -V /tmp/root.hints | column -t)
DIFF_STATUS=$?

# Get Lines
LINES=`grep -c ^ /tmp/root.hints`

# Check & restart if needed
if [ "${LINES}" -gt "20" -a "${DIFF_STATUS}" != "0" ]; then
    mv -f /tmp/root.hints /etc/powerdns/root.hints
    chmod 0644 /etc/powerdns/root.hints
    chown pdns:pdns /etc/powerdns/root.hints
    systemctl restart pdns-recursor
fi

# vim: sts=2 sw=2 ts=2 et
EOF

chmod +x /usr/local/bin/update.root.hints.sh
/usr/local/bin/update.root.hints.sh

dnsdist

dnsdist is a DNS load balancer with enhanced features.

dnsdist configuration

cat > /etc/dnsdist/dnsdist.conf <<EOF
-- resets the list to this array
setACL("::/0")
addACL("0.0.0.0/0")

addDOHLocal('0.0.0.0', '/etc/dnsdist/fullchain.pem', '/etc/dnsdist/privkey.pem')
addTLSLocal('0.0.0.0', '/etc/dnsdist/fullchain.pem', '/etc/dnsdist/privkey.pem')

newServer({address="127.0.0.1:5353"})
EOF

Certbot

Now it is time to get a new certificate with the help of letsencrypt.

Replace {{ DOMAIN }} with your domain

We need to create the post hook first and this is why we need to copy the certificates under dnsdist folder.

cat > /usr/local/bin/certbot_post_hook.sh <<EOF
#!/bin/bash

cp -f /etc/letsencrypt/live/{{ DOMAIN }}/*pem /etc/dnsdist/
systemctl restart dnsdist.service

# vim: sts=2 sw=2 ts=2 et
EOF

chmod +x /usr/local/bin/certbot_post_hook.sh

and of course create a certbot script.

Caveat: I have the dry-run option in the below script. When you are ready, remove it.

cat > /usr/local/bin/certbot.create.sh <<EOF
#!/bin/bash

certbot --dry-run --agree-tos --standalone certonly --register-unsafely-without-email
    --pre-hook 'systemctl stop dnsdist'
    --post-hook /usr/local/bin/certbot_post_hook.sh
    -d {{ DOMAIN }} -d doh.{{ DOMAIN }} -d dot.{{ DOMAIN }}

# vim: sts=2 sw=2 ts=2 et
EOF

chmod +x /usr/local/bin/certbot.create.sh

Firewall

Now open your firewall to the below TCP Ports:

ufw allow 80/tcp
ufw allow 443/tcp
ufw allow 853/tcp

• TCP 80 for certbot
• TCP 443 for dnsdist (DoT) and certbot !
• TCP 853 for dnsdist (DoH)

Let’s Encrypt

When you are ready, run the script

/usr/local/bin/certbot.create.sh

That’s it !

Client

For this blog post, my test settings are:

Domain: ipname.me
IP: 88.99.36.45

DoT - Client

From systemd 243+ there is an option to validate certificates on DoT but

systemd-resolved only validates the DNS server certificate if it is issued for the server’s IP address (a rare occurrence).

so it is best to use: opportunistic

/etc/systemd/resolved.conf 

[Resolve]
DNS=88.99.36.45
FallbackDNS=1.1.1.1
DNSSEC=no
#DNSOverTLS=yes
DNSOverTLS=opportunistic
Cache=yes
ReadEtcHosts=yes

systemctl restart systemd-resolved

Query

resolvectl query test.ipname.me 

test.ipname.me: 88.99.36.45                    -- link: eth0

-- Information acquired via protocol DNS in 1.9ms.
-- Data is authenticated: no

DoH - Client

Firefox Settings

Firefox TRR

dnsleak

Click on DNS leak test site to verify

In this blog post you will find my personal notes on how to setup a Kubernetes as a Service (KaaS). I will be using Terraform to create the infrastructure on Hetzner’s VMs, Rancher for KaaS and Helm to install the first application on Kubernetes.

Many thanks to dear friend: adamo for his help.

