Deploy the apollo-portal helm chart on Kubernetes

Question

Pulumi · Accepted Answer

Deploying a Helm chart on a Kubernetes cluster using Pulumi involves several steps. Helm is a package manager for Kubernetes, which allows you to define, install, and upgrade complex Kubernetes applications. Helm charts help you define, install, and upgrade even the most complex Kubernetes application.

In this Pulumi program, we'll deploy the apollo-portal Helm chart. It's essential to have a Kubernetes cluster running where you can deploy your chart. Pulumi provides native support for Kubernetes and provides resources to deploy Helm charts directly.

Here are the steps we will take in our Pulumi program:

First, we will import the necessary Pulumi Kubernetes package for TypeScript.
Then, we'll use the helm.v3.Chart resource to deploy our Helm chart.

Before you run the following program, ensure that you have Pulumi and Kubernetes installed and configured on your machine.

Let's start with the Pulumi program:

import * as k8s from '@pulumi/kubernetes';

// Creating a new Helm chart instance in the default namespace.
const apolloPortal = new k8s.helm.v3.Chart('apollo-portal', {
    chart: 'apollo-portal',
    // The repository option specifies the Helm chart repository to use.
    // Replace '<REPO_URL>' with the URL where the chart is hosted.
    // For example, if the chart is hosted on Helm Hub, you would use the URL provided by Helm Hub.
    fetchOpts: {
        repo: '<REPO_URL>',
    },
    // The `values` option allows you to provide a custom configuration for your chart.
    values: {
        // Add customization according to the specific chart configuration
        // For example:
        // service: {
        //     type: 'LoadBalancer',
        // },
    },
    // The `version` option allows you to specify the version of the chart to deploy.
    // Replace '<CHART_VERSION>' with the actual chart version you're planning to deploy.
    version: '<CHART_VERSION>',
});

// Export the base URL for the Apollo Portal service
// The export statement assumes that your chart exposes a service
// which can be accessed through an external IP or a domain name.
export const apolloPortalUrl = apolloPortal.getResourceProperty('v1/Service', 'apollo-portal-service', 'status').apply(status => status.loadBalancer.ingress[0].hostname || status.loadBalancer.ingress[0].ip);

In the above code:

We import the Pulumi Kubernetes library, which is a fundamental step as it contains the necessary classes and functions.
We declare a variable apolloPortal, which is a new instance of the helm.v3.Chart resource. This instance represents the apollo-portal Helm chart that we want to deploy.
We pass the chart name 'apollo-portal', but you'll need to replace <REPO_URL> with the URL where the chart is hosted and <CHART_VERSION> with the desired version of the apollo-portal chart.
We provide custom values under values, which you can adjust to meet the specific configuration needs of apollo-portal. Replace the example service configuration with the appropriate values according to the chart's needs.
Lastly, we use an export statement to make the base URL of the Apollo Portal service available outside of Pulumi. This assumes your Helm chart exposes a service on a LoadBalancer and allows you to access the Apollo Portal service from the provided URL. If your service type is different (e.g., ClusterIP, NodePort), you would access it using the appropriate method (e.g., port-forwarding for ClusterIP).

To run the Pulumi program, navigate to the folder containing the Pulumi program file and execute the following commands:

pulumi stack init to create a new stack.
pulumi up to provision the resources as specified in your program.

These commands will prompt Pulumi to deploy your Helm chart on the existing Kubernetes cluster that you're connected to. Ensure that you have kubectl configured to the correct context to connect to your cluster.

Remember to replace all placeholder values with actual ones based on your Helm chart's requirements and your Kubernetes cluster configuration.