Deploy the git-repo helm chart on Kubernetes

Question

Pulumi · Accepted Answer

Deploying a Helm chart from a Git repository into a Kubernetes cluster using Pulumi is a two-step process:

1. **Setting up a Kubernetes cluster**: If you already have a cluster, you can skip this step. Otherwise, you need to create one using Pulumi. You can create clusters on different cloud providers like AWS, Azure, GCP, etc., or use local solutions like `minikube` or `kind`.

2. **Deploying the Helm chart**: Once you have your Kubernetes cluster, you can use Pulumi's Kubernetes provider to deploy a Helm chart from a Git repository.

Below, I'll provide a Pulumi TypeScript program that demonstrates how to deploy a Helm chart from a Git repository. Please adjust the `repo`, `chart`, and `values` accordingly to match the chart you wish to deploy from your Git repository. This will only cover the second step since it assumes you already have access to a Kubernetes cluster and have configured `kubectl` to connect to it.

Let's start with the required imports and initialization code for Pulumi:

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

// Define our provider to interact with our existing Kubernetes cluster.
// We're assuming that the KUBECONFIG env variable is set or you are running
// `pulumi up` from a machine that has kubectl configured to point to your cluster.
const clusterProvider = new k8s.Provider("k8s-provider", {
    // If you need to customize the configuration, you can pass the kubeconfig explicitly:
    // kubeconfig: "your-kube-config"
});

// Here you specify the details of the Helm chart you wish to deploy.
const helmChartRelease = new k8s.helm.v3.Chart("git-repo-helm-chart", {
    // Replace `REPO_URL` with the URL of your Git repository that contains the Helm chart.
    // Replace `PATH_TO_CHART` with the path within the repository where the chart is located.
    // Replace `CHART_NAME` with the name of the chart within the repository.
    repo: "REPO_URL",
    path: "PATH_TO_CHART",
    chart: "CHART_NAME",
    // Add any custom values file in the form of an object if required for your chart.
    // Here's an example where we might pull the values file from another repository or a different path.
    // values: { key: "value" },
    version: "CHART_VERSION", // Specify the version of the chart you want to deploy
    fetchOpts: {
        home: "", // you can specify helm home directory, leave blank to use default
        repo: "REPO_URL", // source repository URL
        // Additional options here
    },
    // If your Helm chart or its dependencies require custom namespaces or other pre-deploy tasks,
    // you should include the namespace field, or run those tasks beforehand.
    namespace: "default", // Specify the namespace where your resources will be deployed
}, { provider: clusterProvider });

export const helmChartReleaseName = helmChartRelease.status.name;

```

In the code:

- We first import the `@pulumi/kubernetes` package, which lets us interact with Kubernetes resources.
- We set up a `k8s.Provider`, which tells Pulumi how to communicate with our Kubernetes cluster. If you've configured `kubectl` on your local machine to point to your cluster, Pulumi can use that same configuration.
- We create a new `Chart` resource, which tells Pulumi to deploy a Helm chart. In this case, we reference a Helm chart in a Git repository by setting `repo` to the Git repository URL and `path` to the location within the repository where the chart is located.
- We are exporting the name of the Helm release so that we can easily reference it later, perhaps from the Pulumi CLI.

To run this Pulumi program:

1. Save the code to a file named `index.ts`.
2. Install the necessary dependencies by running `npm install @pulumi/kubernetes`.
3. Run `pulumi up` to preview and deploy changes.

After running the program, Pulumi will perform the deployment of your Helm chart into your Kubernetes cluster. Remember to check that you have the necessary permissions and that your `kubeconfig` is correctly set up to interact with your Kubernetes cluster. If you need to install Pulumi or the Kubernetes CLI tool (`kubectl`), please follow the instructions on the official Pulumi and Kubernetes documentation pages.