If we briefly mention the word Rancher, it is a tool that allows us to easily manage containers. Rancher is a very important tool. It is an application with completely open source code. Today, the distribution for Rancher is done through docker hub. Let’s briefly explain what this sentence means; If you have a server with Docker support, you can install the rancher application on your system very easily with a single line of code. After the installation, you can easily associate companies that provide many cloud services such as Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, AWS, etc. with the rancher installation on your own system, depending on the user’s request. After this process, you can easily observe, run and manage docker container services with the Rancher web interface through the companies that have been associated.
Check out the most popular public cloud providers: https://devopstipstricks.com/a-simple-guide-to-top-public-cloud-providers-with-key-advantages/
Which Platforms Support Rancher?
The platforms that support Rancher are not limited to companies with large-scale organizations such as Google cloud, Amazon Web Services. It is possible to easily associate a Rancher installation with a Linux derivative that can run Docker software completely seamlessly. This process will be enough for you to run the Racnher agent service through docker after installing a version that will work seamlessly with kubernetes for Docker. When you want to perform this process in an easier way, you can easily complete it by selecting the Customer Provider option on the panel and running the code given to you.
How Does Rancher Work?
Contrary to popular belief, Rancher application does not manage containers on its own like other applications. While the application is running, the kubernetes application is running separately in the background. We used the concept of kubernetes more than once in our article. To briefly explain kubernetes, it is a tool developed by Google and continues to be developed today and is considered as the basis for Docker container management. In fact, you can do the same tasks as Kubernetes installation and management without installing Rancher. Rancher is at the next level of the Kubernetes system. To put it briefly, by installing Kubernetes through Rancher, we do not deal with the complexity of a very advanced tool that requires expertise like Kubernetes. Apart from all these, Rancher provides us great convenience in system monitoring and log tracking.
Difference between Kubernetes and Docker: https://devopstipstricks.com/kubernetes-vs-docker/
What is RancherOS?
RancherOS is an operating system developed by Rancher Labs for use in cloud technologies. When this operating system is examined in different dimensions, you will see that there is a Linux kernel and Docker that starts the system and also manages it. So what we want to explain here is that the task of the Linux kernel is to start the Docker system. When the Linux kernel starts the Docker system, the whole system consists of a Docker container, so that the system is presented to the users as a simple and lightweight Linux distribution.
Apart from the initial working principle of Docker, all the components required for the system work with container logic. This is a very important feature. This feature adds convenience and serious flexibility to the system. RancherOS is quickly outperformed by others because of these features. The flexible and minimalist design of RancherOS significantly reduces the risk of attack and reduces the cost of hardware and maintenance, which can be a problem in the long term. This same design makes RancherOS an ideal Linux distribution when compared to its counterparts in container systems.
RancherOs runs 2 Docker instances on the operating system. The first one is the System Docker. Services such as syslog, ntpd, console run over the container when they are with the System Docker. The feature of System Docker is not limited to this. System Docker is also the first process running in RancherOS. In this case, it fulfills the role of systemd, which is also present in many other Linux distributions. The system docker starts another docker container called docker and manages this environment alongside the other containers it processes. Thanks to the abstraction ability of this design, which is better than other software, RancherOS has become more secure and stable.
Finally, to summarize the Rancher application, it provides the use of Kubernetes in a way that the end user can always understand without requiring much expertise. It allows us to make container management easier by simplifying the usage level. It is one of the most modern virtualization applications. It allows us to manage and install on a larger scale than applications such as Rancher, Swarm and Docker Cloud. We cannot call it the last application to be released in this field. However, there is a great benefit for those who are interested in this subject or who will use these applications. When we think that the future will be driven by the internet and cloud services, applications like Rancher have the potential to promise the future for everyone.
Check out the Rancher alternatives: https://devopstipstricks.com/the-essential-guide-to-kubernetes-distributions-for-modern-devops/
