Deploy the nginx-file-browser helm chart on Kubernetes

Question

Pulumi · Accepted Answer

To deploy the `nginx-file-browser` Helm chart on Kubernetes using Pulumi, we'll use the `kubernetes.helm.v3.Chart` resource from the Pulumi Kubernetes provider. This resource allows us to deploy a Helm chart to a Kubernetes cluster, similar to how you would use `helm install` from the Helm CLI tool.

Here's a step-by-step overview of deploying the `nginx-file-browser` Helm chart:

1. **Setting up a Kubernetes cluster**: Before deploying our Helm chart, we need a running Kubernetes cluster. You might have a cluster created manually or via Pulumi. If you don't have one, you'll need to provision one using Pulumi or your cloud provider's web console.

2. **Adding the Helm repository**: The Helm chart registry that contains the `nginx-file-browser` chart must be known to Helm. Typically you would add via `helm repo add`, with Pulumi you define it in the code.

3. **Deploy the Helm chart**: Using the `kubernetes.helm.v3.Chart` resource, we specify the `chart` name, which is `nginx-file-browser` in this example, and if it's from a custom repository, we also specify the `repo` URL.

4. **Configuring the chart values**: If you need to override default values of the Helm chart (for example, customizing service type or setting persistent volume claims), you pass an object to the `values` property.

5. **Running Pulumi up**: Finally, you run `pulumi up`, which executes the Pulumi program and creates the resources in your Kubernetes cluster.

Now, let's translate this into a Pulumi TypeScript program:

```typescript
import * as kubernetes from '@pulumi/kubernetes';

// Replace 'your_kubernetes_config_name' with the name of your Kubernetes context if necessary.
// This step assumes that you have a configured Kubernetes provider.
const k8sProvider = new kubernetes.Provider('k8s-provider', { 
    kubeconfig: 'your_kubeconfig_file_path' // optionally you can use 'kubeconfig' parameter to specify your kubeconfig file
});

// Deploying the nginx-file-browser Helm chart to the Kubernetes cluster
const nginxFileBrowserChart = new kubernetes.helm.v3.Chart('nginx-file-browser', {
    // Replace with the actual repository URL or name, if it's in the official Helm repository this is not needed.
    repo: 'the_helm_chart_repository', // e.g., 'https://charts.bitnami.com/bitnami'
    chart: 'nginx-file-browser',
    // Specify the version of the chart you want to deploy.
    version: 'the_chart_version', // e.g., '1.0.0'
    // Any extra configuration values for the chart can go here. For example:
    values: {
        // Refer to nginx-file-browser's Helm chart documentation for the values you can configure.
        // e.g., service: { type: 'LoadBalancer' }
    },
}, { provider: k8sProvider });

// Export the public IP or hostname of the nginx-file-browser if it is exposed via LoadBalancer or similar
export const nginxFileBrowserEndpoint = nginxFileBrowserChart.getResourceProperty('v1/Service', 'nginx-file-browser', 'status').apply(status => {
    const ingress = status.loadBalancer?.ingress[0];
    if (!ingress) {
        return 'not exposed externally';
    }
    return ingress.hostname || ingress.ip;
});
```

Explanation of the steps in the Pulumi TypeScript program:

- We import the Pulumi Kubernetes SDK.
- We create a Kubernetes provider instance that points to our desired Kubernetes cluster. In real scenarios, you might have to specify the path to your `kubeconfig` file or ensure Pulumi has access to it through your environment.
- We then create an instance of `kubernetes.helm.v3.Chart` to deploy the `nginx-file-browser` chart. The `repo` is the URL of the Helm repository that contains the chart. The `chart` parameter is the name of the chart, and if you need to specify a particular version, use the `version` parameter. The `values` are any customizations you want to apply.
- We set the Kubernetes provider to use the `k8sProvider` we created earlier if your Kubernetes cluster requires specific configurations.
- We expose the endpoint information with `export` which, on `pulumi up`, will display this information as an output, showing us where to access the deployed `nginx-file-browser`.

To finalize and apply your deployment, run the Pulumi CLI command `pulumi up` in the same directory as your Pulumi program. This step assumes you have Pulumi CLI installed and configured to access your cloud resources. The command will prompt for confirmation before proceeding to create or update actual resources in your cloud/cluster environment.

Remember to check the Helm chart's values and documentation to adjust any configurations matching your needs.