Deploy the mx-node helm chart on Rancher

Question

Pulumi · Accepted Answer

To deploy the `mx-node` Helm chart on Rancher using Pulumi, you need to have a Rancher setup accessible and a Kubernetes cluster managed by Rancher ready to accept workloads. Pulumi interacts with Rancher to configure resources by using the `rancher2` provider. The `HelmChart` resource from this provider allows you to deploy Helm charts on a Kubernetes cluster.

Below, I'll present a TypeScript program using Pulumi to deploy the `mx-node` Helm chart within a Rancher-managed Kubernetes cluster. To achieve this, the program will:

1. Initialize a new Pulumi project using the Rancher 2 provider.
2. Use a `rancher2.CatalogV2` resource to add a Helm chart repository to Rancher, if your chart is not in a repository already configured in Rancher.
3. Deploy the Helm chart to a specific namespace in the cluster using the `rancher2.HelmChart` resource.

Before you run this program, you should ensure that you have:

- Installed Pulumi CLI and set up your Pulumi account.
- Configured access to your Rancher server (this typically involves setting the `RANCHER_SERVER_URL`, `RANCHER_ACCESS_KEY`, and `RANCHER_SECRET_KEY` environment variables or in some cases, setting them up in the Pulumi config).
- Either installed the Kubernetes CLI (`kubectl`) and set it up to talk to your cluster or ensured that Pulumi can access your Kubernetes cluster through Rancher's kubeconfig.
- Identified or created a namespace where the Helm chart will be deployed.
- The URL of the Helm chart repository and the name of the chart (`mx-node`).

Here's the TypeScript program:

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

// Provide the name of the Rancher cluster you are deploying to
const clusterName = "my-rancher-cluster";

// Provide the name of the Kubernetes namespace the chart should be deployed into
const namespaceName = "mx-node-namespace";

// Set the details for the Helm chart
const helmChartName = "mx-node";
const helmChartVersion = "1.0.0"; // specify the chart version you want to deploy
const helmChartRepoUrl = "https://charts.mycompany.com/"; // replace with the URL of your Helm chart's repository

// Create a new Rancher project to organize resources (if needed)
const project = new rancher2.Project("my-project", {
    clusterId: clusterName,
    description: "Project to hold mx-node resources",
});

// Ensure the namespace exists and is associated with the created project
const namespace = new rancher2.Namespace(namespaceName, {
    projectId: project.id,
    name: namespaceName,
});

// Add Helm chart repository to Rancher if not already added
const catalog = new rancher2.CatalogV2("mx-node-repo", {
    clusterId: clusterName,
    url: helmChartRepoUrl,
    name: "mx-node-repo",
});

// Deploy the mx-node Helm chart
const mxNodeHelmChart = new rancher2.HelmChart("mx-node-helm-chart", {
    clusterId: clusterName,
    name: helmChartName,
    chartName: helmChartName,
    chartVersion: helmChartVersion,
    repoName: catalog.name,
    namespace: namespace.name,
    values: pulumi.all([project.id, namespace.id]).apply(([projectId, namespaceId]) => `
# Values for the mx-node Helm chart can be adjusted here.
# For example, you can customize the configuration using YAML:
replicaCount: 2
image:
  repository: myrepo/mx-node
  tag: latest
`),
});

// Export the Helm chart deployment name
export const mxNodeHelmDeploymentName = mxNodeHelmChart.name;
```

This program performs the following steps:

- It begins by importing the necessary modules from Pulumi and defining required resource names and configurations.
- It optionally creates a new project under your Rancher cluster to organize resources. Each Rancher project can contain multiple namespaces and allows for better resource management.
- It ensures that a Kubernetes namespace is available within the Rancher project. Namespaces are a way to divide cluster resources between multiple users.
- It optionally adds a new Helm chart repository to Rancher which houses the `mx-node` chart if it's not part of the default catalogs in Rancher.
- It then deploys the `mx-node` Helm chart into the specified namespace with a default set of values by creating a `HelmChart` resource. You can customize the chart values by adjusting the YAML configuration under the `values` property.
- Finally, it exports the name of the Helm chart deployment as a stack reference which can be useful when querying the status of the deployment or for integrating with other Pulumi resources.

To deploy this program:

1. Save the code to a file with a `.ts` extension, for example, `deployMxNode.ts`.
2. Run `pulumi up` from your command line in the same directory as your TypeScript file.

Feel free to modify the configuration to align with your specific Rancher environment, Helm chart version, and any chart values you want to customize.

Remember that interacting with Rancher and Kubernetes may require additional permissions, and the account used by Pulumi should have enough access rights to deploy Helm charts and manage resources in the cluster.