Deploy the vps helm chart on Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)

Question

Pulumi · Accepted Answer

To deploy a VPS Helm chart on Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), we must follow these steps:

1. Create an AKS cluster: We'll use Pulumi's `azure-native` provider to provision an AKS cluster with the necessary specifications to support our Helm deployment.

2. Configure Kubernetes: Once the AKS cluster is provisioned, we set up the `kubeconfig` to interact with the cluster using Pulumi's `Kubernetes` provider.

3. Deploy the VPS Helm Chart: With the Kubernetes provider configured, we deploy the Helm chart for the VPS application onto our AKS cluster.

Let's start by creating an AKS cluster. In this Pulumi TypeScript program, we use the `ProvisionedCluster` resource, which provides us with a way to provision an AKS cluster in Azure. The `kubeConfig` output of this resource can be used to configure our Kubernetes provider. Since we are doing a VPS Helm chart deployment, we don't need a very complex setup, so our AKS cluster will be relatively basic.

Next, we'll set up the Kubernetes provider with the AKS cluster's kubeConfig.

Finally, we'll deploy the VPS Helm chart using the `helm.v3.Chart` resource from Pulumi's Kubernetes provider. We assume that there's already a Helm chart named `vps` which we have published and version-controlled, and we'll be using that chart for deployment. Helm charts are a great way to package Kubernetes applications, and Pulumi allows you to manage Helm releases as part of your infrastructure code.

Here's the program that executes the steps described above:

```typescript
import * as pulumi from '@pulumi/pulumi';
import * as azureNative from '@pulumi/azure-native';
import * as k8s from '@pulumi/kubernetes';

// Step 1: Create an AKS cluster
const resourceGroup = new azureNative.resources.ResourceGroup('myResourceGroup');

const aksCluster = new azureNative.containerservice.ManagedCluster('myAksCluster', {
    resourceGroupName: resourceGroup.name,
    agentPoolProfiles: [{
        count: 1,
        vmSize: 'Standard_D2_v2',
        name: 'agentpool',
        osType: 'Linux'
    }],
    dnsPrefix: 'myakscluster',
    enableRBAC: true,
    kubernetesVersion: '1.18.14',
});

const creds = pulumi.all([resourceGroup.name, aksCluster.name]).apply(([resourceGroupName, clusterName]) =>
    azureNative.containerservice.listManagedClusterUserCredentials({
        resourceGroupName,
        resourceName: clusterName,
    })
);

const kubeConfig = creds.apply(c => Buffer.from(c.kubeconfigs[0].value, 'base64').toString());

// Step 2: Configure Kubernetes provider using the kubeConfig of AKS cluster
const k8sProvider = new k8s.Provider('k8sProvider', {
    kubeconfig: kubeConfig,
});

// Step 3: Deploy the VPS Helm chart
const vpsChart = new k8s.helm.v3.Chart('vpsChart', {
    chart: 'vps',
    version: '1.0.0',
    // Assuming the VPS chart is publicly accessible, otherwise you'd need to specify a repository.
}, { provider: k8sProvider });

// Export the kubeconfig to access the AKS cluster
export const kubeConfigOut = kubeConfig;
```

In this program:

- An Azure resource group is created using the `ResourceGroup` resource.
- The `ManagedCluster` resource from the `pulumi/azure-native` package is used to define and provision an AKS cluster with the specified VM size and agent count. We have enabled RBAC and provided a specific Kubernetes version. Note that you may want to adjust these parameters based on your requirements and the available AKS Kubernetes versions at the time of deployment.
- The credentials for the AKS cluster are retrieved using `listManagedClusterUserCredentials`, which is an invocation that's part of the Azure Native provider.
- We create a new Kubernetes provider with the retrieved `kubeConfig`, which allows Pulumi to deploy resources to the AKS cluster.
- Then, we define the `helm.v3.Chart` resource to deploy the VPS Helm chart. The `chart` property should match the name of your chart, and the `version` should match the chart version you wish to deploy. If the Helm chart is in a private repository, you would need to add additional configuration to specify the repository URL and any necessary authentication details.
- Lastly, we export the `kubeConfig` which might be used to manually interact with the Kubernetes cluster, e.g., using `kubectl`.

This program is a blueprint for deploying a Helm chart onto AKS with Pulumi. You'll need to ensure that you have the proper Pulumi stack setup and your Azure credentials configured before running this Pulumi program.