Deploy the p4 helm chart on AWS EKS

Question

Pulumi · Accepted Answer

To deploy the p4 Helm chart on an Amazon EKS (Elastic Kubernetes Service) cluster using Pulumi, you will need to complete a few steps:

1. **Set up an EKS cluster**: This is where your Kubernetes workloads will run. You'll create an EKS cluster with the required configuration like VPC and IAM roles.
2. **Deploy the Helm Chart**: Once the cluster is up and running, you can deploy your Helm chart to the cluster.

Here's a brief overview of each step along with the Pulumi code written in TypeScript to accomplish this.

### Setting Up an EKS Cluster with Pulumi

To create an EKS cluster with Pulumi, you will typically use the `@pulumi/eks` package which provides a high-level interface to EKS. It simplifies creating and configuring clusters. You must also have an IAM role that EKS can assume to create AWS resources for Kubernetes.

Below is the Pulumi program that sets up an EKS cluster:

```typescript
import * as aws from "@pulumi/aws";
import * as eks from "@pulumi/eks";

// Create an EKS Cluster
const cluster = new eks.Cluster("p4-cluster", {
    // Specify the desired Kubernetes version
    version: "1.21",
    // Other configurations like VPC and subnet IDs can be provided,
    // or Pulumi can use defaults. IAM roles for the EKS cluster are
    // automatically created.
});

// Export the cluster details
export const kubeconfig = cluster.kubeconfig;
```

### Deploying the Helm Chart to the EKS Cluster

With the cluster ready, you can deploy the Helm chart. Pulumi has a `@pulumi/kubernetes` package which allows you to work with Helm charts directly.

Here's how you might deploy a Helm chart named "p4":

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

// This requires that you have already set up an EKS cluster and have the kubeconfig
const kubeconfig = // ... obtain the kubeconfig from the EKS cluster resource or configuration.

// Create a Kubernetes provider instance that uses our existing cluster's kubeconfig
const provider = new k8s.Provider("k8s-provider", {
    kubeconfig: kubeconfig,
});

//
// Then you can deploy the p4 helm chart using the k8s provider
// The chart can be from a public repository or your private repo, you'd also setup
// required configuration like chart version, values, etc.

const chart = new k8s.helm.v3.Chart("p4-chart", {
    chart: "p4",
    version: "1.0.0", // specify the chart version
    fetchOpts: {
        // If your Helm chart is in a private repository, setup the repo details here
        // repo: "http://your-chart-repo/"
    },
    values: {
        // ... your chart values
    },
}, { provider }); // Note we're passing the provider we configured with our EKS kubeconfig

// Export the chart name
export const chartName = chart.name;
```

Please ensure you replace placeholders like `// ... obtain the kubeconfig from the EKS cluster resource or configuration.` with actual values from your EKS setup.

### Why Use These Resources?

- `@pulumi/eks.Cluster` is a high-level component that abstracts away the complexity of setting up an EKS cluster. It creates and configures your cluster with sane defaults but also allows you to override them as necessary.
- `@pulumi/kubernetes.helm.v3.Chart` facilitates the use of Helm charts with Pulumi. Helm is a popular package manager for Kubernetes, which allows you to define, install, and upgrade even the most complex Kubernetes applications.

Remember to install these Pulumi packages by running `npm install @pulumi/aws @pulumi/eks @pulumi/kubernetes`.

Additionally, you will also need to have AWS credentials configured for Pulumi to interact with your AWS account. This usually involves having the AWS CLI installed and configured with access keys that Pulumi can use, or setting up the environment variables `AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID` and `AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY`.

After setting up your Pulumi and AWS CLI, you can run your Pulumi program using the following commands:

- `pulumi up` to preview and deploy the changes.
- `pulumi stack export` to see outputs like your `kubeconfig`.
- `pulumi destroy` when you want to tear down the resources.

Keep in mind that the specific configurations for your EKS cluster and the Helm chart may vary depending on your unique requirements, such as networking setup, AWS region, or Helm chart configurations. Be sure to adjust the code samples accordingly to fit your use case.