Deploy the laravel-helm helm chart on Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE)

Question

Pulumi · Accepted Answer

Deploying a Laravel application using the Helm chart on Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) involves several steps:

1. **Create a GKE cluster**: A Kubernetes cluster on GKE where your Laravel application will be deployed to. The cluster will consist of a set of worker machines, called nodes, that run containerized applications.

2. **Install Helm**: Helm is a package manager for Kubernetes, which allows you to define, install, and upgrade even the most complex Kubernetes applications.

3. **Deploy Helm chart**: Helm charts help you define, install, and upgrade even the most complex Kubernetes application. For Laravel, you would use a predefined Helm chart that packages all the required components.

Below is a Pulumi program written in TypeScript that demonstrates how to accomplish these steps.

First, make sure you have the Pulumi CLI installed and configured for use with GKE. You would also need `kubectl` installed and configured to interact with the cluster, and Helm for working with charts.

Now, let's go through the Pulumi program. Note that this program assumes you have the necessary GCP credentials configured in your environment.

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

// Create a GKE cluster
const cluster = new gcp.container.Cluster("my-gke-cluster", {
    initialNodeCount: 2,
    minMasterVersion: "latest", // Ensure access to the latest updates and features
    nodeVersion: "latest",
    nodeConfig: {
        machineType: "n1-standard-1", // This is a good default but should be adjusted according to needs
    },
});

// Export the Kubeconfig
export const kubeconfig = pulumi.
    all([cluster.name, cluster.endpoint, cluster.masterAuth]).
    apply(([name, endpoint, masterAuth]) => {
        const context = `${gcp.config.project}_${gcp.config.zone}_${name}`;
        return `apiVersion: v1
clusters:
- cluster:
    certificate-authority-data: ${masterAuth.clusterCaCertificate}
    server: https://${endpoint}
  name: ${context}
contexts:
- context:
    cluster: ${context}
    user: ${context}
  name: ${context}
current-context: ${context}
kind: Config
preferences: {}
users:
- name: ${context}
  user:
    auth-provider:
      config:
        cmd-args: config config-helper --format=json
        cmd-path: gcloud
        expiry-key: '{.credential.token_expiry}'
        token-key: '{.credential.access_token}'
      name: gcp
`;
    });

// Create a Kubernetes provider instance that uses our cluster from above.
const k8sProvider = new k8s.Provider("gke-k8s", {
    kubeconfig: kubeconfig,
});

// Now deploy Laravel Helm chart using the Kubernetes provider
const laravelChart = new k8s.helm.v3.Chart("laravel-helm", {
    chart: "laravel",          // This assumes a Helm chart named "laravel" is available. You may need to specify a repository.
    values: {},                // Define any chart values required here
    // If your chart requires to be installed in a specific namespace, you can create and specify a namespace
}, { provider: k8sProvider });

// Export the Laravel service endpoint
export const laravelService = laravelChart.getResourceProperty('v1/Service', 'laravel', 'status');

```

### Explanation
- We create a GKE cluster with a specified initial node count and machine types for the underlying VMs.
- We extract the kubeconfig, which is necessary for `kubectl` and the Kubernetes provider to communicate with your cluster.
- We create an instance of the Kubernetes provider which is an abstraction used by Pulumi to interact with our newly created cluster.
- We deploy the Laravel application using a Helm chart named "laravel". Helm charts can be found in various public repositories or defined locally.
- We export the endpoint of the Laravel service, so that we can access it once it is up and running.

Please ensure that before deploying this Pulumi program, you have access to the Laravel Helm chart and adjust the `chart` field in the `laravelChart` resource accordingly, often specifying a repository URL and possibly specific chart versions. You might also need to fill in the `values` with appropriate values to customize your Laravel installation.

This program can be expanded to handle more complex deployment patterns, including setting up ingress controllers, configuring SSL, auto-scaling, and more, all of which Pulumi can manage through additional Kubernetes resource configurations.