Release v2.13.1

Important: If you are using Active Directory Federation Service (AD FS), upgrading to Rancher v2.10.1 or later may cause issues with authentication, requiring manual intervention. These issues are due to the AD FS Relying Party Trust not being able to pick up a signature verification certificate from the metadata. They can be corrected by either of two methods:

• Updating the Relying Party Trust information from federation metadata (Relying Party Trust -> Update from Federation Metadata...)
• Directly adding the certificate (Relying Party Trust -> Properties -> Signature tab -> Add -> Select the certificate).

For more information see #48655.

Important: Rancher-Istio has been deprecated in Rancher v2.12.0; turn to the SUSE Application Collection build of Istio for enhanced security (included in SUSE Rancher Prime subscriptions). Detailed information can be found in this announcement.

Rancher v2.13.1 is the latest patch release of Rancher. This is a Community version release that introduces maintenance updates and bug fixes.

For more information on new features in the general minor release see the v2.13.0 release notes.

Rancher App (Global UI)

Major Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue where in air-gapped environments when attempting to access the legacy v3 API-UI page directly via the host URL (<RANCHER-SERVER-URL>/v3), the page fails to load and displays a blank page. See #52790.

Cluster Provisioning

Major Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue with cluster provisioning not working as expected in air-gapped Rancher setups due to capi-controller-manager not coming up Active. See #52833 and #52495 for further information.

K3s Provisioning

Major Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue where when attempting to provision an IPv6-only K3s cluster (either Custom or Node-Driver) with IPv6 CIDRs, the cluster would become stuck in a provisioning state and does not become Active. See #52860.

RKE2 Provisioning

Major Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue when provisioning a Custom RKE2 cluster where the nodes are configured with IPv6-only addresses, the cluster would fail to provision correctly. Specifically, the rke2-server service on the etcd-only nodes crashes repeatedly with a fatal error: runtimes: failed to get runtime classes. As a result, the etcd node is continually seen flipping between Waiting for Node Ref and Reconciling status, preventing the cluster from reaching an Active state. See #52861.

Backup/Restore

Features and Enhancements

• The rancher/backup-restore-operator pod now supports the CPU and memory Helm chart resources requests and limits. See #786.

Harvester

Known Issues

• When upgrading to Rancher v2.13.1 while using Harvester v1.6.1, users may encounter an issue with their Load Balancers in downstream clusters using the Harvester Cloud Provider, and must perform the following workaround to instruct Calico to not use any of the IP/interface managed by kube-vip. See #9767.

Install/Upgrade Notes

• If you're installing Rancher for the first time, your environment must fulfill the installation requirements.

Important: Rancher now requires the cluster it runs on to have the Kubernetes API Aggregation Layer enabled. This is because Rancher extends Kubernetes with additional APIs by registering its own extension API server. Please note that all versions of Kubernetes supported in this Rancher versions K8s distributions (RKE2/K3s) will have the aggregation layer configured and enabled by default. Refer to the Extension API Server documentation and #50400 for more information.

Important: Rancher Kubernetes Engine (RKE/RKE1) has reached end of life as of July 31, 2025. Rancher versions 2.12.0 and later no longer support provisioning or managing downstream RKE1 clusters. We recommend replatforming RKE1 clusters to RKE2 to ensure continued support and security updates. Learn more about the transition here.

Rancher now has a pre-upgrade validation check for RKE1 resources which fails and lists the RKE1 resources if present. Refer to the RKE1 Resource Validation and Upgrade Requirements documentation and #50286 for more information.

Important: It is crucial that you review the available disk space on your nodes and plan accordingly before upgrading to Rancher v2.12.0 and later to avoid potential disk pressure and pod eviction issues. For additional information refer to the UI Server Side Pagination - Disk Space documentation.