Terraform

Let’s build our infrastructure!
We are going to use terraform to build 5 VMs

• One (1) master
• One (1) etcd
• Two (2) workers
• One (1) for the Web dashboard

I will not go to much details about terraform, but to have a basic idea

Provider.tf

provider "hcloud" {
    token = var.hcloud_token
}

Hetzner.tf

data "template_file" "userdata" {
  template = "${file("user-data.yml")}"
  vars = {
    hostname = var.domain
    sshdport = var.ssh_port
  }
}

resource "hcloud_server" "node" {
  count       = 5
  name        = "rke-${count.index}"
  image       = "ubuntu-18.04"
  server_type = "cx11"
  user_data   = data.template_file.userdata.rendered
}

Output.tf

output "IPv4" {
  value = hcloud_server.node.*.ipv4_address
}

In my user-data (cloud-init) template, the most important lines are these

  - usermod -a -G docker deploy
  - ufw allow 6443/tcp
  - ufw allow 2379/tcp
  - ufw allow 2380/tcp
  - ufw allow 80/tcp
  - ufw allow 443/tcp

build infra

$ terraform init
$ terraform plan
$ terraform apply

output

IPv4 = [
  "78.47.6x.yyy",
  "78.47.1x.yyy",
  "78.46.2x.yyy",
  "78.47.7x.yyy",
  "78.47.4x.yyy",
]

In the end we will see something like this on hetzner cloud

Rancher Kubernetes Engine

Take a look here for more details about what is required and important on using rke: Requirements.

We are going to use the rke aka the Rancher Kubernetes Engine, an extremely simple, lightning fast Kubernetes installer that works everywhere.

download

Download the latest binary from github:
Release Release v1.0.0

$ curl -sLO https://github.com/rancher/rke/releases/download/v1.0.0/rke_linux-amd64
$ chmod +x rke_linux-amd64
$ sudo mv rke_linux-amd64 /usr/local/bin/rke

version

$ rke --version

rke version v1.0.0

rke config

We are ready to configure our Kubernetes Infrastructure using the first 4 VMs.

$ rke config

master

[+] Cluster Level SSH Private Key Path [~/.ssh/id_rsa]:
[+] Number of Hosts [1]: 4
[+] SSH Address of host (1) [none]: 78.47.6x.yyy
[+] SSH Port of host (1) [22]:
[+] SSH Private Key Path of host (78.47.6x.yyy) [none]:
[-] You have entered empty SSH key path, trying fetch from SSH key parameter
[+] SSH Private Key of host (78.47.6x.yyy) [none]:
[-] You have entered empty SSH key, defaulting to cluster level SSH key: ~/.ssh/id_rsa
[+] SSH User of host (78.47.6x.yyy) [ubuntu]:
[+] Is host (78.47.6x.yyy) a Control Plane host (y/n)? [y]:
[+] Is host (78.47.6x.yyy) a Worker host (y/n)? [n]: n
[+] Is host (78.47.6x.yyy) an etcd host (y/n)? [n]: n
[+] Override Hostname of host (78.47.6x.yyy) [none]: rke-master
[+] Internal IP of host (78.47.6x.yyy) [none]:
[+] Docker socket path on host (78.47.6x.yyy) [/var/run/docker.sock]: 

etcd

[+] SSH Address of host (2) [none]: 78.47.1x.yyy
[+] SSH Port of host (2) [22]:
[+] SSH Private Key Path of host (78.47.1x.yyy) [none]:
[-] You have entered empty SSH key path, trying fetch from SSH key parameter
[+] SSH Private Key of host (78.47.1x.yyy) [none]:
[-] You have entered empty SSH key, defaulting to cluster level SSH key: ~/.ssh/id_rsa
[+] SSH User of host (78.47.1x.yyy) [ubuntu]:
[+] Is host (78.47.1x.yyy) a Control Plane host (y/n)? [y]: n
[+] Is host (78.47.1x.yyy) a Worker host (y/n)? [n]: n
[+] Is host (78.47.1x.yyy) an etcd host (y/n)? [n]: y
[+] Override Hostname of host (78.47.1x.yyy) [none]: rke-etcd
[+] Internal IP of host (78.47.1x.yyy) [none]:
[+] Docker socket path on host (78.47.1x.yyy) [/var/run/docker.sock]: 

