Deploy the simplemailproxy helm chart on Rancher

Question

Pulumi · Accepted Answer

To deploy the `simplemailproxy` helm chart on Rancher using Pulumi, we need to accomplish a couple of things:

1. Ensure you have access to a Rancher-managed Kubernetes cluster.
2. Install the Pulumi Rancher2 provider, which allows us to interact with Rancher API resources.
3. Use Pulumi to deploy the `simplemailproxy` helm chart to the Rancher-managed Kubernetes cluster.

Before you run the Pulumi program, make sure you have set up your Rancher environment:

- Install and set up Rancher on a Kubernetes cluster if you haven't done so already.
- Configure `kubectl` to communicate with your Rancher Kubernetes cluster.
- Ensure you've installed Pulumi CLI and configured it with appropriate cloud credentials.

Here's a program written in TypeScript that demonstrates how to deploy a Helm chart on Rancher using Pulumi:

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

// Initialize Pulumi development stack
const stack = pulumi.getStack();

// Getting existing Rancher2 cluster `my-rancher-cluster` by name
// Ensure you replace `"my-rancher-cluster"` with your actual Rancher cluster name
const cluster = rancher2.Cluster.get("my-rancher-cluster-instance", "my-rancher-cluster");

// Using the retrieved cluster, next we will initialize the Kubernetes provider
// which references the Rancher2 cluster's kubeconfig
const k8sProvider = new k8s.Provider("k8s-provider", {
  kubeconfig: cluster.kubeConfig,
});

// Deploy the simplemailproxy helm chart
const chart = new k8s.helm.v3.Chart(
  "simplemailproxy-chart",
  {
    chart: "simplemailproxy",
    // You may need to specify the chart version and repository URL
    // For instance:
    // version: "1.0.0",
    // repositoryOpts: {
    //   repo: "http://charts.example.com/"
    // },
    // If the helm chart requires values, you can add them here as an object
    // values: {
    //   ...
    // },
  },
  // Specify the provider to ensure this is installed on the Rancher-managed cluster
  { provider: k8sProvider }
);

// Export the chart name as the stack output
export const chartName = chart.metadata.apply(m => m.name);
```

This Pulumi program does the following:

- Imports the necessary Pulumi packages for Rancher2 and Kubernetes.
- Retrieves an existing Rancher2 cluster using the `rancher2.Cluster.get` method. Replace `"my-rancher-cluster"` with the name of your Rancher cluster.
- Initializes a new instance of the Kubernetes provider that uses the kubeconfig from the Rancher2 cluster.
- Deploys the `simplemailproxy` Helm chart to the Kubernetes cluster managed by Rancher. You may need to provide additional details for the Helm chart such as the version and repository if it is not in the default Helm repo.
- Exports the name of the Helm chart deployment as a stack output for easy reference.

After you've set up this Pulumi program, you need to install the dependencies via `npm`:

```shell
npm install @pulumi/pulumi @pulumi/rancher2 @pulumi/kubernetes
```

Make sure you create a new Pulumi project if you haven't already, and then place the program in your Pulumi project's `index.ts` file.

Afterward, you can run `pulumi up` from your terminal, which will prompt you to confirm the deployment. Once you confirm, Pulumi will handle the deployment of the helm chart on your Rancher-managed Kubernetes cluster.

This is a basic example, and depending on your Helm chart's configuration, you may need to adjust values and configurations to suit your requirements.