PastureStack Server

Server packages the orchestration engine, web console, node agent, authentication service, proxy, catalog, and database into a Docker image for managing environments, hosts, stacks, services, containers, storage, and networking.

PastureStack is an independent community effort to preserve and modernize the Rancher 1.6 ecosystem. It is not affiliated with Rancher Labs or SUSE. This fork of rancher/rancher preserves upstream history, authorship, licenses, and notices.

Current release

Server v1.6.560 packages Web Console 1.6.201 / optional bridge 0.2.3, Engine v0.183.360, Catalog 0.20.17 and Compose 0.14.40. It adds bounded External Service, DNS Alias and audit metadata workflows, repairs scoped collection admission and retains authorization audit decisions across rejected typed transactions. Existing Catalog launch, Archive/restore and official Brotli package contracts remain. See the release note and publication identities.

Qualification	Current evidence
Published image	Original publisher source/build, security, startup/restart and protocol gates passed.
Public bytes and provenance	All 35 release assets and the OCI digest passed anonymous verification; native provenance and SBOM attestations passed.
Designated runtime baseline	Server560 / Web201 cutover and one actual restart passed; configuration, mounts and rollback were preserved, with three active Hosts/Agents.
Business workflow acceptance	Complete typed lifecycle and new Catalog/Archive/External/Alias/audit, role/cross-ID/layout/weak-model and durable-DENY acceptance remain pending.

This is not complete frontend coverage. Original failures are retained and unchanged PASS evidence keeps its original scope.

Personal API Keys remain available without an accessible environment. See the Host guide before enrolling a host.

API Keys

Choose allow-by-default with deny exceptions, or deny-by-default with allow exceptions, with optional expiry. Without exceptions these retain full or closed access. Search for resource names; the editor and reviewed changes include a resource-by-operation policy matrix, not an extra grant of authority. The maximum access is the Key owner's current account/environment RBAC, including live membership checks; a Key never grants an additional role. Existing legacy Keys are not automatically narrowed on upgrade. New Key secrets are shown once at creation and are not returned by later lists or details. Per-Key audit separates authorization, the HTTP response and any later job/stream completion. A successful WebSocket upgrade is recorded as a successful HTTP 101 handshake, not as proof of the stream's later completion. Environment-Key audit rechecks live Engine access in Engine-verified project contexts; a caller-supplied project header is not a grant. Delegated terminal/log access requires the verified Host API audit capability and a compatible Linux Node Agent lifecycle. Open a Key's audit from its action menu. See the API Key guide for policy and audit contracts. Maintained CLI 0.6.20 propagates rejected requests as nonzero errors. Legacy 0.6.14 can silently exit zero; see client compatibility and check HTTP status explicitly for automation.

Optional AI collaboration

The Web Console supports scoped resource discovery and basic Stack, Service and Container changes through twelve tools. Plans require normal human review and reuse live account and Key permissions. Global Services do not accept a manual instance count. Advanced forms and other resource workflows remain pending. The complete scoped lifecycle workflow remains unaccepted; review the current limitation before enabling these optional changes. See the release note and AI collaboration guide for activation, supported operations, audit records and rollback.

Quick start

These examples use the published numeric version. Public downloads do not require a registry login. Keep all three named volumes.

docker run -d --name pasturestack-server --restart unless-stopped -p 8080:8080 \
  -v pasturestack-cattle:/var/lib/cattle \
  -v pasturestack-mysql:/var/lib/mysql \
  -v pasturestack-mysqllog:/var/log/mysql \
  ghcr.io/pasturestack/server:v1.6.560

For HTTPS termination at a reverse proxy, set the exact public origin:

services:
  pasturestack-server:
    image: ghcr.io/pasturestack/server:v1.6.560
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - "8080:8080"
    environment:
      PROXY_PLATFORM_PUBLIC_ORIGIN: https://stack.example.com
    volumes:
      - pasturestack-cattle:/var/lib/cattle
      - pasturestack-mysql:/var/lib/mysql
      - pasturestack-mysqllog:/var/log/mysql

volumes:
  pasturestack-cattle:
  pasturestack-mysql:
  pasturestack-mysqllog:

PROXY_PLATFORM_PUBLIC_ORIGIN accepts only scheme://host[:port], without credentials, path, query, or fragment. Configure HTTPS, authentication, backups, and access policies before exposing the platform. Supported JVM and embedded MariaDB environment variables are in performance settings.

First use

1. Open http://<host>:8080, or your configured HTTPS origin. Access control is initially disabled; keep the Server on a trusted network while completing setup.
2. In Admin > Access Control > Local Authentication, create the first administrator and choose Enable Local Auth. Sign out and back in to confirm that the account works.
3. In the Default environment, confirm the four system stacks: network-services, ipsec, scheduler, and healthcheck. With no Host yet, their services remain inactive while waiting for a Host.
4. Choose Add Host and the Custom option. On first use, confirm that the Host Registration URL is a Server address reachable from the node. Follow the Host compatibility guide, then copy and run the registration command generated by the UI on that Host.
5. Wait for the Host to become Active. The four system stacks should start their required networking, Metadata, DNS, scheduling, and health services automatically, without manually installing additional system stacks.
6. Before using the environment, check that a managed test workload can resolve internal service names and public DNS names, reach its required external endpoints, and report healthy through its configured health check.

Upgrade and rollback

Back up the database and volumes, test a restore, then follow the upgrade guide. Preserve existing volume names, environment variables, restart policy, AppArmor, and reverse-proxy configuration. Do not replace existing volumes with new empty ones or run docker compose down -v.

Persisted image/download/catalog/Docker compatibility settings can outlive an image upgrade; review their effective values. The migration tool is read-only by default and requires explicit apply/rollback. Keep the previous image and backup: after a database migration, rollback may require restoring matching data, not merely selecting an older image tag.

After using API Key policy or expiry, do not downgrade directly to a policy-unaware Engine: an older version can treat a restricted or expired Key as full access. Follow the API Key rollback safety guide before any downgrade or database restore.

GitHub Releases contain versioned assets, SHA-256 checksums, and release records. Built-in templates come from pinned catalog-templates source. Historical changes belong in release notes.

Development

Server consumes pinned source commits and verified component artifacts. For local source/shell validation:

bash scripts/test
bash scripts/check-server-source-gates.sh

Runtime, database migration, registration, backup/restore, and upgrade validation use isolated hosts. Publication is a separate, manually dispatched workflow. See ORIGIN.md and SECURITY.md.

The component candidate build uses the same release Dockerfile and verification gates. server/build-component-candidate.sh requires actual component commits and SHA-256 values; it does not publish or deploy. Set PASTURESTACK_COMPONENT_ARTIFACT_DIR to an isolated directory whose contents exactly match the complete component_assets list in server/build-api-explorer-patch-image.sh. Every asset is verified against its SHA-256 value. Without this directory, the same hashes verify the versioned HTTPS release assets.

Language and licensing

The console packages thirteen locales, including Traditional Chinese for Taiwan. Server bootstrap messages accept PASTURESTACK_LOCALE=en-US or zh-TW; protocol fields and persisted identifiers are not translated.

The inherited project uses Apache License 2.0, with attribution in COPYRIGHT_DETAILS.md. Bundled components retain their own licenses and notices.