workers

worker-01

[+] SSH Address of host (3) [none]: 78.46.2x.yyy
[+] SSH Port of host (3) [22]:
[+] SSH Private Key Path of host (78.46.2x.yyy) [none]:
[-] You have entered empty SSH key path, trying fetch from SSH key parameter
[+] SSH Private Key of host (78.46.2x.yyy) [none]:
[-] You have entered empty SSH key, defaulting to cluster level SSH key: ~/.ssh/id_rsa
[+] SSH User of host (78.46.2x.yyy) [ubuntu]:
[+] Is host (78.46.2x.yyy) a Control Plane host (y/n)? [y]: n
[+] Is host (78.46.2x.yyy) a Worker host (y/n)? [n]: y
[+] Is host (78.46.2x.yyy) an etcd host (y/n)? [n]: n
[+] Override Hostname of host (78.46.2x.yyy) [none]: rke-worker-01
[+] Internal IP of host (78.46.2x.yyy) [none]:
[+] Docker socket path on host (78.46.2x.yyy) [/var/run/docker.sock]: 

worker-02

[+] SSH Address of host (4) [none]: 78.47.4x.yyy
[+] SSH Port of host (4) [22]:
[+] SSH Private Key Path of host (78.47.4x.yyy) [none]:
[-] You have entered empty SSH key path, trying fetch from SSH key parameter
[+] SSH Private Key of host (78.47.4x.yyy) [none]:
[-] You have entered empty SSH key, defaulting to cluster level SSH key: ~/.ssh/id_rsa
[+] SSH User of host (78.47.4x.yyy) [ubuntu]:
[+] Is host (78.47.4x.yyy) a Control Plane host (y/n)? [y]: n
[+] Is host (78.47.4x.yyy) a Worker host (y/n)? [n]: y
[+] Is host (78.47.4x.yyy) an etcd host (y/n)? [n]: n
[+] Override Hostname of host (78.47.4x.yyy) [none]: rke-worker-02
[+] Internal IP of host (78.47.4x.yyy) [none]:
[+] Docker socket path on host (78.47.4x.yyy) [/var/run/docker.sock]: 

Network Plugin Type

[+] Network Plugin Type (flannel, calico, weave, canal) [canal]: 

rke_config

[+] Authentication Strategy [x509]:
[+] Authorization Mode (rbac, none) [rbac]: none
[+] Kubernetes Docker image [rancher/hyperkube:v1.16.3-rancher1]:
[+] Cluster domain [cluster.local]:
[+] Service Cluster IP Range [10.43.0.0/16]:
[+] Enable PodSecurityPolicy [n]:
[+] Cluster Network CIDR [10.42.0.0/16]:
[+] Cluster DNS Service IP [10.43.0.10]:
[+] Add addon manifest URLs or YAML files [no]: 

cluster.yml

the rke config will produce a cluster yaml file, for us to review or edit in case of misconfigure

$ ls -l cluster.yml
-rw-r----- 1 ebal ebal 4720 Dec  7 20:57 cluster.yml

rke up

We are ready to setup our KaaS by running:

$ rke up

INFO[0000] Running RKE version: v1.0.0
INFO[0000] Initiating Kubernetes cluster
INFO[0000] [dialer] Setup tunnel for host [78.47.6x.yyy]
INFO[0000] [dialer] Setup tunnel for host [78.47.1x.yyy]
INFO[0000] [dialer] Setup tunnel for host [78.46.2x.yyy]
INFO[0000] [dialer] Setup tunnel for host [78.47.7x.yyy]
...
INFO[0329] [dns] DNS provider coredns deployed successfully
INFO[0329] [addons] Setting up Metrics Server
INFO[0329] [addons] Saving ConfigMap for addon rke-metrics-addon to Kubernetes
INFO[0329] [addons] Successfully saved ConfigMap for addon rke-metrics-addon to Kubernetes
INFO[0329] [addons] Executing deploy job rke-metrics-addon
INFO[0335] [addons] Metrics Server deployed successfully
INFO[0335] [ingress] Setting up nginx ingress controller
INFO[0335] [addons] Saving ConfigMap for addon rke-ingress-controller to Kubernetes
INFO[0335] [addons] Successfully saved ConfigMap for addon rke-ingress-controller to Kubernetes
INFO[0335] [addons] Executing deploy job rke-ingress-controller
INFO[0341] [ingress] ingress controller nginx deployed successfully
INFO[0341] [addons] Setting up user addons
INFO[0341] [addons] no user addons defined
INFO[0341] Finished building Kubernetes cluster successfully 

