Deploy the vrouter helm chart on Kubernetes

Question

Pulumi · Accepted Answer

To deploy a Helm chart for vRouter on a Kubernetes cluster using Pulumi, you'll start by setting up a Pulumi program written in TypeScript. This program will make use of the `@pulumi/kubernetes` package which allows you to interact with Kubernetes resources effectively.

The primary resource you will utilize is `Chart` from the `@pulumi/kubernetes/helm/v3` namespace, which represents a Helm chart in Pulumi's Kubernetes API. We will assume that the vRouter Helm chart is available in a public or private Helm chart repository that you have access to.

Here's how you would deploy the vRouter Helm chart:

1. First, ensure that you have a Kubernetes cluster running and `kubectl` is configured correctly to connect to it. Pulumi uses the current context from your `kubectl` configuration.

2. Define the Helm chart resource using the `Chart` class, specifying the chart name, version, and repository. You can also pass custom values to the Helm chart using the `values` property if necessary.

Below is a Pulumi TypeScript program that shows how to deploy the vRouter Helm chart:

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

// Create a Helm Chart resource for vRouter, assuming there is a vRouter chart available in a repository
const vrouterChart = new k8s.helm.v3.Chart("vrouter", {
    // Replace with your chart's repository URL
    repo: "http://my-chart-repo/",
    chart: "vrouter",
    // Specify the chart version if desired. Omit this to use the latest version.
    version: "1.0.0",
    // Replace with appropriate namespace if needed, defaults to 'default'
    namespace: "my-namespace",
    // Specify any custom values you want to pass to the Helm chart
    values: {
        // Custom values for the vRouter chart
        // Example (you should replace these with real values for your case):
        serviceType: "LoadBalancer",
        replicaCount: 3,
        // Add other configurable values as necessary
    },
    // Enabling transformation to add labels or modify the resources created by the Helm chart
    transformations: [
        (obj: any) => {
            if (obj.metadata) {
                obj.metadata.labels = obj.metadata.labels || {};
                obj.metadata.labels["deployed-with"] = "pulumi";
            }
        }
    ],
});

// Output the status of the deployment
export const vrouterStatus = vrouterChart.status;
```

In this program:

- We're importing the `@pulumi/kubernetes` package which contains helpers for deploying Kubernetes resources.
- We define a new `Chart` which tells Pulumi about the vRouter Helm chart we want to deploy.
- We specify the repository URL, chart name, version, namespace, and any custom values that the chart consumes.
- We added an optional transformation to label all Kubernetes resources deployed by this chart with `deployed-with: pulumi`. Such transformations allow you to modify the default manifest of the chart before it gets applied to the Kubernetes cluster.
- We export the status of the Helm chart deployment to allow you to see if it was successful when you run `pulumi up`.

To make this program work, ensure you install the Pulumi CLI and set up the Pulumi project correctly. You should also have the `@pulumi/kubernetes` npm package installed in your project.

Run the following commands in your terminal to install the necessary packages:

```bash
# Initialize a new Pulumi TypeScript project (You can skip this if you already have a Pulumi project set up)
pulumi new typescript

# Install the Pulumi Kubernetes package
npm install @pulumi/kubernetes
```

Once everything is set up, you can deploy your infrastructure by running `pulumi up` from your terminal.

Please replace `http://my-chart-repo/` with the actual URL of the Helm repository that hosts the vRouter chart and modify the `values` to match the settings you desire for your vRouter deployment. Adjust the chart name, version, and namespace according to your specific requirements.