Deploy the gitpod-selfhosted helm chart on Linode Kubernetes Engine

Question

Pulumi · Accepted Answer

Deploying a Helm chart on a Kubernetes cluster involves a few steps: setting up the cluster, installing the Helm CLI, and then using Helm to deploy the chart. When working with infrastructure as code, these steps can be codified using Pulumi. In this case, we'll focus on deploying the `gitpod-selfhosted` Helm chart to a Linode Kubernetes Engine (LKE) cluster.

Here's how you can create a Linode Kubernetes Engine cluster and deploy the `gitpod-selfhosted` Helm chart on it using Pulumi with TypeScript:

### Set up Pulumi TypeScript Project

To begin, make sure you have Pulumi CLI installed and the Linode provider configured with your Linode API token. If you haven't yet, you can follow the installation instructions in the [Pulumi documentation](https://www.pulumi.com/docs/get-started/).

1. **Start a new Pulumi project:**
   
   ```
   pulumi new typescript
   ```
   
2. **Install necessary packages:**
   
   Your Pulumi program will need the `@pulumi/linode` and `@pulumi/kubernetes` packages to create an LKE cluster and deploy Helm charts to it.
   
   ```bash
   npm install @pulumi/linode @pulumi/kubernetes
   ```

With the Pulumi project set up and the necessary packages installed, you can now define your infrastructure.

### Define the LKE Cluster

You'll start by defining a new Linode Kubernetes Engine cluster resource.

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

// Create a new LKE cluster.
const cluster = new linode.LkeCluster("gitpod-cluster", {
    region: "us-central", // Choose the region that is suitable for you
    k8sVersion: "1.20", // Specify the desired Kubernetes version
    labels: ["gitpod"],
    tags: ["gitpod"],
    pool: [{
        count: 3, // Number of nodes
        type: "g6-standard-2", // Node type (this is Linode's plan identifier for a 4GB node)
    }],
});
```

### Set up Kubeconfig

To interact with the newly created cluster, you'll need the Kubeconfig, which can be obtained from the LKE cluster resource once the cluster is up and running.

```typescript
// Export the Kubeconfig for the cluster
export const kubeconfig = cluster.kubeconfig;
```

### Deploy Gitpod Helm Chart

With the Kubernetes cluster ready and the Kubeconfig available, you can proceed to deploy the Gitpod Helm chart. This example deploys the chart from a hypothetical Helm repository. You'll need to replace `"https://charts.gitpod.io"` with the actual repository URL containing the `gitpod-selfhosted` Helm chart.

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

// Deploy the gitpod-selfhosted Helm chart
const gitpodChart = new k8s.helm.v3.Chart("gitpod-selfhosted", {
    chart: "gitpod-selfhosted",
    version: "0.10.0", // Replace with the correct chart version
    fetchOpts: { repo: "https://charts.gitpod.io" },
    // Define values for the Helm chart as needed
    values: {
        components: {
            imageBuilder: {
                workspaceImages: {
                    build: {
                        nodeName: "gitpod",
                    },
                },
            },
        },
    },
}, { provider: k8sProvider });

// Export the URL for the gitpod application
export const gitpodUrl = pulumi.interpolate`http://${gitpodChart.getResourceProperty("v1/Service", "proxy", "status").apply(status => status.loadBalancer.ingress[0].ip)}`;
```

### Full Pulumi Program

Combining the above parts, here is the full Pulumi program:

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

// Create a Linode Kubernetes Engine cluster
const cluster = new linode.LkeCluster("gitpod-cluster", {
    region: "us-central",
    k8sVersion: "1.20",
    labels: ["gitpod"],
    tags: ["gitpod"],
    pool: [{
        count: 3,
        type: "g6-standard-2",
    }],
});

// Export the Kubeconfig
export const kubeconfig = cluster.kubeconfig;

// Kubernetes provider
const k8sProvider = new k8s.Provider("k8s-provider", {
    kubeconfig: kubeconfig,
});

// Gitpod Helm chart deployment
const gitpodChart = new k8s.helm.v3.Chart("gitpod-selfhosted", {
    chart: "gitpod-selfhosted",
    version: "0.10.0",
    fetchOpts: { repo: "https://charts.gitpod.io" },
    values: {
        components: {
            imageBuilder: {
                workspaceImages: {
                    build: {
                        nodeName: "gitpod",
                    },
                },
            },
        },
    },
}, { provider: k8sProvider });

// Output the Gitpod URL
export const gitpodUrl = pulumi.interpolate`http://${gitpodChart.getResourceProperty("v1/Service", "proxy", "status").apply(status => status.loadBalancer.ingress[0].ip)}`;
```

Run `pulumi up` to provision the resources and deploy the Gitpod Helm chart on Linode Kubernetes Engine.

This program creates a Kubernetes cluster on Linode with the necessary node count and instance types. It then uses the Kubernetes provider to interact with the cluster and deploys the `gitpod-selfhosted` Helm chart to the cluster.

Note that the `values` section in the chart deployment is placeholder content; you will need to modify it according to the actual requirements of the Gitpod Helm chart and your desired Gitpod configuration.

Lastly, the program exports the Gitpod URL using the ingress IP address, which you can use to access your Gitpod installation once it's running.