Deploy the ansible-automation-platform helm chart on Rancher

Question

Pulumi · Accepted Answer

To deploy the Ansible Automation Platform Helm chart on a Kubernetes cluster managed by Rancher, you would typically follow these steps:

1. Set up a Rancher-managed Kubernetes cluster if you don't have one already.
2. Add the repository containing the Ansible Automation Platform Helm chart to Rancher.
3. Deploy the Helm chart to the cluster using Rancher.

As of my knowledge cutoff in early 2023, Pulumi does not directly support deploying Helm charts via Rancher. Pulumi interacts with Kubernetes clusters and Helm charts using the Kubernetes provider, and with the Rancher 2 platform using the Rancher2 provider. However, the interaction between Pulumi and Rancher to deploy Helm charts might involve indirect steps or the use of scripting alongside Pulumi to interface with Rancher's capabilities.

Pulumi can manage Kubernetes resources directly and Helm charts as well, but it wouldn't have a direct resource type for deploying a Helm chart specifically in Rancher because that involves Rancher's proprietary deployment orchestration. If you were not bound to Rancher for Helm deployment, you could use Pulumi's Kubernetes provider to deploy the Helm chart directly to the Kubernetes cluster.

For demonstration purposes, the following TypeScript program uses Pulumi to deploy a Helm chart directly to a Kubernetes cluster. This does not use Rancher, but it shows how Pulumi can be used for similar purposes. If you must use Rancher, you would need to use Rancher's CLI or UI to manage the Helm chart deployments or use Pulumi to script these actions through the Rancher API.

Here's how you would deploy a Helm chart using Pulumi:

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

const chartName = "ansible-automation-platform";
const chartVersion = "x.y.z"; // Replace with the actual chart version
const releaseName = "ansible-automation-platform-release";
const namespace = "default"; // Replace with the namespace where you want to deploy the chart
const repo = "https://charts.ansible.com/ansible"; // Replace with the actual Helm chart repository URL

const ansibleChart = new k8s.helm.v3.Chart(releaseName, {
    chart: chartName,
    version: chartVersion,
    fetchOpts:{
        repo: repo,
    },
}, { 
    namespace: namespace,
});

export const chartStatus = ansibleChart.status;
```

In this program, we are using the Pulumi Kubernetes provider to deploy a Helm chart directly to the Kubernetes cluster:

- We import the Kubernetes package from Pulumi.
- We define constants for the Helm chart name, version, release name, namespace, and Helm repo URL that hosts the Ansible Automation Platform Helm chart. You would need to provide the correct `chartVersion` and `repo` URL based on where the Ansible Automation Platform Helm chart is actually hosted.
- We create a new instance of the Helm chart using the `k8s.helm.v3.Chart` class and pass the necessary information including the repository URL fetched using `fetchOpts`.
- The release will be created in the specified namespace.
- We are exporting the status of the Helm release, which could include the deployed version and other useful metadata.

Run this Pulumi program with the following steps:
1. Ensure that you have Pulumi installed and configured to access your Kubernetes cluster.
2. Customize the above program with the appropriate chart details.
3. Save the TypeScript code in a file named `index.ts`.
4. Run `pulumi up` to execute the deployment.

This code assumes that you are familiar with Helm and have the appropriate Kubernetes cluster set up and accessible through your `kubectl` configuration. It does not integrate directly with Rancher though, as mentioned earlier. For that, you would need to follow Rancher's specific processes or APIs.