Important: Rancher now has an enablement option called AUDIT_LOG_ENABLED for API Audit Logs for a Rancher installation. In Rancher versions 2.11.x and earlier, only the AUDIT_LEVEL could be set and the default log level (0) would disable the audit log. In Rancher versions 2.12.x and later, the default log level (0) now only contains the log request and response metadata, and can be set when configuring AUDIT_LOG_ENABLED. If installing or upgrading via Helm you can enable the API Audit Logs and specify the log level by applying the following setting to your Helm command: --set auditLog.enabled=true --set auditLog.level=0. See the Enabling the API Audit Log to Record System Events documentation and #48941.

Changes in Image Artifacts

Image artifact digests are renamed in Rancher v2.12.0, v2.11.4 and v2.10.8. Up until this change, separate image digests files for each operating system and architecture have been maintained for compatibility reasons. With this change, only one file for each operating system is to be provided:

• The rancher-images-digests-linux-amd64.txt and rancher-images-digests-linux-arm64.txt files are to be renamed to rancher-images-digests-linux.txt.
• The rancher-images-digests-windows-ltsc2019.txt and rancher-images-digests-windows-ltsc2022.txt files are to be renamed to rancher-images-digests-windows.txt.

Upgrade Requirements

• Creating backups: Create a backup before you upgrade Rancher. To roll back Rancher after an upgrade, you must first back up and restore Rancher to the previous Rancher version. Because Rancher will be restored to the same state as when the backup was created, any changes post-upgrade will not be included after the restore.
• Helm version requirements:
  • To manage Rancher 2.12.x and later, you must upgrade your Helm client to version 3.18 or newer.
  • This change is required to reflect the addition of Kubernetes 1.33 support with this release.
  • Currently, the official Helm Version Support Policy dictates that only Helm 3.18 supports the proper Kubernetes version range for Rancher 2.12.
• CNI requirements:
  • For Kubernetes v1.19 and later, disable firewalld as it's incompatible with various CNI plugins. See #28840.
  • When upgrading or installing a Linux distribution that uses nf_tables as the backend packet filter, such as SLES 15, RHEL 8, Ubuntu 20.10, Debian 10, or later, upgrade to RKE v1.19.2 or later to get Flannel v0.13.0. Flannel v0.13.0 supports nf_tables. See Flannel #1317.
• Requirements for air-gapped environments:
  • When using a proxy in front of an air-gapped Rancher instance, you must pass additional parameters to NO_PROXY. See the documentation and issue #2725.
  • When installing Rancher with Docker in an air-gapped environment, you must supply a custom registries.yaml file to the docker run command, as shown in the K3s documentation. If the registry has certificates, then you'll also need to supply those. See #28969.
• Requirements for general Docker installs:
  • When starting the Rancher Docker container, you must use the privileged flag. See documentation.
  • When upgrading a Docker installation, a panic may occur in the container, which causes it to restart. After restarting, the container will come up and work as expected. See #33685.

Versions

Please refer to the README for the latest and stable Rancher versions.

Please review our version documentation for more details on versioning and tagging conventions.

Images

• rancher/rancher:v2.13.1

Tools

• CLI - v2.13.1

Kubernetes Versions for RKE2/K3s

• v1.34.2 (Default)
• v1.33.6
• v1.32.10

Rancher Helm Chart Versions

In Rancher v2.6.0 and later, in the Apps & Marketplace UI, many Rancher Helm charts are named with a major version that starts with 100. This avoids simultaneous upstream changes and Rancher changes from causing conflicting version increments. This also complies with semantic versioning (SemVer), which is a requirement for Helm. You can see the upstream version number of a chart in the build metadata, for example: 100.0.0+up2.1.0. See #32294.

Previous Rancher Behavior Changes

Previous Rancher Behavior Changes - Rancher General

• Rancher v2.13.0:
  • Official support for Kubernetes v1.31 and older versions has been removed. You can no longer provision new RKE2 or K3s clusters using the Kubernetes versions that fall outside of the supported range (v1.32 - v1.34). See #51253.

