Setting Up Hetzner Cloud Provider for RKE2

Wed, 29 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

The Hetzner Cloud Provider for RKE2 allows seamless integration with Hetzner’s cloud infrastructure, enabling automatic provisioning of LoadBalancer services and persistent storage using Hetzner’s CSI driver.

This guide covers the necessary steps to set up the Hetzner Cloud Provider in an RKE2 cluster, ensuring full compatibility with Kubernetes networking and storage requirements.

Prerequisites

Before proceeding, ensure the following prerequisites are met:

A Hetzner Cloud account with an active project.
An RKE2 cluster running on Hetzner Cloud instances.
API Token for Hetzner Cloud.
Kubernetes CLI (kubectl) installed.
Helm installed on your local machine.

Step 1: Create an API Token

Log in to your Hetzner Cloud account.
Navigate to Access > API Tokens.
Click Generate API Token.
Assign necessary permissions (Read & Write for networking and storage).
Copy and securely store the generated API token.

Step 2: Deploy the Hetzner Cloud Controller Manager (CCM)

Add the Hetzner Helm repository:

sh
helm repo add hetzner https://helm.hetzner.cloud
helm repo update

Create a values.yaml file for the Helm deployment:

yaml
apiToken: "YOUR_HETZNER_API_TOKEN"
network: "your-network-id"
location: "nbg1"

Install the CCM using Helm:

sh
helm install hcloud-cloud-controller hetzner/hcloud-cloud-controller-manager -n kube-system -f values.yaml

Step 3: Configure the Hetzner CSI Driver

Install the CSI driver via Helm:

sh
helm install hcloud-csi hetzner/hcloud-csi-driver -n kube-system

Verify that the driver is running:

sh
kubectl get pods -n kube-system | grep hcloud

Step 4: Deploy a LoadBalancer Service

Create a sample LoadBalancer service: