Rancher Desktop 1.5.0

This is the 1.5.0 release of Rancher Desktop, an open source desktop application to bring Kubernetes and container management to Mac, Windows, and Linux. The release contains some new features along with various bug fixes.

Important Updates

Preferences dialog

Rancher Desktop now has a dedicated preferences dialog containing application, virtual machine, container engine, and Kubernetes settings. Changes are applied only after the "Apply" button is pressed, minimizing the time it takes to switch between configurations.

Offline operation

Rancher Desktop has been updated to work better in an offline environment. During initial setup a network connection is required to e.g. download the Kubernetes version to be deployed. But if Rancher Desktop is later run offline, then only the already cached versions will be available, and there should no longer be any delays or errors trying to fetch additional information online.

This mode can also be used to setup air-gapped operation. Documentation for this is still being prepared.

Other changes

• The host resolver (DNS) on Windows is no longer considered experimental and is now enabled by default. It helps to resolve hostnames over VPN connections.

• The "Port Forwarding" feature now allows the user to pick a specific port instead of choosing one randomly.

Updated utilities

• docker has been upgraded to 20.10.17.
• docker-compose has been upgraded to 2.6.1.
• nerdctl has been upgraded to 0.22.0.
• helm has been upgraded to 3.9.1.
• trivy has been upgraded to 0.30.0.

Known Issuses

• Due to upstream Kubernetes changes the automatic forwarding of NodePorts to the host no longer works for Kubernetes 1.22.10+, 1.23.7+, or any 1.24.1+ release (this also affects all previous Rancher Desktop releases).

• It is not possible to push images to Docker Hub with nerdctl.

Both of these issues will be addressed in a patch release later in August.

You can connect with the developers via:

• The issue queue
• Rancher Users Slack in the #rancher-desktop channel

Changelog

The full version changelog, from v1.4.1, can be found using GitHub compare and the details of the release can be found in the v1.5.0 milestone.

Rancher Desktop 1.4.1

This is the 1.4.1 release of Rancher Desktop, an open source desktop application to bring Kubernetes and container management to Mac, Windows, and Linux. The release contains some new features along with various bug fixes.

Important Updates

• Rancher Desktop now ships with registry credential helpers and configures them automatically: It uses pass on Linux, osxkeychain on macOS, and wincred on Windows. The ecr-login helper is also included but not automatically configured.

  For nerdctl (which has to run inside the VM for technical reasons) a credential forwarder will redirect all credential requests to the helper on the host, so no credentials are installed inside the VM.

• The Images list now supports bulk deletion of images.

• Various bug fixes to the still experimental host resolver (DNS). We expect to be able to make it the default resolver in the 1.5.0 release.

Updated utilities

• docker has been upgraded to 20.10.16.
• docker-buildx has been upgraded to 0.8.2.
• docker-compose has been upgraded to 2.5.1.
• nerdctl has been upgraded to 0.20.0.
• helm has been upgraded to 3.9.0.
• trivy has been upgraded to 0.28.0.

You can connect with the developers via:

• The issue queue
• Rancher Users Slack in the #rancher-desktop channel

Changelog

The full version changelog, from v1.3.0, can be found using GitHub compare and the details of the release can be found in the v1.4.1 milestone (1.4.1 is the first public release from the release-1.4 branch).

Rancher Desktop 1.3.0

This is the 1.3.0 release of Rancher Desktop, an open source desktop application to bring Kubernetes and container management to Mac, Windows, and Linux. The release contains some new features along with various bug fixes.

Important Updates

• On macOS and Linux, supporting utilities are no longer symlinked into /usr/local/bin, but into ~/.rd/bin which can be added to the PATH automatically or manually in the shell profile files.

• On macOS Rancher Desktop can be configured to run without administrative rights, in which case it will not create the routable interfaces. It will also not be able to create a symlink at /var/run/docker.sock, but will set up an alternate docker context.

• nerdctl has been upgraded to 0.19.0.

• helm has been upgraded to 3.8.2.

Experimental Features

• The rdctl CLI remains experimental and has added new subcommands:

  • rdctl start --kubernetes-version 1.23.1 will start RD if it isn't running, or modify the configuration to match.
  • rdctl shell runs commands or opens an interactive shell inside the Rancher Desktop VM.

• An alternative DNS resolver for Windows has been implemented. It should support DNS lookup over VPN connections. It has to be enabled manually by editing an internal configuration file.

• On macOS an alternative file sharing mechanism using 9p instead of reverse-sshfs has been implemented. It is disabled by default. Talk to us on Slack if you want to help us testing it.

Important Fixes

• The metrics performance issue when using the moby runtime has been fixed.
• Certificate handling on Windows has be fixed to deal with large numbers of certificates.
• Image scanning now displays all the reported vulnerabilities.

You can connect with the developers via:

• The issue queue
• Rancher Users Slack in the #rancher-desktop channel

Changelog

The full version changelog, from v1.2.1, can be found using GitHub compare and the details of the release can be found in the v1.3.0 milestone.

Rancher Desktop 1.2.1

Rancher Desktop 1.2.1 is a security (patch) release. Rancher Desktop is an open source desktop application to bring Kubernetes and container management to Mac, Windows, and Linux. The release contains a bug fix where steve, an internal component of Rancher Desktop, was sometimes causing a firewall rule prompt. More detail is available in the advisory.

