Deploy the rancher-vsphere-cpi helm chart on AWS EKS

Question

Pulumi · Accepted Answer

In order to deploy the Rancher vSphere Cloud Provider Interface (CPI) Helm chart on an AWS Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) cluster, you will need to perform several steps:

Set up an EKS cluster (if you don't already have one).
Configure kubectl to interact with your EKS cluster.
Finally, deploy the Rancher vSphere CPI using Helm.

Below is a Pulumi program in TypeScript that automates the setup of an EKS cluster. Once the cluster is created, you can deploy the Rancher vSphere CPI chart to the cluster using Helm.

First, you'll start with installing the necessary dependencies. You should install the @pulumi/eks, @pulumi/kubernetes, @pulumi/aws, and @pulumi/awsx npm packages to work with EKS and Kubernetes in Pulumi.

npm install @pulumi/eks @pulumi/kubernetes @pulumi/aws @pulumi/awsx

Next, here is the Pulumi program:

import * as eks from "@pulumi/eks";
import * as aws from "@pulumi/aws";
import * as k8s from "@pulumi/kubernetes";

// Create a new EKS cluster. The cluster will automatically create and manage the necessary
// IAM roles and instance profiles.
const cluster = new eks.Cluster("my-cluster", {
    desiredCapacity: 2,
    minSize: 1,
    maxSize: 3,
    storageClasses: "gp2"
});

// Export the cluster's kubeconfig.
export const kubeconfig = cluster.kubeconfig;

// Create a k8s provider to interact with the EKS cluster.
const provider = new k8s.Provider("k8s-provider", {
    kubeconfig: cluster.kubeconfig.apply(JSON.stringify),
});

// Use Helm to deploy the Rancher vSphere CPI chart.
const rancherVsphereCpiChart = new k8s.helm.v3.Chart("rancher-vsphere-cpi", {
    chart: "rancher-vsphere-cpi",
    version: "<CHART_VERSION>",  // Replace with the version you want to deploy
    fetchOpts: {
        repo: "https://<REPO_URL>", // Replace with the chart repository URL
    }
}, { provider: provider });

// If you have specific configuration parameters, include them in the `values` field.
// For example:
// values: {
//     "vcenter": {
//         "host": "your-vcenter-host",
//         "username": "your-vcenter-username",
//         "password": "your-vcenter-password",
//     },
// },

Explanation:

The eks.Cluster class is used to provision a managed Kubernetes EKS cluster on AWS. This handles setting up the control plane, worker nodes, and other configurations like scaling policies for you.
The kubeconfig output of the eks.Cluster is exported to enable kubectl interactions with your new EKS cluster.
The k8s.Provider instance specifies which Kubernetes cluster the Helm chart should be deployed to; in this case, it is the EKS cluster you created.
The k8s.helm.v3.Chart resource is used to deploy the Rancher vSphere CPI chart to your EKS cluster. You will need to replace <CHART_VERSION> with the version of the chart you want to deploy, and <REPO_URL> with the chart's repository URL.

What to do next:

After running this Pulumi program with pulumi up, the EKS cluster will be created and configured.
Next, configure your local kubectl by exporting the kubeconfig file that Pulumi outputs.
With kubectl set up, you can manage your EKS cluster resources and use Helm to deploy the Rancher vSphere CPI.

Remember to replace placeholders like <CHART_VERSION> and <REPO_URL> with actual values relevant to the Rancher vSphere CPI Helm chart before running the Pulumi program. Also, if you have specific configurations required by the Helm chart, include them in a values object as shown in the commented section.

I hope this helps! If you get stuck or have questions about specifics that aren't covered here, please let me know!