Deploy the node helm chart on Kubernetes

Question

Pulumi · Accepted Answer

To deploy a Helm chart on a Kubernetes cluster using Pulumi, you'll typically perform a couple of main steps:

1. **Set up a Kubernetes cluster**: Before you can deploy your Helm chart, you need a Kubernetes cluster. For this example, we will assume that you have a pre-existing Kubernetes cluster.

2. **Deploy the Helm chart**: Use Pulumi's Kubernetes provider to deploy the Helm chart into your Kubernetes cluster.

Here is a step-by-step guide and a Pulumi program written in TypeScript that does this:

1. **Prerequisites**: Make sure you have the following installed on your machine:
   - The Pulumi CLI
   - Node.js and npm
   - Access to a Kubernetes cluster and the `kubeconfig` file

2. **Initialize a new Pulumi project**: Use the CLI command `pulumi new typescript` to create a new project.

3. **Install the necessary NPM packages**: In the newly created Pulumi project, install the Kubernetes package using npm:
   ```
   npm install @pulumi/kubernetes
   ```

4. **Create the program**: The below program uses Pulumi to deploy a Node.js Helm chart to the Kubernetes cluster.

5. **Run the Pulumi program**: Use the `pulumi up` command to preview and deploy the changes.

Here is the Pulumi program:

```typescript
import * as k8s from "@pulumi/kubernetes";

const chart = new k8s.helm.v3.Chart("my-chart", {
    // The repository where the Helm chart is located.
    repo: "https://charts.bitnami.com/bitnami",
    // The name of the chart to deploy.
    chart: "node",
    // Specify the version of the Helm chart.
    version: "x.x.x",
    // Override default values from the Helm chart.
    // These will be specific to the Helm chart you are deploying,
    // and you can typically find them in the chart's `values.yaml` file.
    values: {
        service: {
            type: "LoadBalancer",
        },
    },
    // Specify the Kubernetes namespace to deploy the Helm chart in.
    namespace: "default",
});

// Export the public IP of the LoadBalancer service to access the Node.js application.
export const publicIp = chart.getResourceProperty("v1/Service", "my-chart-node", "status")
    .apply(status => status.loadBalancer.ingress[0].ip);

```

Please replace the `x.x.x` with the version of the Node.js Helm chart you wish to install. The `values` field is where you can override any of the defaults provided by the Helm chart. For example, here we set the service type to `LoadBalancer`, which will provision an external IP for accessing the Node.js app.

After executing `pulumi up` in the terminal within your Pulumi project directory, Pulumi will perform the deployment and provide output similar to the following:

```
Updating (dev)

Type                                Name               Status      
 +   pulumi:pulumi:Stack                 my-helm-chart-dev  created     
 +   └─ kubernetes:helm.sh/v3:Chart     my-chart           created     
 +      └─ kubernetes:core/v1:Service   my-chart-node      created     
 
Outputs:
    publicIp: "1.2.3.4"

Resources:
    + 3 created

Duration: 2m3s
```

The `publicIp` will be the external IP address you can use to access your Node.js application.

For more information on the available settings for deploying Helm charts with Pulumi, you can refer to the [Pulumi Kubernetes Provider documentation](https://www.pulumi.com/docs/reference/pkg/kubernetes/helm/v3/chart/).