Is it possible to modify the name and ID of an RKE, RKE2 or K3s cluster?
This document (000021372) is provided subject to the disclaimer at the end of this document.
Environment
A Rancher-provisioned RKE, RKE2 or K3s cluster
Situation
Once a cluster is created, you may want to modify its name or identifier manually.
- Cluster ID: identifier of the cluster, composed of an alphanumeric string automatically generated, difficult to memorize and differentiate by humans. E.g.: c-m-bxg4g77t
- Cluster name: a string that will recognize a cluster in a more human-friendly manner, e.g. cluster-prod
Resolution
Cluster ID:
The cluster ID aims to identify a cluster among several components tied to the cluster referring to this ID. Therefore, it is not possible to change a cluster ID manually, as it would also require manually changing all the previous references to that identifier in all the related components in Rancher or the Rancher Kubernetes Engine, which could cause inconsistency if any reference is forgotten. This statement is valid for RKE, RKE2, and k3s clusters.
Cluster name:
RKE:
For Rancher-provisioned RKE clusters, the cluster name can easily be modified using the Rancher UI ( Cluster Management -> Edit Config -> Cluster Name).
RKE2/k3s:
Contrary to RKE, for Rancher-provisioned RKE2 and k3s clusters, the cluster name is not a field stored on the cluster specification internally but is the name of the cluster custom resource itself that Rancher uses to represent the cluster. As resource names are immutable within Kubernetes (without destroying and recreating the resource), it is not possible to rename RKE2 and K3s clusters within this current design.
Disclaimer
This Support Knowledgebase provides a valuable tool for SUSE customers and parties interested in our products and solutions to acquire information, ideas and learn from one another. Materials are provided for informational, personal or non-commercial use within your organization and are presented "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND.