Getting started with Kubernetes using Rancher Desktop

• Download the latest release of Rancher Desktop from the following link :

Releases · rancher-sandbox/rancher-desktop

• For Apple Silicon download macOS aarch64

• Wait for the VMs to start :

• Click on Images and make sure you are able to pull the images :

• Make sure the network status is Online in the general tab :

• Download and install Visual Studio Code from :

Download Visual Studio Code - Mac, Linux, Windows

• You can now run your kubectl commands in the Terminal window of Visual Studio Code.

NOTE: Make sure that you start Visual Studio Code after Rancher Desktop is completely started.

Troubleshooting :

Error 1:

$ kubectl get po
I1010 06:29:32.779055 41592 versioner.go:58] invalid configuration: no configuration has been provided
E1010 06:29:32.991361 41592 memcache.go:265] couldn’t get current server API group list: Get “http://localhost:8080/api?timeout=32s": dial tcp 127.0.0.1:8080: connect: connection refused
….
The connection to the server localhost:8080 was refused — did you specify the right host or port?

Error 2:

$ kubectl get po
W1010 06:27:06.666574 41306 loader.go:223] Config not found: /etc/rancher/k3s/k3s.yaml
I1010 06:27:06.666779 41306 versioner.go:58] invalid configuration: no configuration has been provided
E1010 06:27:06.827769 41306 memcache.go:265] couldn’t get current server API group list: Get “http://localhost:8080/api?timeout=32s": dial tcp 127.0.0.1:8080: connect: connection refused
…
The connection to the server localhost:8080 was refused — did you specify the right host or port?

If you are using Rancher Desktop as a test machine then a quick fix for such issues would be to delete all workloads and configuration.

Rancher Desktop -> Troubleshooting -> Reset Kubernetes