This is the 1.9.0 release of Rancher Desktop, an open source desktop application to bring Kubernetes and container management to macOS, Windows, and Linux.
Windows and macOS Installers
New features
Docker Extensions
This release provides support for Docker Extensions. They can be installed via the UI from a catalog, or via the CLI from any registry.
The extensions in the bundled catalog have been tested to work with Rancher Desktop 1.9. Some extensions only work with the moby container engine; they will not be displayed in the catalog when using containerd.
The Epinio extension only works when Kubernetes has been enabled.
Additional extensions can be installed via the CLI but may not work with Rancher Desktop.
Preferences for experimental settings
The following settings were previously only configurable via rdctl. They have been added to the Preferences dialog, which has been extended with additional tabs:
Windows
- A new networking stack implementation can be selected that works better in VPN environments. This new stack now automatically configures port forwarding as well.
macOS
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Virtual machine type can be set to
qemuorvz(Apple Virtualization Framework).vzrequires macOS 13.0 Ventura on Intel and macOS 13.3 on Arm (M1, M2) machines. Rosetta can be enabled to run Intel container images on M1/M2 computers undervzemulation. -
Directory mounting can use
virtiofsinstead of the defaultreverse-sshfsmode when usingvz. -
The
socket-vmnetdriver can be selected instead of the defaultvde-vmnetdriver. It is only being used when running with administrative privileges to provide a routable (bridged) IP address on the local network.
macOS and Linux
- Directory mounting can use
9pinstead ofreverse-sshfs. Various parameters of the9pprotocol can be configured as well.
Windows Proxy support
- Many thanks to @tperale for contributing an implementation of proxy support on Windows. The proxy settings can be configured via the Preferences dialog and via
rdctl.
Locked Settings in Deployment Profiles
- For enterprise deployments, an administrator can now lock any setting globally to enforce company policy. Locked settings get a 🔒 icon in the Preferences dialog and cannot be modified.
Important bug fixes
Apple Virtualization Framework
-
Several fixes to support for VZ emulation mode have been applied.
-
Rosetta is now configured correctly.
-
The 3 minute timeout during VM shutdown has been fixed.
Kubernetes service port forwarding
Fixes an issue that was introduced in 1.8 in Rancher Desktop Agent where If Kubernetes sends updates for services and the port mappings had not changed, the existing maps are deleted.
Other changes
-
The default window size of the application has been increased.
-
The default container engine has been changed from
containerdtomoby. This only affects new installations, and factory-reset. -
By default, Rancher Desktop will no longer request administrative access. That is need for a routable (bridged) IP address, and for creating the Docker socket in the default
/var/run/docker.socklocation.Rancher Desktop also sets up a
rancher-desktopdocker context and selects it, so having the socket in the default location is not necessary in most situation. Administrative access can be requested via the Preferences dialog.This change also only affects new installations, and factory reset. Existing configurations will not be modified.
Updates to bundled utilities
- helm
3.11.2→3.12.0 - docker
23.0.1→24.0.2 - docker-buildx
0.10.4→0.10.5 - docker-compose
2.16.0→2.18.1 - docker-credential-ecr-login
0.6.0→0.7.1 - nerdctl
1.2.1→1.4.0 - trivy
0.38.2→0.42.0
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 v1.8.1, can be found using GitHub compare and the details of the release can be found in the v1.9.0-tech-preview and v1.9.0 milestones.