Deploy the old-joomla helm chart on Rancher

Question

Pulumi · Accepted Answer

To deploy a Helm chart, like the `old-joomla` chart, on Rancher using Pulumi, you need to set up a few prerequisites:

1. A working Rancher environment.
2. The `old-joomla` chart accessible in a Helm chart repository or on your local filesystem.
3. A Pulumi program that interacts with the Rancher cluster to deploy the Helm chart.

In this explanation, I will guide you through creating a Pulumi program in TypeScript that will deploy the `old-joomla` Helm chart on a Rancher Kubernetes cluster. I'll use the `rancher2` Pulumi provider, which enables you to interact with Rancher. Specifically, the `CatalogV2` resource from the `rancher2` provider can be used to manage catalog repositories in a Rancher server installation, which you can then use to deploy Helm charts to a Rancher-managed Kubernetes cluster.

Before you begin with the Pulumi code, ensure the following:

- You have access to a Rancher v2.x cluster.
- You have configured `kubectl` with access to the Rancher cluster.
- You have installed Pulumi and set up your Pulumi account.
- You have the Pulumi CLI installed and configured on your system.
- You have node.js and npm/yarn installed on your system to run TypeScript programs.

Here's the Pulumi program:

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

// Initialize a Rancher provider instance using the credentials and Rancher server URL.
// Make sure to replace `rancherServerUrl`, `accessToken`, and `accessSecret` with your
// actual Rancher server's URL, token key, and token secret respectively.
const rancherProvider = new rancher2.Provider("rancher", {
    apiUrl: pulumi.config.require("rancherServerUrl"),
    tokenKey: pulumi.config.requireSecret("accessToken"),
    tokenSecret: pulumi.config.requireSecret("accessSecret"),
});

// Reference an existing Rancher project where you want to deploy your Helm chart.
// Replace `rancherProjectName` with the name of your Rancher project.
const rancherProject = rancher2.getProject({
    name: pulumi.config.require("rancherProjectName"),
}, { provider: rancherProvider });

// Create a Catalog for the Helm chart repository containing `old-joomla`.
const helmChartRepoCatalog = new rancher2.CatalogV2("helmChartRepo", {
    clusterId: rancherProject.clusterId,
    // Specify the Helm chart repository URL that contains the `old-joomla` chart.
    // Replace this with the actual Helm chart repository URL.
    url: "https://helm-repo-url.com",
    name: "old-joomla-repo",
    namespace: "default",
}, { provider: rancherProvider });

// Deploy the `old-joomla` Helm chart using the rancher2.AppV2 resource.
const joomlaApp = new rancher2.AppV2("old-joomla", {
    // The cluster and project IDs should point to the cluster/project you want to deploy in.
    clusterId: rancherProject.clusterId,
    namespace: "default",
    projectId: rancherProject.id,
    repoName: helmChartRepoCatalog.name,
    chartName: "old-joomla",
    chartVersion: "1.0.0", // Replace with the version of the chart you want to deploy.
    values: "", // Optional: Provide additional configuration values for the Helm chart.
}, { provider: rancherProvider, dependsOn: [helmChartRepoCatalog] });

// Export the name of the deployed app
export const appName = joomlaApp.name;
```

Here's the breakdown of the steps we are following:

1. We start by defining the `rancherProvider`, configuring it with the API URL of your Rancher server as well as the access token and secret.
2. We then get data from an existing Rancher project where we wish to deploy our Helm chart using the `rancher2.getProject` function.
3. Next, we create a `CatalogV2` resource, which represents a Helm chart repository. We specify the repository's URL, the cluster ID, and the namespace.
4. Finally, we deploy the desired Helm chart (`old-joomla`) to the Rancher project by creating an `AppV2` resource, which represents the application deployed using a Helm chart. Here, we configure its properties to refer to the chart we would like to deploy, and we can optionally provide additional configuration values specific to the `old-joomla` chart.

Remember to replace placeholder values such as the Rancher server URL, access token, secret, and other resource-specific properties with your actual data.

Lastly, note that the actual Helm chart repository URL needs to be provided where the `old-joomla` chart exists. This program assumes you already have `old-joomla` available in a Helm repository that Rancher can access.

To run this program:

1. Save the code to a file named `index.ts`.
2. Run `npm install` to get the needed Pulumi packages.
3. Configure the required variables (`rancherServerUrl`, `accessToken`, `accessSecret`, and `rancherProjectName`) using Pulumi config command. Example: `pulumi config set rancherServerUrl <value> --secret`.
4. Run `pulumi up` to launch the program and deploy the chart onto your Rancher-managed cluster.