Deploy the php-stack helm chart on Rancher

Question

Pulumi · Accepted Answer

Deploying a Helm chart on Rancher requires a Rancher Kubernetes cluster where Helm can be applied. Pulumi's rancher2 package provides resources that can help manage Rancher environments, including working with clusters and deploying applications via Helm.

In the following Pulumi program, I will demonstrate how to deploy a Helm chart for a PHP stack onto a Rancher cluster using TypeScript. The program assumes you have a running Rancher server and have access to it. We'll break down the process into the following steps:

Setting up the Rancher provider: Configure the Rancher provider to communicate with your Rancher server.
Creating a Kubernetes Cluster: Define a Kubernetes cluster within Rancher to host your application.
Deploying a Helm Chart: Use the Helm Release resource to deploy the PHP stack onto the cluster created in the previous step.

Here is a complete Pulumi program that accomplishes these steps:

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

// Step 1: Set up the Rancher provider
// The `rancher2` provider requires you to specify the Rancher server URL and access credentials.
const rancherProvider = new rancher2.Provider("rancherProvider", {
    apiUrl: "https://<your-rancher-server-url>",
    accessKey: "<your-rancher-access-key>",
    secretKey: "<your-rancher-secret-key>"
});

// Step 2: Create a Kubernetes Cluster in Rancher
// This is where you'd define your cluster. For this example, I'll use a preexisting cluster.
// Replace `<cluster-id>` with the ID of your cluster.
// You can also use Pulumi to create a new cluster, but for brevity, we're assuming one is already provisioned.
const cluster = new rancher2.Cluster("php-stack-cluster", {
    // Use the actual cluster ID of an existing cluster in Rancher
    clusterId: "<cluster-id>",
}, { provider: rancherProvider });

// Step 3: Deploy the PHP stack Helm Chart
// Before deploying, make sure the repository and chart name are correct.
const phpStackChart = new k8s.helm.v3.Release("php-stack", {
    chart: "php-stack",
    version: "x.y.z", // Replace with the chart version you want to deploy
    repositoryOpts: {
        repo: "http://charts.example.com/", // Replace with the Helm repository URL that contains your chart
    },
    // Define values for the Helm chart if needed
    values: {
        serviceType: "LoadBalancer",
        // ... additional values ...
    },
}, {
    provider: new k8s.Provider("k8s-provider", {
        kubeconfig: cluster.kubeConfigRaw,
    }),
});

// Export the endpoint of the PHP application
export const phpStackEndpoint = phpStackChart.status.apply(status => status);

This program does the following:

It sets up a rancher2 provider which allows Pulumi to communicate with your Rancher server. You must replace the placeholders with the URL of your Rancher server and your access and secret keys.
It creates an instance of a Cluster resource, which represents a Kubernetes cluster in Rancher. Here, we supply the clusterId of a preexisting cluster. If you want to create a new cluster, a different set of parameters would be needed, and Pulumi can also handle this.
It deploys a Helm Release of the PHP stack. You'll need to replace php-stack, x.y.z, and the repository URL with the correct values for your specific chart. The values object is where you pass in configuration options that the Helm chart accepts.

The final line with export is used to export the application endpoint as a stack output, which can then be used to access the deployed PHP stack.

Remember to replace the placeholders with the correct values for your Rancher server URL, access key, secret key, cluster ID, and Helm chart information before running this Pulumi program. Additionally, you must have the Pulumi CLI installed and configured to use your chosen cloud provider.