Kubernetes

The output of rke will produce a local kube config cluster yaml file for us to connect to kubernetes cluster.

kube_config_cluster.yml

Let’s test our k8s !

$ kubectl --kubeconfig=kube_config_cluster.yml get nodes -A
NAME           STATUS   ROLES          AGE    VERSION
rke-etcd       Ready    etcd           2m5s   v1.16.3
rke-master     Ready    controlplane   2m6s   v1.16.3
rke-worker-1   Ready    worker         2m4s   v1.16.3
rke-worker-2   Ready    worker         2m2s   v1.16.3

$ kubectl --kubeconfig=kube_config_cluster.yml get pods -A
NAMESPACE       NAME                                      READY   STATUS      RESTARTS   AGE
ingress-nginx   default-http-backend-67cf578fc4-nlbb6     1/1     Running     0          96s
ingress-nginx   nginx-ingress-controller-7scft            1/1     Running     0          96s
ingress-nginx   nginx-ingress-controller-8bmmm            1/1     Running     0          96s
kube-system     canal-4x58t                               2/2     Running     0          114s
kube-system     canal-fbr2w                               2/2     Running     0          114s
kube-system     canal-lhz4x                               2/2     Running     1          114s
kube-system     canal-sffwm                               2/2     Running     0          114s
kube-system     coredns-57dc77df8f-9h648                  1/1     Running     0          24s
kube-system     coredns-57dc77df8f-pmtvk                  1/1     Running     0          107s
kube-system     coredns-autoscaler-7774bdbd85-qhs9g       1/1     Running     0          106s
kube-system     metrics-server-64f6dffb84-txglk           1/1     Running     0          101s
kube-system     rke-coredns-addon-deploy-job-9dhlx        0/1     Completed   0          110s
kube-system     rke-ingress-controller-deploy-job-jq679   0/1     Completed   0          98s
kube-system     rke-metrics-addon-deploy-job-nrpjm        0/1     Completed   0          104s
kube-system     rke-network-plugin-deploy-job-x7rt9       0/1     Completed   0          117s

$ kubectl --kubeconfig=kube_config_cluster.yml get componentstatus
NAME                 AGE
controller-manager   <unknown>
scheduler            <unknown>
etcd-0               <unknown>             <unknown>

$ kubectl --kubeconfig=kube_config_cluster.yml get deployments -A
NAMESPACE       NAME                   READY   UP-TO-DATE   AVAILABLE   AGE
ingress-nginx   default-http-backend   1/1     1            1           2m58s
kube-system     coredns                2/2     2            2           3m9s
kube-system     coredns-autoscaler     1/1     1            1           3m8s
kube-system     metrics-server         1/1     1            1           3m4s

$ kubectl --kubeconfig=kube_config_cluster.yml get ns
NAME              STATUS   AGE
default           Active   4m28s
ingress-nginx     Active   3m24s
kube-node-lease   Active   4m29s
kube-public       Active   4m29s
kube-system       Active   4m29s

Rancer2

Now login to the 5th VM we have in Hetzner:

ssh "78.47.4x.yyy" -l ubuntu -p zzzz

and install the stable version of Rancher2

$ docker run -d
    --restart=unless-stopped
    -p 80:80 -p 443:443
    --name rancher2
    -v /opt/rancher:/var/lib/rancher
    rancher/rancher:stable
    --acme-domain k8s.ipname.me

Caveat: I have create a domain and assigned to this hostname the IP of the latest VMs!
Now I can use letsencrypt with rancher via acme-domain.

