Deploy the pi-hole helm chart on Linode Kubernetes Engine

Question

Pulumi · Accepted Answer

Deploying the Pi-hole Helm chart on Linode Kubernetes Engine (LKE) involves a few steps. We'll first set up a Kubernetes cluster on Linode, then deploy the Pi-hole application using a Helm chart into our Kubernetes cluster.

Pulumi provides us with various resources to work with cloud resources in a programmatic way. For deploying a Helm chart, we're going to use the kubernetes.helm.v3.Chart resource which allows us to deploy Helm charts in a Kubernetes cluster.

Here's a step-by-step breakdown of the process:

Provision a Kubernetes Cluster: Before you can deploy Pi-hole, you need a Kubernetes cluster. Linode Kubernetes Engine provides a managed Kubernetes service where you can quickly provision a cluster. While Pulumi doesn't have a Linode-specific provider in its registry, you can manually create a cluster through the Linode Cloud Manager or Linode API, and then use Pulumi to deploy workloads on it.
Configure the Kubernetes Provider: Pulumi needs to be configured with access to your Kubernetes cluster in order to manage resources. This typically involves setting up a kubeconfig file that Pulumi can use.
Deploy Pi-hole Using Helm: Once you have a Kubernetes cluster ready and the Pulumi Kubernetes provider configured, you can deploy Pi-hole. Pi-hole Helm chart details can be found in the Helm repositories or artifact hubs that host such charts. The chart will include Kubernetes resources that Pi-hole needs, such as Deployments, Services, and potentially PersistentVolumeClaims.

Below is a TypeScript Pulumi program that includes comments explaining each part:

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

// Initialize a Kubernetes provider using a kubeconfig file obtained from the Linode dashboard or CLI
const k8sProvider = new k8s.Provider("lke-k8s", {
    kubeconfig: "<YOUR_KUBECONFIG>", // Replace <YOUR_KUBECONFIG> with actual kubeconfig content or load it dynamically
});

// Define the Pi-hole Helm Chart deployment
const piHoleChart = new k8s.helm.v3.Chart("pi-hole", {
    // Specify the chart repository and name
    chart: "pi-hole",
    version: "1.2.0", // Specify the chart version you wish to deploy
    fetchOpts: {
        repo: "https://helm.linuxserver.io/", // Pi-Hole Helm chart repository URL
    },
    values: {
        Service: {
            type: "LoadBalancer", // Exposing Pi-hole using a LoadBalancer service
        },
        admin: {
            existingSecret: "<SECRET_NAME>", // Reference to an existing K8s secret for securing admin credentials (if needed)
        },
        // Add additional configuration options as per your requirements
    },
}, { provider: k8sProvider });

// Optionally, export the IP address that has been assigned to the Pi-hole LoadBalancer service
export const piHoleIpAddress = piHoleChart.getResourceProperty("v1/Service", "pi-hole", "status")
    .apply(status => status.loadBalancer.ingress[0].ip);

// Note: Deploying Helm charts may require Tiller to be set up in the cluster, depending on the chart.

You would run the above code with Pulumi CLI tool using pulumi up command.

Make sure you replace <YOUR_KUBECONFIG> with the actual content of your kubeconfig file. This file is how Pulumi will authenticate with your Kubernetes cluster on Linode. You can download it from the Linode Cloud Manager where you created your LKE cluster.

For the existingSecret field, create a Kubernetes Secret separately that contains your desired Pi-hole admin password, or if not needed, remove or modify that part of the values.

Finally, I have set up an example of how you might export the IP address of your Pi-hole LoadBalancer service, which allows external traffic to reach the Pi-hole Admin Interface. Check the exact details of the resource names in the Helm chart you are using to modify the getResourceProperty part if necessary.

Please note that you need to have Pulumi installed and configured to work with the cloud providers you intend to use (in this case, Linode). You can find more detailed instructions and information about installing and setting up Pulumi on Pulumi's Getting Started page.