Deploying Rancher Without DNS

SUSE Rancher Prime
1

Hello,

We’re currently deploying Rancher using Helm with the following setup:

helm install rancher rancher-stable/rancher \
  --namespace cattle-system \
  --create-namespace \
  --set hostname=192.168.0.88.sslip.io \
  --set ingress.ingressClassName=nginx

However, this setup requires a valid hostname and ingress controller for TLS termination. We’ve found that running Rancher purely on an IP address seems unsupported, as HTTPS (with a real or self-signed certificate) appears to be required.

Is there a way to deploy Rancher on an IP address only (without DNS) either using HTTP only (insecure) or with a self-signed TLS certificate?

Our use case is to run Rancher as a fleet management tool for edge devices. These are typically deployed at customer sites where DNS setup is not feasible, and network knowledge is limited.

We’re looking for the simplest possible deployment method that still allows the Rancher UI to function reliably without relying on externally managed domains.

Thanks in advance!

Sam