Rancher Marketplace

tags:

administration
installation
helm
rancher

This guide covers installing Flex through the Rancher Marketplace.

#Install Rancher

For a stable, production-ready environment that natively supports Persistent Volumes (PVs), install Rancher on a dedicated Kubernetes cluster using Helm. Follow the official Rancher Helm Installation Guide.

Testing/Dev Alternative

If you are only testing and do not need PVs, you can use a single-node Docker installation. Make sure the Linux single-node has 4 CPU cores, 16 GB RAM, 50 GB SSD, and ports 80 and 443 open.

docker run -d \
--restart=unless-stopped \
-p 80:80 \
-p 443:443 \
--privileged rancher/rancher:v2.14.1

Retrieve the bootstrap password with

docker logs <container-id> 2>&1 | grep "Bootstrap Password:"

Open: https://<RANCHER-SERVER-IP>

Set a new password when prompted.

#Install Flex

#1. Install Database

You have two options for setting up your backend database depending on your infrastructure's capabilities.

#Option A: Install via Kubernetes (Requires PV Support)

Open a kubectl shell from the top right navigation menu >_ and run:

MySQL

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/GluuFederation/flex/nightly/automation/mysql.yaml
kubectl apply -f mysql.yaml # adjust values as preferred

PostgreSQL

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/GluuFederation/flex/nightly/automation/pgsql.yaml
kubectl apply -f pgsql.yaml # adjust values as preferred

#Option B: Install on VM (Docker/No PV Support)

Use this option if you are running a single-node Docker test environment or lack PV support. You can install the database package(MySQL/PostgreSQL) directly on your Linux VM.

#2. Configure Ingress and Traffic Management

Follow this guide to choose between the modern Gateway API (recommended) or the legacy Kubernetes Ingress.

#3. Install Gluu Flex

Head to Apps --> Charts and search for Gluu
Click on Install on the right side of the window.
Change the namespace from default to gluu, then click on Next.
Scroll through the sections to get familiar with the options. For minimal setup follow with the next instructions.
Add License SSA. Before initiating the setup, please obtain an SSA for Flex trial, after which you will be issued a JWT.
Click on the Persistence section. Set SQL database host uri, SQL database username,SQL password, and SQL database name to the values you used during the database installation.
To enable Casa and the Admin UI, navigate to the Optional Services section and check the Enable casa and boolean flag to enable admin UI boxes.
Click on the section named Ingress and enable all the endpoints. You might add LB IP or address if you don't have FQDN for Gluu.
To pass your FQDN that is intended to serve the Gluu Flex IDP, head to the Configuration section:
1. Add your FQDN and check the box Is the FQDN globally resolvable if it's DNS registered.
2. Click on the Edit YAML tab and add your FQDN to nginx-ingress.ingress.hosts and nginx-ingress.ingress.tls.hosts.
Click on Install on the bottom right of the window.

The running deployment and services of different Gluu Flex components like casa, admin-ui, scim, auth-server, etc can be viewed by navigating through the SUSE Rancher. Go to Workloads and see the running pods. Go under Service Discovery and checkout the Ingresses and Services. All deployed components should be in a healthy and running state like in the screenshot shown below.

#Next Steps

When installing via Rancher Marketplace, the Ingress, Database, and Helm install steps are handled through the Rancher UI during chart installation. Skip directly to the post-install section.