Rancher Desktop Integration Guide

Overview

Rancher Desktop delivers Kubernetes and container management on the desktop. Cup’n’String discovers active Rancher engine contexts (containerd or dockerd), ensuring all local developer runtimes are audited.

Support level

Auto-Discovered

What Cup’n’String detects

• Active Rancher Desktop process trees
• Configured container engines (containerd or dockerd)
• Exposed Kubernetes service maps

What it governs

• Local-network routing rules to the Rancher gateway
• Secure Relay access control to containerized runtimes
• Workstation port bindings

Recommended policies

• Suppress unmanaged container engines running rogue LLMs
• Track outbound network rules on Rancher virtual networks
• Verify the integrity of local context configurations

Setup outline

1. Ensure the Cup’n’String desktop agent is running.
2. Launch Rancher Desktop.
3. The agent auto-discovers Rancher sockets and maps active workloads.

Verification

Confirm that Rancher-managed services are listed under local runtimes in the admin console.

Troubleshooting

Ensure Rancher Desktop has finished starting and that its local engine socket is accessible.

Known limitations

Deep process mapping differs slightly depending on whether containerd or dockerd is selected in Rancher settings.