Previous Rancher Behavior Changes - Rancher App (Global UI)

• Rancher v2.13.0:
  • The Rancher UI for provisioning hosted Kubernetes clusters (AKS, EKS, and GKE) has been updated to align with the new Cluster Provisioning v2 (kev2) framework. This change replaces the reliance on the older kontainerdriver (kev1) resources to determine which hosted providers are available for display. The UI now uses a new setting to manage the visibility of these providers, ensuring consistency and future compatibility. See #15391.
  • Rancher's session inactivity logic has been moved from the UI to the backend. A new session TTL setting auth-user-session-idle-ttl-minutes was introduced, and it sets the maximum time a user is allowed to be idle within a browser session before the session expires. To enable the idle timeout feature, you must supply auth-user-session-idle-ttl-minutes and set it to a value lower than the existing absolute session limit, auth-user-session-ttl-minutes. This new backend-driven mechanism, along with its associated TTL setting, replaces the previous session timeout configuration in the UI under Global Settings > Performance. See #12552.

Future Rancher Behavior Changes

Retention Policy for Rancher App Charts

To improve repository performance Rancher is introducing a lifecycle management policy for charts available in the Apps feature of Rancher, specifically in the "Rancher" repository.

• The Policy: Rancher will transition from a cumulative model (retaining all historical versions forever) to a retention model that preserves chart versions for the seven (7) most recent Rancher minor releases (approximately a 2.5-year window).
• Timeline - Rancher v2.13 & v2.14: Legacy chart versions (older than the 7-version window) remain available.
• Rancher v2.15: This will be the first version to enforce the policy. Versions falling outside the 7-version window and older than two years will no longer be available.

Impact: This change is non-destructive for existing Rancher installations. Historical versions will remain accessible but will not be available in newer release branches once they age out of the 7-version window. You are advised to upgrade your applications before upgrading to Rancher v2.15. Uninstallation after v2.15, and replacement with an updated version, will still be possible.

Long-standing Known Issues

Long-standing Known Issues - Rancher General

• Rancher v2.12.2:
  • The SUSE Customer Center (SCC) system view has a known issue being investigated regarding duplicate Rancher Manager registrations. See rancher/scc-operator #38.

Long-standing Known Issues - Cluster Provisioning

• Not all cluster tools can be installed on a hardened cluster.

• Rancher v2.13.0:

  • Provisioning or importing an Amazon EKS downstream cluster fails when the Rancher Server is running in an IPv6-only or dual-stack environment. See #52154.

• Rancher v2.8.1:

  • When you attempt to register a new etcd/controlplane node in a CAPR-managed cluster after a failed etcd snapshot restoration, the node can become stuck in a perpetual paused state, displaying the error message [ERROR] 000 received while downloading Rancher connection information. Sleeping for 5 seconds and trying again. As a workaround, you can unpause the cluster by running kubectl edit clusters.cluster clustername -n fleet-default and set spec.unpaused to false. See #43735.

• Rancher v2.7.2:

  • If you upgrade or update any hosted cluster, and go to Cluster Management > Clusters while the cluster is still provisioning, the Registration tab is visible. Registering a cluster that is already registered with Rancher can cause data corruption. See #8524.

Long-standing Known Issues - RKE2 Provisioning

• Rancher v2.7.7:
  • Due to the backoff logic in various components, downstream provisioned K3s and RKE2 clusters may take longer to re-achieve Active status after a migration. If you see that a downstream cluster is still updating or in an error state immediately after a migration, please let it attempt to resolve itself. This might take up to an hour to complete. See #34518 and #42834.
• Rancher v2.7.6:
  • Provisioning RKE2/K3s clusters with added (not built-in) custom node drivers causes provisioning to fail. As a workaround, fix the added node drivers after activating. See #37074.

Long-standing Known Issues - K3s Provisioning

• Rancher v2.7.6:
  • Provisioning RKE2/K3s clusters with added (not built-in) custom node drivers causes provisioning to fail. As a workaround, fix the added node drivers after activating. See #37074.
• Rancher v2.7.2:
  • Clusters remain in an Updating state even when they contain nodes in an Error state. See #39164.

