Deploy the cloudflare helm chart on Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)

Question

Pulumi · Accepted Answer

Deploying a Helm chart to a Kubernetes cluster involves several steps. First, though, you need to have a Kubernetes cluster running. In this case, we'll use Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS). Then, you'll deploy the Cloudflare Helm chart to that cluster.

Let's break down the process into smaller steps:

1. **Create an AKS Cluster**: You'll need an AKS cluster to deploy your applications. Pulumi allows you to define infrastructure as code in TypeScript, so you'll define and create an AKS cluster using Pulumi's `azure-native` package.

2. **Configure Kubeconfig**: Once you have the AKS cluster set up, you need to configure `kubectl` to interact with it. Pulumi will generate the necessary kubeconfig to interact with your new AKS cluster.

3. **Deploy Helm Chart**: Helm is a package manager for Kubernetes that allows you to bundle, configure, and deploy applications onto Kubernetes clusters. You will use Pulumi's `kubernetes` package to deploy the Cloudflare Helm chart to your AKS cluster.

Below is a detailed Pulumi program that achieves these steps:

```typescript
import * as pulumi from "@pulumi/pulumi";
import * as azure_native from "@pulumi/azure-native";
import * as kubernetes from "@pulumi/kubernetes";

// Step 1: Create the Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) cluster.
const resourceGroup = new azure_native.resources.ResourceGroup("myResourceGroup");

const cluster = new azure_native.containerservice.ManagedCluster("myAksCluster", {
    resourceGroupName: resourceGroup.name,
    sku: {
        name: "Standard_DS2_v2"
    },
    agentPoolProfiles: [{
        count: 2,
        vmSize: "Standard_DS2_v2",
        name: "agentpool",
    }],
    dnsPrefix: `aks-${pulumi.getStack()}`,
    identity: {
        type: "SystemAssigned"
    },
});

// Obtain the KubeConfig of the AKS cluster which will be used by kubectl to connect to the cluster.
const creds = pulumi.all([resourceGroup.name, cluster.name]).apply(([rgName, clusterName]) =>
    azure_native.containerservice.listManagedClusterUserCredentials({
        resourceGroupName: rgName,
        resourceName: clusterName,
    }));

const kubeconfig = creds.kubeconfigs[0].value.apply(encoded => Buffer.from(encoded, 'base64').toString());

// Step 2: Configure Kubeconfig for the Pulumi Kubernetes provider to interact with the AKS cluster.
const k8sProvider = new kubernetes.Provider("k8sProvider", {
    kubeconfig: kubeconfig,
});

// Step 3: Deploy the Cloudflare Helm chart using Pulumi's Kubernetes provider.
const cloudflareChart = new kubernetes.helm.v3.Chart("cloudflare", {
    chart: "cloudflare",
    version: "0.1.0", // Replace with the desired chart version
    fetchOpts: {
        repo: "https://charts.cloudflare.com/", // Replace with the Cloudflare Helm repository URL
    },
    values: {
        // Place your desired chart values here
    },
}, { provider: k8sProvider });

// Export the kubeconfig so you can connect to the cluster with kubectl outside of Pulumi.
export const kubeConfigOutput = pulumi.secret(kubeconfig);
```

Here's what each part of the code does:

- The `azure_native.resources.ResourceGroup` resource sets up an Azure Resource Group, which is a container that holds related resources for an Azure solution.

- The `azure_native.containerservice.ManagedCluster` resource defines the AKS cluster itself, specifying things like the number of nodes, and VM size, among other configurations.

- We then make a call to `azure_native.containerservice.listManagedClusterUserCredentials` to obtain the cluster credentials, which we decode from base64 to obtain the kubeconfig needed to connect to the cluster with `kubectl`.

- We use the obtained kubeconfig to create an instance of `kubernetes.Provider`. This tells Pulumi how to communicate with our AKS cluster.

- Finally, we deploy the Cloudflare Helm chart using `kubernetes.helm.v3.Chart`, specifying the chart name, version, Helm repo, and any additional configuration values needed. These values should be replaced with specifics pertaining to the Cloudflare Helm chart you wish to deploy.

- The last line is an export statement, which will output the kubeconfig needed to interact with your Kubernetes cluster. It's marked as a secret because kubeconfig can contain sensitive information.

Please note that you will need to replace placeholders like `version` and `repo` URL in the `cloudflareChart` with specific details about the Cloudflare Helm chart you want to deploy, as well as provide the necessary values configuration for the chart.

Make sure you have Pulumi and the necessary cloud provider CLI tools installed, and you are logged in to Azure CLI and Pulumi. Then, you can run this program using `pulumi up` to provision the resources.

Remember to carefully manage your kubeconfig file, as it provides administrative access to your cluster. Pulumi's `pulumi.secret()` method will encrypt the kubeconfig in the state file, helping keep sensitive information secure.