Deploy the linkerd-edge-mixin helm chart on Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)

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Pulumi · Accepted Answer

To deploy the `linkerd-edge-mixin` Helm chart on an Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) cluster using Pulumi, we will follow these steps:

1. **Set up an AKS cluster**: Before deploying any applications, you need an AKS cluster. An AKS cluster gives you a managed Kubernetes cluster in Azure that you don't need to maintain or update manually. You can provision an AKS cluster using Pulumi's `azure-native.containerservice.ManagedCluster` resource.

2. **Deploy the Helm chart**: With the cluster set up, you can deploy Helm charts to the cluster. Pulumi provides the `kubernetes.helm.v3.Chart` resource to streamline this process. You will need to point to the Helm repository that hosts your `linkerd-edge-mixin` chart and specify any configuration values required by the chart.

Below is a TypeScript program that accomplishes these tasks. This program assumes you have already configured Pulumi with your Azure credentials.

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

// Step 1: Create an AKS cluster
const resourceGroup = new azure.resources.ResourceGroup("myResourceGroup");

const cluster = new azure.containerservice.ManagedCluster("myAksCluster", {
    resourceGroupName: resourceGroup.name,
    // Required properties (like location) are typically specified in the config,
    // but you can hardcode them as well in the code.
    location: resourceGroup.location,
    agentPoolProfiles: [{
        count: 1,
        vmSize: "Standard_B2s",
        name: "agentpool" // Name for the node pool
    }],
    dnsPrefix: "myakscluster" // Replace with a prefix you prefer or generate a unique one
});

// Export the kubeconfig for the cluster
export const kubeconfig = pulumi.
    all([cluster.name, resourceGroup.name]).
    apply(([clusterName, resourceGroupName]) => {
        return azure.containerservice.listManagedClusterUserCredentials({
            resourceGroupName: resourceGroupName,
            resourceName: clusterName,
        });
    }).
    apply(creds => Buffer.from(creds.kubeconfigs[0].value, "base64").toString());

const k8sProvider = new k8s.Provider("k8s", { kubeconfig });

// Step 2: Deploy the linkerd-edge-mixin Helm chart
const linkerdChart = new k8s.helm.v3.Chart("linkerd-edge-mixin", {
    chart: "linkerd-edge-mixin",
    version: "latest", // Specify the version, or use "latest" if you want the latest version
    fetchOpts: {
        repo: "https://helm.linkerd.io/edge", // URL of the linkerd-edge Helm repository
    },
}, { provider: k8sProvider });

// Export the endpoint of the AKS cluster
export const aksClusterEndpoint = cluster.privateFqdn;
```

This program will do the following:

- Create a new resource group in Azure to host all our resources.
- Provision a new AKS cluster inside this resource group. We've specified a single node pool with one node for simplicity.
  - Note other required properties such as `location` and `dnsPrefix` are either specified directly or can be provided through Pulumi config. For a production-grade cluster, you'll likely need additional configurations (like multiple node pools, network policies, etc.).
- Retrieve and export the `kubeconfig` file, allowing you to interact with the cluster using `kubectl` or other Kubernetes tools.
- Initialize a Pulumi Kubernetes provider using the `kubeconfig`.
- Deploy the `linkerd-edge-mixin` Helm chart to the AKS cluster using the Kubernetes provider.

Remember to replace some of the values (e.g., `dnsPrefix`) with your own preferred values or auto-generate them as necessary. Additionally, if the Helm chart `linkerd-edge-mixin` requires it, you can supply custom configuration values within the `values` field of the `Chart` resource.

After running `pulumi up` to apply this Pulumi program, the infrastructure will be set up, and the `linkerd-edge-mixin` chart will be deployed to your AKS cluster. You can manage and monitor your Kubernetes resources through the Azure portal or using Kubernetes tooling like `kubectl`.