Deploy the reverse-geocoding helm chart on Rancher

Question

Pulumi · Accepted Answer

Deploying a Helm chart to a Rancher-managed Kubernetes cluster involves several steps. First, ensure you have a Kubernetes cluster registered with Rancher and you have access to manage it. You may need to install the Rancher CLI or use the Rancher dashboard to set up and interact with your clusters. In this guide, I'll demonstrate how to use Pulumi to deploy a Helm chart, specifically for a reverse-geocoding service, into a Kubernetes cluster that's being managed by Rancher.

Before we start, please make sure you have the following prerequisites sorted out:

1. **Rancher Server Setup**: Your Rancher server should be up and running, and you should have access to it. You'll need the API endpoint of your Rancher server and appropriate credentials to interact with it programmatically.
2. **Pulumi**: You must have Pulumi installed and configured to interact with your Rancher instance. This typically involves setting up the Pulumi CLI, logging in to your Pulumi account, and setting the appropriate environment variables for Rancher access (e.g., `RANCHER_SERVER_URL`, `RANCHER_ACCESS_KEY`, `RANCHER_SECRET_KEY`).
3. **Kubernetes Cluster**: A Kubernetes cluster should be up and running on Rancher, and you should have `kubectl` access to it.
4. **Helm Chart for Reverse-Geocoding Service**: You should have the Helm chart available for the reverse-geocoding service that you wish to deploy. This could either be a chart that you've created or one that is publicly available.

Assuming these are set up, we'll proceed with writing a Pulumi program in TypeScript to deploy a reverse-geocoding Helm chart on a Rancher-managed cluster.

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

// Configurations for your Rancher-managed Kubernetes cluster
const clusterName = "your-cluster-name"; // Replace with your cluster's name
const namespace = "default"; // Replace with the target namespace if different

// Configurations for the Helm chart you want to deploy
const reverseGeocodingChartName = "reverse-geocoding"; // Helm chart name (ensure this exists)
const reverseGeocodingChartVersion = "1.0.0"; // Helm chart version
const reverseGeocodingReleaseName = "reverse-geocoding-release"; // Release name for Helm deployment

// Using the Rancher2 provider, we create a new provider instance that points to our Rancher-managed cluster.
const rancherK8sProvider = new rancher2.Provider("rancher-k8s", {
    // Assuming you've set up the environment variables for Rancher access, these will be used here.
    // If not, replace the below access key and secret key with your Rancher credentials.
    apiUrl: process.env.RANCHER_SERVER_URL, // The API endpoint URL of your Rancher server
    accessKey: process.env.RANCHER_ACCESS_KEY, // Your Rancher access key
    secretKey: process.env.RANCHER_SECRET_KEY, // Your Rancher secret key
});

// Using this provider, we create a Rancher Cluster resource corresponding to our existing Rancher cluster.
const cluster = new rancher2.Cluster(clusterName, /*...other configurations...*/, { provider: rancherK8sProvider });

// Once we have the cluster resource, we configure Pulumi to use the Kubernetes provider
// that corresponds to the Rancher-managed cluster.
const k8sProvider = new kubernetes.Provider("k8s-provider", {
    kubeconfig: cluster.kubeConfigRaw, // Pulumi will automatically configure the k8s provider using the kubeconfig
});

// Deploy the Helm chart for the reverse-geocoding service using the Kubernetes provider
const reverseGeocodingChart = new kubernetes.helm.v3.Chart(reverseGeocodingReleaseName, {
    chart: reverseGeocodingChartName,
    version: reverseGeocodingChartVersion,
    namespace: namespace,
}, { provider: k8sProvider });

// Export any necessary outputs that you might want to use elsewhere
export const reverseGeocodingServiceEndpoint = reverseGeocodingChart.getResourceProperty("v1/Service", reverseGeocodingReleaseName, "status.loadBalancer.ingress[0].hostname");
```

This program does the following:

1. **Provider Setup**: We start by importing the necessary Pulumi libraries and creating a `Provider` resource that connects to your Rancher instance.
2. **Cluster Resource**: Then, we declare a `Cluster` resource referencing your existing Rancher cluster. Take note to replace placeholder values like `your-cluster-name` with actual identifiers that match your environment.
3. **Kubernetes Resource**: With the `Cluster` resource in place, we set up the Kubernetes provider, which uses the kubeconfig of your cluster to manage Kubernetes resources.
4. **Helm Chart Deployment**: Finally, we declare a Helm chart resource, providing the name, version, and namespace where you want the reverse-geocoding service to be deployed. Pulumi will handle the deployment using the configured Kubernetes provider.

Please ensure the properties for the Helm chart, such as the chart name and version, match with the available Helm chart you intend to deploy.

**NOTE**: The actual deployment and service endpoint extraction will vary based on the reverse-geocoding Helm chart you have. The `getResourceProperty` function used in the export statement extracts the load balancer's hostname for the deployed service if available. Adjust the resource type (`v1/Service`) and property path (`status.loadBalancer.ingress[0].hostname`) based on your specific chart's resources and outputs.

Lastly, replace any placeholder values with actual data that corresponds to your Rancher setup and Helm chart configurations, and run `pulumi up` to initiate the deployment. If there are any specific configurations inside the Helm chart that you need to override, you can include them in the `values` object within the `Chart` resource declaration.