Deploy the cicd helm chart on Rancher

Question

Pulumi · Accepted Answer

To deploy a Helm chart for a CI/CD pipeline on Rancher using Pulumi, you'll need to interact with the Rancher Kubernetes platform. Unfortunately, the search results do not contain a direct resource for deploying Helm charts. However, by using the rancher2 Pulumi provider, you can manage Kubernetes resources, including deploying Helm charts within a Rancher-managed Kubernetes cluster.

Before starting with the Pulumi code, make sure you have the following prerequisites met:

Pulumi CLI installed and configured with the Rancher2 provider.
Access to a Rancher-managed Kubernetes cluster with appropriate permissions to deploy resources and charts.
The Helm chart URL or repository for the CI/CD tool you want to deploy.

Now, let's construct an example program in TypeScript that uses Pulumi to create a Kubernetes App within Rancher that represents a Helm chart deployment. This example will assume you're deploying a generic CI/CD Helm chart, but you should replace the placeholders (such as chart-name, chart-version, chart-repo, etc.) with the actual details of your CI/CD tool Helm chart that you intend to deploy.

import * as rancher2 from "@pulumi/rancher2";
import * as k8s from "@pulumi/kubernetes";
import * as pulumi from "@pulumi/pulumi";

// Step 1: Configure Rancher provider credentials. This information should be set in your environment.
// The provider uses the Rancher API to manage resources within Rancher.
const rancherProvider = new rancher2.Provider("rancher", {
    api_url: "https://<your-rancher-api-endpoint>",
    accessKey: "<your-rancher-access-key>",
    secretKey: "<your-rancher-secret-key>",
    // To ensure operations are made against the correct Rancher cluster, specify the cluster ID here.
    clusterId: "<your-rancher-cluster-id>",
});

// Step 2: Configure the Kubernetes provider to communicate with Rancher-managed Kubernetes cluster.
// This provider is responsible for deploying Kubernetes resources.
const k8sProvider = new k8s.Provider("k8s", {
    kubeconfig: "<your-rancher-kubeconfig-data>",
}, { dependsOn: rancherProvider });

// Step 3: Deploy the CI/CD Helm chart as a Kubernetes App via Rancher.
const cicdHelmChart = new rancher2.AppV2("cicd-helm-chart", {
    clusterId: rancherProvider.clusterId,
    namespace: "<namespace-to-deploy-the-chart>",
    repoName: "<name-of-the-helm-repo-in-rancher>",
    chartName: "<name-of-the-chart>",
    chartVersion: "<version-of-the-chart>",
    // Values can contain the configuration for the helm chart.
    // This should be set to match the values you need for your CI/CD
    // application deployment, as you would set in a values.yaml file.
    values: pulumi.output({
        // Example: setting a simple key-value pair, replace with actual values
        key: "value",
    }).apply(values => JSON.stringify(values)),
}, { provider: rancherProvider });

// Export any relevant information, such as the deployed application's name.
export const appName = cicdHelmChart.metadata.apply(meta => meta.name);

Let's go through the code step by step:

Step 1: We create a rancher2.Provider which outlines the configuration to connect to your Rancher API. Replace <your-rancher-api-endpoint>, <your-rancher-access-key>, <your-rancher-secret-key>, and <your-rancher-cluster-id> with your specific Rancher environment details.
Step 2: We create a k8s.Provider referencing the Kubernetes cluster managed by Rancher. You need to supply the kubeconfig data which can typically be obtained from the Rancher UI or CLI.
Step 3: The rancher2.AppV2 resource is used to deploy a Helm chart as an app in a specified namespace. Replace the placeholders like <name-of-the-helm-repo-in-rancher>, <namespace-to-deploy-the-chart>, <name-of-the-chart>, and <version-of-the-chart> with your CI/CD Helm chart information. The values property represents the configuration you would normally supply in a values.yaml file when using Helm directly.
Exports: Exporting the appName allows you to access the name of the deployed app after pulumi up has been run, which can be helpful for CI/CD and scripting purposes.

Keep in mind this is a generalized example; you may need to adjust property values or even use other resources from the rancher2 or kubernetes Pulumi packages to match your specific deployment scenario.

Next Steps: After you have reviewed and adjusted the code to match your CI/CD Helm chart and Rancher environment, save the file with a .ts extension (e.g., deploy-cicd-helm-chart.ts), and run the following commands in the same directory as your Pulumi TypeScript file:

pulumi stack init <stack-name> to create a new stack for your deployment.
pulumi up to preview and deploy the resources specified in your program.

If you encounter any issues or have specific questions about properties or configurations, consult the official Pulumi documentation or double-check the Helm chart documentation to ensure you are providing the correct configuration for deployment.