This is the 1.12 release of Rancher Desktop, an open source desktop application to bring Kubernetes and container management to Mac, Windows, and Linux.
Installers
Notable Features & Changes
Windows WSL Installation
For Windows users that have previously overridden the WSL installation check, please use WSLINSTALLED instead of WSLKERNELINSTALLED.
Windows tunnelling networking mode is no longer experimental
It has feature parity with the legacy networking mode and will become the default setting for new installations (and factory reset) in the 1.13 release. We expect to remove the legacy networking support in 1.14.
macOS builds for aarch64 are now native binaries
The VM code has always been platform-native, but the UI used to require Rosetta because it was still an x86_64 binary. Now everything except for kuberlr and the kubectl versions managed by it are aarch64 binaries. The problem with kuberlr and kubectl is that there are no native binaries available from upstream for older Kubernetes versions.
macOS socket_vmnet networking is no longer experimental
socket_vmnet is a replacement for vde_vmnet, which is deprecated upstream. It was never supported in VZ emulation mode, so Rancher Desktop already uses socket_vmnet in VZ mode when admin access is enabled.
socket_vmnet will become the default for QEMU as well in the 1.13 release; in 1.14, vde_vmnet will be removed.
Deployment Profiles
This release now requires deployment profiles to have an explicit version field (which is 10, as of release 1.11.0).
The version of rdctl that ships with this release will have the version field in any generated deployment files. However, this means that existing files will either need to be regenerated or manually edited in place.
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For Linux, add
"version": 10,at the very start of the JSON-formatted deployment file immediately after
the initial open brace{. -
For macOS, add
<key>Version</key><integer>10</integer>after the initial<dict>tag. -
For Windows, add a
DWORDvalue namedversionwith value10(hexadecimal a) at the top level of each profile that needs updating.
Important Bug Fixes
Snapshots
Improvements and fixes regarding executing multiple application actions while a snapshot is undergoing a management activity (#5846, #5848, #5849, and #5854).
Known Issues
Apple M3 CPUs
Apple M3 CPUs are not supported (yet) by QEMU. Please use VZ emulation instead (#5943).
Snapshots
There is a known issue with the Snapshot Cancel operation in the UI. It is possible that the operation can no longer be cancelled when the button is pressed. In that case, the operation may succeed but the UI will still claim that it has been cancelled (#6159).
Windows Networking
There is a known issue with the new network not including all aliased domains (#5239).
Container Dashboard
There are known issues with the Container Dashboard when using the nerdctl container engine; one is that the "Started" field shows an inaccurate time for containers starting up. The dashboard also has an issue updating when container states have changed or new containers are introduced (#6191, #6189, #5877, and #5775).
Provisioning Scripts - Windows
The location for provisioning scripts on Windows has changed from %AppData%\rancher-desktop\provisioning to %LocalAppData%\rancher-desktop\provisioning. The files are not automatically migrated when Rancher Desktop is updated, so they must be manually moved or copied to the new location.
9p - Linux OS
There is a known issue with some Linux distributions and using the experimental mount type 9p (#4943).
Extensions Install - Allowed Images
When using the Allowed Images feature and also specifying extensions in a deployment profile, the extension images must be included in both lists (#4920).
Updates to Bundled Utilities
- helm
3.12.3→3.13.3 - docker
24.0.6→24.0.7 - docker-buildx
0.11.2→0.12.0 - docker-compose
2.22.0→2.23.3 - docker-credential-ecr-login
0.7.1→0.7.1 - nerdctl
1.6.2→1.7.1 - moby/buildkit
0.12.3→0.12.4 - trivy
0.46.0→0.46.0
Connect with the developers
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The issue queue
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Rancher Users Slack in the #rancher-desktop channel
Changelog
The full version changelog, from v1.12.0, can be found using GitHub compare and the details of the release can be found in the v1.12.0 milestone.