Deploy the pebble helm chart on Rancher

Question

Pulumi · Accepted Answer

To deploy the Pebble Helm chart on Rancher using Pulumi, we need to follow these steps:

1. **Install Pulumi CLI**: Make sure that Pulumi CLI is installed on your machine. It allows you to create, deploy, and manage infrastructure on cloud providers using code.

2. **Set up Rancher**: Have a running Rancher instance which will manage your Kubernetes clusters. Ensure you have access to it and have the necessary permissions to deploy resources.

3. **Add Helm Chart Repository**: Add the repository which contains the Pebble chart to Rancher.

4. **Deploy Helm Chart**: Use Pulumi to deploy the Pebble Helm chart into a specific namespace in your Kubernetes cluster.

In this example, we will use the `rancher2` package which allows us to work with Rancher directly. We'll follow these steps programmatically by writing a Pulumi program in TypeScript.

Before running the following program, make sure you have the following prerequisites in place:
- Your Rancher instance set up and reachable.
- Your `kubeconfig` file is correctly configured to allow `kubectl` and Pulumi to interact with your Kubernetes clusters managed by Rancher.
- Authentication for Pulumi to interact with Rancher, which could be environment variables or a configuration file that provides the endpoint, access key, and secret key.

Now let's walk through the Pulumi TypeScript program:

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

// Initialize Rancher2 provider. This assumes you have access to Rancher API endpoint and have necessary credentials.
// Replace `rancherApiUrl` and `rancherAccessToken` with your own details.
const rancherProvider = new rancher2.Provider("rancher", {
    apiUrl: "rancherApiUrl",
    accessToken: "rancherAccessToken", // Consider using Pulumi secret to secure the token
});

// The name of the Rancher cluster where you want to deploy Pebble
const clusterName = "my-rancher-cluster";

// Specify the namespace in which to deploy Pebble
const namespaceName = "pebble-namespace";

// Create a Kubernetes provider instance that uses the specific cluster managed by Rancher
const k8sProvider = new k8s.Provider("k8s-provider", {
    kubeconfig: rancherProvider.kubeConfigs.apply(configs => configs[clusterName].config),
});

// Create a Namespace in Kubernetes where we'll deploy the Pebble chart
const ns = new k8s.core.v1.Namespace(namespaceName, {
    metadata: { name: namespaceName }
}, { provider: k8sProvider });

// Add the Helm repository that contains the Pebble chart
// Replace `repoName` and `repoUrl` with the actual chart repository details.
const pebbleRepo = new k8s.helm.v3.Repository("pebble-repo", {
    name: "repoName",
    url: "repoUrl",
}, { provider: k8sProvider });

// Deploy the Pebble Helm chart
const pebbleChart = new k8s.helm.v3.Chart("pebble-chart", {
    chart: "pebble",
    version: "chartVersion", // Replace with the desired chart version
    namespace: ns.metadata.name,
    fetchOpts: {
        repo: pebbleRepo.url,
    },
}, { provider: k8sProvider, dependsOn: [pebbleRepo, ns] });

// Export the Navy Namespace name
export const pebbleNamespace = ns.metadata.name;
```

This program uses `@pulumi/kubernetes` to interact with Kubernetes and create a Namespace for the Pebble deployment. It also uses `@pulumi/rancher2` to interact with Rancher, manage access to the cluster, and configure the Kubernetes provider accordingly.

The program starts by creating a custom Rancher provider using `rancher2.Provider`, which requires the Rancher API endpoint and access token. With this provider, it sets up a Kubernetes provider (`k8s.Provider`) to manage resources in the specific cluster managed by Rancher. It then creates a new Namespace by instantiating `k8s.core.v1.Namespace` where the Pebble chart will be deployed.

Next, the Helm repository that contains the Pebble chart is added using `k8s.helm.v3.Repository`. After, we declare the deployment of the Pebble Helm chart using `k8s.helm.v3.Chart`, specifying the chart details and ensuring that it is deployed into the previously-created Namespace and uses the Helm repository set up earlier.

Lastly, an export statement is included to provide the namespace name as an output of the Pulumi program, which can be useful for subsequent commands or inspection.

By executing this program with Pulumi CLI (after installing the necessary NPM packages with `npm install` or `yarn add`), it will automate the deployment of the Pebble Helm chart on your Rancher-managed.cluster.