You can connect with the developers via:

• The issue queue
• Rancher Users Slack in the #rancher-desktop channel

Changelog

The full version changelog, from v1.2.0, can be found using GitHub compare and the details of the release can be found in the v1.2.1 milestone.

Rancher Desktop 1.2.0

⚠️ This release includes a security vulnerability. Please use the fixed version 1.2.1 instead! ⚠️

This is the 1.2.0 release of Rancher Desktop, an open source desktop application to bring Kubernetes and container management to Mac, Windows, and Linux. The release contains some new features along with various bug fixes.

Feature Preview

This release includes 2 new features still considered experimental:

• Rancher Dashboard for kubernetes

  It can be opened from the system tray icon menu and runs in a separate window.

• Commandline access via rdctl program

  This is still a prototype with limited functionality. Examples:

  • rdctl list-settings
  • rdctl set --container-engine docker --kubernetes-version 1.21.2
  • rdctl shutdown

  Long term all functionality should be available both through the UI and the CLI.

Important Updates & Fixes

• Works with macOS 12.3
• Support for kubernetes 1.24 on docker via cri-dockerd
• DNS improvements on all platforms (work-in-progress)
• nerdctl updated to 0.17.1

You can connect with the developers via:

• The issue queue
• Rancher Users Slack in the #rancher-desktop channel

Changelog

The full version changelog, from v1.1.1, can be found using GitHub compare and the details of the release can be found in the v1.2.0 milestone.

Rancher Desktop 1.1.1

⚠️ This release is not working correctly on macOS Monterey 12.3. There is a workaround and a fix should be released next week. ⚠️

This is the 1.1.1 release of Rancher Desktop, an open source desktop application to bring Kubernetes and container management to Mac, Windows, and Linux. The release contains 2 bug fixes:

• DNS not working correctly in some Windows environments
• The docker-buildx symlink was incorrect

You can connect with the developers via:

• The issue queue
• Rancher Users Slack in the #rancher-desktop channel

Changelog

The full version changelog, from v1.1.0, can be found using GitHub compare and the details of the release can be found in the v1.1.1 milestone.

Rancher Desktop 1.1.0

This is the 1.1.0 release of Rancher Desktop, an open source desktop application to bring Kubernetes and container management to Mac, Windows, and Linux. The release contains some feature changes along with various bug fixes.

Important Updates & Fixes

• Kubernetes can be disabled to run just containerd or dockerd by itself for reduced resource consumption.
• traefik can be disabled to free up port 80 and 443 for alternate ingress configuration.
• Internal container port forwarding support has been enabled again on Linux and macOS.
• docker compose is included when docker is selected in the "Supporting Utilities".
• Improved support for DNS over VPN on Windows (tunnelling only, no split-DNS support yet).
• host.docker.internal is defined inside containers for compatibility.
• Ports bound to 127.0.0.1 are no longer exposed externally.

You can connect with the developers via:

• The issue queue
• Rancher Users Slack in the #rancher-desktop channel

Changelog

The full version changelog, from v1.0.1, can be found using GitHub compare and the details of the release can be found in the v1.1.0 milestone.

Rancher Desktop 1.0.1

Rancher Desktop 1.0.1 is a bug fix release of Rancher Desktop, an open source desktop application to bring Kubernetes and container management to Mac, Windows, and Linux.

You can connect with the developers via:

• The issue queue
• Rancher Users Slack in the #rancher-desktop channel

Changelog

The full version changelog, from v1.0.0, can be found using GitHub compare and the details of the release can be found in the v1.0.1 milestone.

Rancher Desktop 1.0.0

This is the 1.0.0 release of Rancher Desktop, an open source desktop application to bring Kubernetes and container management to Mac, Windows, and Linux. The release contains some feature changes along with various bug fixes.

Important Notes & Updates

• kim has been removed. You can build images using the nerdctl and docker command line tools.
• macOS networking has been updated to fall back to a shared mode when bridged mode is unable to get an IP address.
• On macOS the "everyone" group is used instead of the "staff" groups when permission setting is done.
• Electron and nodejs have been updated to the latest stable versions.
• Trivy, nerdctl, and other tools have been upgraded.
• New versions are now checked for hourly.
• A documented security policy and reporting mechanism has been added.
• Numerous bugs were fixed.

You can connect with the developers via:

• The issue queue
• Rancher Users Slack in the #rancher-desktop channel

Changelog

The full version changelog, from v0.7.1, can be found using GitHub compare.

Rancher Desktop 1.0.0-beta.1

This is a beta release of Rancher Desktop v1.0.0. Rancher Desktop is an open source desktop application to bring Kubernetes and container management to Mac, Windows, and Linux.

This pre-release is meant for testing purposes. You can read more about the release timeline for 1.0.0 on the Rancher blog.

This beta release is not included in the auto-update process and needs to be manually installed.

You can connect with the developers via:

• The issue queue
• Rancher Users Slack in the #rancher-desktop channel

Changelog

The full version changelog, from v0.7.1, can be found using GitHub compare.