Deploy the phpipam helm chart on Kubernetes

Question

Pulumi · Accepted Answer

To deploy the `phpipam` Helm chart on Kubernetes using Pulumi, we will leverage the `kubernetes.helm.v3.Chart` class from the `@pulumi/kubernetes` package. This class allows you to deploy existing Helm charts from any Helm chart repository, much like using `helm install` but controlled via Pulumi's infrastructure as code framework.

Here, I'll guide you step by step on how to deploy `phpipam`:

1. We will start by creating a new Pulumi project if you haven't already.
2. We will ensure that you have `kubectl` configured correctly to connect to your Kubernetes cluster.
3. We will initialize a new `Chart` resource and point it to the `phpipam` Helm chart.

The program itself will be written in TypeScript, which provides strong typing and other modern language features. Before jumping into the code, let me explain some concepts:

- **Pulumi Project**: This is the directory containing all of your infrastructure as code. It includes your Pulumi code, the `Pulumi.yaml` project file, and usually a `package.json` for Node.js libraries.
- **Kubernetes Provider**: Pulumi uses providers to interact with cloud services, and in this case, we'll use the Kubernetes provider that allows us to deploy to any Kubernetes clusters.
- **Helm Chart**: Helm is a package manager for Kubernetes that allows you to define, version, and manage Kubernetes applications. A Helm chart is a collection of files that describe a related set of Kubernetes resources.

Now, let's write the Pulumi program that will perform the deployment.

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

// Name of the Helm chart we want to deploy
const chartName = "phpipam";

// The repository where the phpipam Helm chart is located
const repositoryUrl = "https://your-helm-chart-repository.com/"

// The version of the phpipam Helm chart you want to use
const chartVersion = "x.y.z"; // Replace with the desired chart version

// Optional: Configuration values for the phpipam chart
// You should configure these options based on the requirements of the specific chart and your preferences.
const values = {
    // Example configuration (these are invented for illustration and will not work with the real chart):
    // You can find actual configurable values in the phpipam chart documentation or by inspecting the chart's values.yaml file.
    service: {
        type: "ClusterIP",
    },
    // Add other configuration options here as needed
};

// Create a Helm chart resource using @pulumi/kubernetes
const phpipamChart = new k8s.helm.v3.Chart(chartName, {
    chart: chartName,
    version: chartVersion,
    fetchOpts: {
        repo: repositoryUrl,
    },
    values: values,
});

// Export the base URL for the phpipam service
export const phpipamBaseUrl = phpipamChart.getResourceProperty("v1/Service", `${chartName}-phpipam`, "status").apply(status => `http://${status.loadBalancer.ingress[0].ip}`);
```

To explain what the code is doing:

- We import the required `@pulumi/kubernetes` package to interact with Kubernetes.
- `chartName`, `repositoryUrl`, and `chartVersion` hold information about the Helm chart we want to deploy. You need to replace `repositoryUrl` and `chartVersion` with the actual repository URL and chart version you intend to use.
- `values` is an optional object that specifies configuration options for the Helm chart. Replace it with valid properties relating to the `phpipam` Helm chart.
- We create a new `Chart` instance, which represents the Helm chart that we want to deploy to our Kubernetes cluster. The configuration includes:
  - `chart`: The name of the chart.
  - `version`: The version of the chart.
  - `fetchOpts`: Options for fetching the chart, like its repository URL.
  - `values`: Any custom configuration specified for the chart.
- Finally, we export a computed property called `phpipamBaseUrl`, which will be the base URL for accessing the deployed phpIPAM application. Note that this assumes `phpipam` exposes a `ClusterIP` type service. You might need to adjust the export statement if `phpipam` is configured to use a different kind of service or ingress.

Before you can run the program, make sure you have Pulumi and `kubectl` installed, your `kubectl` is configured to connect to your cluster, and you are logged in to the Pulumi CLI.

Run the program with the following commands:

1. Navigate to the directory containing your Pulumi project.
2. Run `pulumi up` to execute the Pulumi program. This will deploy the `phpipam` Helm chart to your Kubernetes cluster.

During the execution of `pulumi up`, you will see a preview of the changes that Pulumi plans to make to your infrastructure. Confirm the changes to proceed with the deployment. Once completed, you will get outputs such as the base URL for the `phpipam` service, if exported.