Deploy the openvswitch helm chart on Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)

Question

Pulumi · Accepted Answer

To deploy the Open vSwitch Helm chart on Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), you will need to:

1. Create an AKS cluster using Azure's Kubernetes Services.
2. Configure `kubectl` to connect to your AKS cluster.
3. Use Helm to deploy the Open vSwitch chart to your AKS cluster.

Below is a step-by-step guide on how you can achieve this using Pulumi and TypeScript.

**Step 1: Defining the AKS Cluster**

First, you need to define the AKS cluster resource. The `azure.containerservice.KubernetesCluster` class from the Pulumi Azure package is used to create and manage an AKS cluster. This includes configuring the Kubernetes version, node size, node count, and other settings.

**Step 2: Configuring kubectl**

Once the cluster is created, you need to configure `kubectl` to connect to the AKS cluster. This typically involves fetching the kubeconfig file with access credentials. Pulumi can automatically generate the kubeconfig for you once the cluster is provisioned.

**Step 3: Installing Helm and the Open vSwitch Chart**

With `kubectl` configured, you use Helm to install the Open vSwitch chart. Helm is a package manager for Kubernetes, which you can use to deploy pre-packaged applications called Helm charts. Pulumi has a Helm provider that can deploy charts to a Kubernetes cluster.

Below is a TypeScript program that demonstrates these steps using Pulumi:

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

// Step 1: Create an Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) cluster
const k8sCluster = new azure.containerservice.KubernetesCluster("aksCluster", {
    // Replace these with appropriate values or dynamic references as necessary
    resourceGroupName: "yourResourceGroup",
    location: "WestUS",
    // Define the default node pool
    defaultNodePool: {
        name: "aksagentpool",
        nodeCount: 2,
        vmSize: "Standard_D2_v2",
    },
    // Define the DNS prefix
    dnsPrefix: "pulumi-k8s-aks",
    // Specify Kubernetes version
    kubernetesVersion: "1.20.7", // Check Azure for the latest supported version
});

// Step 2: Export the kubeconfig
export const kubeconfig = pulumi
    .all([k8sCluster.name, k8sCluster.resourceGroupName])
    .apply(([clusterName, resourceGroupName]) => {
        return azure.containerservice.getKubeConfig({
            name: clusterName,
            resourceGroupName: resourceGroupName,
        }).then(kubeconfig => kubeconfig.kubeConfigRaw);
    });

// Step 3: Use the Helm provider to deploy Open vSwitch
const helmRelease = new k8s.helm.v3.Release("openvswitch-helm-release", {
    // Assuming Open vSwitch Helm chart is publicly available
    // Otherwise, specify the chart version and repository
    chart: "openvswitch",
    // Configure the release settings, if any (values represent Helm values)
    values: {
        // Place your values here, similar to 'helm install --set key=value'
    },
    // Reference to the cluster and kubeconfig
    // This part ensures the Helm chart is installed on the cluster we created above
    kubeconfig,
}, { provider: new k8s.Provider("k8s-provider", { kubeconfig }) });

// To access the cluster after the deployment process completes, you can use the `kubeconfig` output of this program.
```

Explanation of the key parts:

- **Resource Group and Location**: Specifies where the AKS cluster will be created.
- **Default Node Pool**: Defines the size and number of nodes (VMs) in the default pool for running your workloads.
- **DNS Prefix**: Uniquely identifies your AKS cluster.
- **Kubernetes Version**: Sets the version of Kubernetes to be used by AKS.
- **Helm Release**: Deploys the Open vSwitch Helm chart to your AKS cluster.

To apply this Pulumi program, save the code to a `index.ts` file, and then execute the following Pulumi CLI commands:

```
pulumi up
```

After the deployment is successful, your Open vSwitch Helm chart will be running on the AKS cluster, and you'll have a `kubeconfig` file exported which you can use with `kubectl` to interact with your Kubernetes cluster.

Please be aware that to run Pulumi commands, you need to have Pulumi installed and set up. You'll also need to authenticate with Azure to create resources in your subscription using Pulumi.