verify

$ docker images -a
REPOSITORY          TAG                 IMAGE ID            CREATED             SIZE
rancher/rancher     stable              5ebba94410d8        10 days ago         654MB

$ docker ps -a -a
CONTAINER ID        IMAGE                    COMMAND                  CREATED             STATUS              PORTS                                      NAMES
8f798fb8184c        rancher/rancher:stable   "entrypoint.sh --acm…"   17 seconds ago      Up 15 seconds       0.0.0.0:80->80/tcp, 0.0.0.0:443->443/tcp   rancher2

Access

Before we continue, we need to give access to these VMs so they can communicate with each other. In cloud you can create a VPC with the correct security groups. But with VMs the easiest way is to do something like this:

sudo ufw allow from "78.47.6x.yyy",
sudo ufw allow from "78.47.1x.yyy",
sudo ufw allow from "78.46.2x.yyy",
sudo ufw allow from "78.47.7x.yyy",
sudo ufw allow from "78.47.4x.yyy",

Dashboard

Open your browser and type the IP of your rancher2 VM:

https://78.47.4x.yyy

or (in my case):

https://k8s.ipname.me

and follow the below instructions

Connect cluster with Rancher2

Download the racnher2 yaml file to your local directory:

$ curl -sLo rancher2.yaml https://k8s.ipname.me/v3/import/nk6p4mg9tzggqscrhh8bzbqdt4447fsffwfm8lms5ghr8r498lngtp.yaml

And apply this yaml file to your kubernetes cluster:

$ kubectl --kubeconfig=kube_config_cluster.yml apply -f rancher2.yaml

clusterrole.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/proxy-clusterrole-kubeapiserver unchanged
clusterrolebinding.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/proxy-role-binding-kubernetes-master unchanged
namespace/cattle-system unchanged
serviceaccount/cattle unchanged
clusterrolebinding.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/cattle-admin-binding unchanged
secret/cattle-credentials-2704c5f created
clusterrole.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/cattle-admin configured
deployment.apps/cattle-cluster-agent configured
daemonset.apps/cattle-node-agent configured

Web Gui

kubectl config

We can now use the Rancher kubectl config by downloading from here:

In this post, it is rancher2.config.yml

helm

Final step is to use helm to install an application to our kubernetes cluster

download and install

$ curl -sfL https://get.helm.sh/helm-v3.0.1-linux-amd64.tar.gz | tar -zxf -

$ chmod +x linux-amd64/helm
$ sudo mv linux-amd64/helm /usr/local/bin/

Add Repo

$ helm repo add stable https://kubernetes-charts.storage.googleapis.com/
"stable" has been added to your repositories

$ helm repo update
Hang tight while we grab the latest from your chart repositories...
...
Successfully got an update from the "stable" chart repository
Update Complete. ⎈ Happy Helming!⎈ 

weave-scope

Install weave scope to rancher:

$ helm --kubeconfig rancher2.config.yml install stable/weave-scope --generate-name

NAME: weave-scope-1575800948
LAST DEPLOYED: Sun Dec  8 12:29:12 2019
NAMESPACE: default
STATUS: deployed
REVISION: 1
NOTES:
You should now be able to access the Scope frontend in your web browser, by
using kubectl port-forward:

kubectl -n default port-forward $(kubectl -n default get endpoints
weave-scope-1575800948-weave-scope -o jsonpath='{.subsets[0].addresses[0].targetRef.name}') 8080:4040

then browsing to http://localhost:8080/.
For more details on using Weave Scope, see the Weave Scope documentation:

https://www.weave.works/docs/scope/latest/introducing/

Proxy

Last, we are going to use kubectl to create a forwarder

$ kubectl --kubeconfig=rancher2.config.yml -n default port-forward $(kubectl --kubeconfig=rancher2.config.yml -n default get endpoints weave-scope-1575800948-weave-scope -o jsonpath='{.subsets[0].addresses[0].targetRef.name}') 8080:4040
Forwarding from 127.0.0.1:8080 -> 4040
Forwarding from [::1]:8080 -> 4040

Open your browser in this url:

  http://localhost:8080

That’s it !