Deploy the nginx-vts-exporter helm chart on Rancher

Question

Pulumi · Accepted Answer

In order to deploy the `nginx-vts-exporter` Helm chart on a Rancher-managed Kubernetes cluster using Pulumi, you'll first need to have access to a Rancher Kubernetes cluster and be able to manage it. The overall steps for this deployment will involve setting up the necessary Pulumi providers, configuring the Rancher Kubernetes cluster, and deploying the Helm chart to that cluster.

The resources from the Pulumi Registry indicate that there is a `rancher2` provider that we can use to interact with Rancher. However, there's no direct match found for the `nginx-vts-exporter` Helm chart deployment within the results provided. Therefore, we will leverage the Helm Release resource from the Pulumi Kubernetes provider to deploy the chart.

Below is a Pulumi TypeScript program that demonstrates how to deploy a `nginx-vts-exporter` Helm chart to a Rancher Kubernetes cluster. We assume you have the cluster already set up and accessible via `kubeconfig`.

First, you will need to set up the Pulumi Rancher 2 provider to interact with your Rancher instance. In the program below, I'm assuming that you have set the necessary environmental configuration such as `RANCHER_URL`, `RANCHER_ACCESS_KEY`, and `RANCHER_SECRET_KEY`.

Next, you will set up the Pulumi Kubernetes provider, which will be configured using the `kubeconfig` from Rancher for the Kubernetes cluster you wish to deploy to.

Lastly, you will use the `kubernetes.helm.v3.Chart` resource from Pulumi's Kubernetes provider to deploy the `nginx-vts-exporter` Helm chart. You'll need to specify the chart's repository URL, version, and any values that need to be overridden in the `Chart` resource arguments.

Here's what the program would look like:

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

// Initialize the Rancher2 provider with its configuration, considering that
// the environment variables RANCHER_URL, RANCHER_ACCESS_KEY, and RANCHER_SECRET_KEY
// are set up correctly in your Pulumi setup.
const rancher2Provider = new rancher2.Provider("rancher-provider", {
    apiUrl: process.env["RANCHER_URL"],
    accessKey: process.env["RANCHER_ACCESS_KEY"],
    secretKey: process.env["RANCHER_SECRET_KEY"],
});

// Configure the Kubernetes provider using kubeconfig obtained from Rancher.
// This assumes that you have the kubeconfig available in your environment.
const k8sProvider = new k8s.Provider("k8s-provider", {
    kubeconfig: process.env["KUBECONFIG"],
});

// Deploy nginx-vts-exporter Helm chart on the Kubernetes cluster.
const nginxVtsExporterChart = new k8s.helm.v3.Chart("nginx-vts-exporter", {
    chart: "nginx-vts-exporter",
    version: "0.10.11", // Specify the chart version you wish to deploy
    fetchOpts: {
        repo: "https://helm-repo-url", // Replace with the actual Helm repo URL containing the chart
    },
    // Values to override. Replace with any values you need for your deployment.
    // This is an example and the keys/values will depend on the chart's values.yaml file.
    values: {
        service: {
            type: "ClusterIP",
        },
    },
}, { provider: k8sProvider });

// Export the endpoint of nginx-vts-exporter.
export const nginxVtsExporterEndpoint = nginxVtsExporterChart.getResourceProperty(
    "v1/Service", "nginx-vts-exporter", "status"
).apply(status => status.loadBalancer.ingress[0].ip || status.loadBalancer.ingress[0].hostname);
```
In the code above:

- We initialize the `rancher2` Pulumi provider using environmental configuration.
- Then, we configure the Kubernetes provider to connect to your Rancher-managed cluster using the provided `kubeconfig`.
- We deploy the `nginx-vts-exporter` Helm chart using the `kubernetes.helm.v3.Chart` resource from Pulumi's Kubernetes provider.
- The `Chart` resource's `fetchOpts.repo` is the URL of the Helm chart's repository (you'll need to replace this with the actual URL for the `nginx-vts-exporter` chart).
- The `values` property allows specifying any overrides for default chart values. This example shows setting the service type to `ClusterIP`; however, you'll need to adjust these based on your requirements and the Helm chart's available configuration options.
- Lastly, we export the service's endpoint, which can be accessed after deployment to verify that our Nginx exporter is running and accessible.

Please make sure that you check the specific `values` for the `nginx-vts-exporter` chart you want to deploy, as my example might not fully match the chart you are using.

You would normally use Pulumi's CLI to deploy this program. First, you'd run `pulumi up` to preview and execute the deployment. Once the deployment is successful, the endpoint of the `nginx-vts-exporter` service will be exported, and you can use it to access your Nginx metrics exporter.

Remember to replace placeholders such as the Helm repo URL and values with actual data relevant to your setup. This code is written assuming that all sensitive information and specific configurations are passed through environment variables or other secure means.