Long-standing Known Issues - Rancher App (Global UI)

• Rancher v2.12.1:
  • When a standard user with the Cluster Owner role attempts to edit an Azure or AKS cluster, the Machine Pools section shows an error Cannot read properties of undefined.... As a workaround, standard users must manually add their cloud credentials to create, edit, and manage Azure or AKS clusters. See #15241.
• Rancher v2.10.0:
  • After deleting a Namespace or Project in the Rancher UI, the Namespace or Project remains visible. As a workaround, refresh the page. See #12220.
• Rancher v2.9.2:
  • Although system mode node pools must have at least one node, the Rancher UI allows a minimum node count of zero. Inputting a zero minimum node count through the UI can cause cluster creation to fail due to an invalid parameter error. To prevent this error from occurring, enter a minimum node count at least equal to the node count. See #11922.
• Rancher v2.7.7:
  • When creating a cluster in the Rancher UI it does not allow the use of an underscore _ in the Cluster Name field. See #9416.

Long-standing Known Issues - Hosted Rancher

• Rancher v2.7.5:
  • The Cluster page shows the Registration tab when updating or upgrading a hosted cluster. See #8524.

Long-standing Known Issues - EKS

• Rancher v2.7.0:
  • EKS clusters on Kubernetes v1.21 or below on Rancher v2.7 cannot be upgraded. See #39392.

Long-standing Known Issues - Authentication

• Rancher v2.9.0:
  • There are some known issues with the OpenID Connect provider support:
    • When the generic OIDC auth provider is enabled, and you attempt to add auth provider users to a cluster or project, users are not populated in the dropdown search bar. This is expected behavior as the OIDC auth provider alone is not searchable. See #46104.
    • When the generic OIDC auth provider is enabled, auth provider users that are added to a cluster/project by their username are not able to access resources upon logging in. A user will only have access to resources upon login if the user is added by their userID. See #46105.
    • When the generic OIDC auth provider is enabled and an auth provider user in a nested group is logged into Rancher, the user will see the following error when they attempt to create a Project: [projectroletemplatebindings.management.cattle.io](http://projectroletemplatebindings.management.cattle.io/) is forbidden: User "u-gcxatwsnku" cannot create resource "projectroletemplatebindings" in API group "[management.cattle.io](http://management.cattle.io/)" in the namespace "p-9t5pg". However, the project is still created. See #46106.

Long-standing Known Issues - Rancher Webhook

• Rancher v2.7.2:
  • A webhook is installed in all downstream clusters. There are several issues that users may encounter with this functionality:
    • If you rollback from a version of Rancher v2.7.2 or later, to a Rancher version earlier than v2.7.2, the webhooks will remain in downstream clusters. Since the webhook is designed to be 1:1 compatible with specific versions of Rancher, this can cause unexpected behaviors to occur downstream. The Rancher team has developed a script which should be used after rollback is complete (meaning after a Rancher version earlier than v2.7.2 is running). This removes the webhook from affected downstream clusters. See #40816.

Long-standing Known Issues - Virtualization Management (Harvester)

• Rancher v2.7.2:
  • If you're using Rancher v2.7.2 with Harvester v1.1.1 clusters, you won't be able to select the Harvester cloud provider when deploying or updating guest clusters. The Harvester release notes contain instructions on how to resolve this. See #3750.

Long-standing Known Issues - Backup/Restore

• When migrating to a cluster with the Rancher Backup feature, the server-url cannot be changed to a different location. It must continue to use the same URL.

• Rancher v2.13.0:

  • When performing a rollback from Rancher v2.13.0 to v2.12.3 using the backup and restore operator (BRO), the restore does not complete successfully. See #844. To work around this issue, you must scale down your Rancher deployment and uninstall the Webhook chart before performing the restore. For details, refer to this Knowledge Base article.

• Rancher v2.7.7:

  • Due to the backoff logic in various components, downstream provisioned K3s and RKE2 clusters may take longer to re-achieve Active status after a migration. If you see that a downstream cluster is still updating or in an error state immediately after a migration, please let it attempt to resolve itself. This might take up to an hour to complete. See #34518 and #42834.