Deploy the elasticsearch-master helm chart on Rancher

Question

Pulumi · Accepted Answer

To deploy the `elasticsearch-master` Helm chart on Rancher using Pulumi, you'll need to perform several steps:

1. Set up a Rancher 2 Kubernetes cluster.
2. Add a chart repository to Rancher.
3. Deploy the Helm chart to the Rancher cluster.

In this explanation, we'll assume that you have a running Kubernetes cluster managed by Rancher and that you've installed and configured the Pulumi CLI with access to your cloud provider and Rancher.

We'll use the `rancher2` Pulumi provider, which allows us to interact with Rancher 2.x. First, you'll need to create a new Pulumi project and set up the necessary dependencies. For this example, we're using TypeScript as the programming language.

### Step 1: Set up the Pulumi project and dependencies

After installing the Pulumi CLI and setting up your project, you need to install the `rancher2` provider using npm.

```bash
# Initialize a new Pulumi project
pulumi new typescript

# Install the Rancher2 provider
npm install @pulumi/rancher2
```

### Step 2: Create the Pulumi script to deploy the chart

Below is a Pulumi program written in TypeScript. This program performs the following actions:

- Initializes a new Rancher 2 provider.
- Adds a Helm chart repository to Rancher (if you have a custom repository; otherwise, it can directly refer to a chart available in a public repository).
- Deploys the `elasticsearch-master` Helm chart using the `rancher2.App` resource.

Here's the Pulumi program:

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

// Initialize the Rancher2 provider
const provider = new rancher2.Provider("rancher2", {
    apiURL: "https://rancher.example.com/v3/",
    accessKey: "token-xxxxx",
    secretKey: "xxxxx",
});

// Kubernetes cluster to deploy the chart in
const clusterId = "c-xxxxx";

// A namespace where to deploy the chart, adjust as needed
const namespace = new rancher2.Namespace("elasticsearch-ns", {
    clusterId: clusterId,
    name: "elasticsearch",
}, { provider: provider });

// Add a Helm chart repository. This step is optional if the chart is already available in your Rancher setup
const chartRepo = new rancher2.CatalogV2("chart-repo", {
    clusterId: clusterId,
    url: "https://helm.elastic.co",
    name: "elastic",
    gitBranch: "master", // Branch to track, adjust if needed
}, { provider: provider });

// Deploy the elasticsearch-master Helm chart
const elasticsearchApp = new rancher2.App("elasticsearch-app", {
    clusterId: clusterId,
    namespaceId: namespace.name,
    projectName: "project-xxxxx", // Your Rancher project ID
    targetNamespace: namespace.name,
    catalogName: chartRepo.name,
    chart: "elasticsearch-master", // Name of the chart, ensure it exists in the repository
    version: "7.9.3", // Specify the version of the chart, adjust as needed
    values: ` # Custom values for the Helm chart can be provided here as YAML
service:
  type: ClusterIP
`,
}, { provider: provider, dependsOn: [namespace, chartRepo] });

// Export the endpoint of the elasticsearch master service
export const elasticsearchEndpoint = pulumi.interpolate`http://elasticsearch.${namespace.metadata.name}.svc.cluster.local:9200/`;
```

This program does the following:

- Configures the `rancher2` provider with the API URL and access keys to your Rancher instance.
- Creates a namespace in the given Kubernetes cluster where the Elasticsearch service will reside.
- Adds a new catalog to Rancher pointing to the Helm repository for Elasticsearch. If an official chart is used from Helm stable repository, this step might not be necessary.
- Deploys the `elasticsearch-master` Helm chart to the Rancher cluster in the specified namespace.

Please replace the placeholder values like `https://rancher.example.com/v3/`, `token-xxxxx`, `xxxxx`, `project-xxxxx`, and `7.9.3` with the actual values from your setup.

### Step 3: Run the Pulumi program

To apply the Pulumi program, you first have to preview the changes with `pulumi up --dry-run` and then deploy them with `pulumi up`.

Keep in mind that you'll need the appropriate privileges in your Rancher installation to create namespaces and deploy Helm charts. As you grow more comfortable with Pulumi and your needs evolve, you may wish to modularize your code, use loops to manage multiple environments, or separate configuration values into separate files.

Remember to check the Helm chart values and adjust the `values` field in the `rancher2.App` resource to match the configuration that you need for your Elasticsearch deployment.