Deploy the canary-operator helm chart on Rancher

Question

Pulumi · Accepted Answer

To deploy the canary-operator Helm chart on a Rancher-managed Kubernetes cluster, you need to perform several steps. First, you need to install Pulumi and configure it to interact with your Rancher installation. Next, you use Pulumi’s Rancher2 provider to interact with Rancher.

Here's a conceptual overview of what we'll be doing in our Pulumi program:

1. Instantiate a new Rancher2 provider instance.
2. Deploy a new Kubernetes cluster using Rancher if you don't already have one.
3. Once the Kubernetes cluster is available, install or configure the Helm chart repository where the `canary-operator` Helm chart is located.
4. Deploy the `canary-operator` Helm chart to the cluster.

The following Pulumi program in TypeScript achieves the goal described:

```typescript
import * as rancher2 from "@pulumi/rancher2";
import * as k8s from "@pulumi/kubernetes";

const name = "canary-operator";

// Create a new Rancher2 provider instance.
// This assumes that you have already configured your Rancher credentials in the Pulumi environment.
const rancherProvider = new rancher2.Provider("rancherProvider", {
    api_url: "https://your-rancher-api-url.com/v3",
    accessKey: "your-rancher-access-key",
    secretKey: "your-rancher-secret-key",
    // You may need to set additional provider properties depending on your authentication method and setup.
});

// If you do not have a Kubernetes cluster managed by Rancher, you can create one using the rancher2.Cluster resource.
// Below is just a placeholder example. You'll need to tailor the configuration to your preferred cloud provider and settings.
const cluster = new rancher2.Cluster("cluster", {
    name: "my-cluster",
    // ... additional configuration ...
}, { provider: rancherProvider });

// Now, configure the Kubernetes provider to deploy resources to the newly created or existing cluster.
// This uses the kubeconfig output from the Rancher2 cluster resource which is necessary to connect to the cluster.
const k8sProvider = new k8s.Provider("k8sProvider", {
    kubeconfig: cluster.kubeconfig,
});

// Before installing the Helm chart, you need to have or add a Helm chart repository that contains the `canary-operator` chart.
// This example uses a generic Helm chart repository URL and assumes that the `canary-operator` is present there.
const helmRepo = new k8s.helm.v3.Repository("my-repo", {
    name: "canary-operator-repo",
    repo: "https://charts.canary-operator-repo.com", // Replace with the actual repo URL
}, { provider: k8sProvider });

// Finally, install the `canary-operator` Helm chart from the repository.
const canaryOperatorChart = new k8s.helm.v3.Chart(name, {
    chart: name,
    version: "0.1.0", // Specify the chart version you want to deploy
    namespace: "canary-operator-namespace", // Namespace where you want to install the chart
    fetchOpts: {
        repo: helmRepo.repo,
    },
    // Set any values required by the `canary-operator` helm chart here.
    values: {
        // ... chart values ...
    },
}, { provider: k8sProvider });

// Export the name of the cluster
export const clusterName = cluster.name;
```

Please replace the placeholder values for `api_url`, `accessKey`, and `secretKey` with your actual Rancher server URL and credentials. Adjust the `cluster` and `canaryOperatorChart` configurations according to your specific requirements and the configuration parameters the `canary-operator` chart accepts.

This program sets up the right providers and resource configurations that Pulumi needs to deploy a Helm chart to a Rancher-managed Kubernetes cluster. Pulumi's TypeScript language allows you to define your infrastructure as code, which makes it easy to manage and version your cloud resources in a familiar programming language.

Keep in mind:

- You need to have Pulumi installed and configured for use.
- The cluster resource creation step can be skipped if you already have a cluster managed by Rancher.
- The specific values and configuration for the Helm chart will vary based on the Helm chart's requirements and your deployment specifics.
- Ensure you have the Kubernetes cluster's kubeconfig, which is necessary for Pulumi's Kubernetes provider to interact with the cluster.
- Adjust the Helm repository URL and chart version to match where and what version of the `canary-operator` you want to deploy.

By adopting the infrastructure as code approach with Pulumi, you gain the ability to automate, version control, and repeatably deploy your applications across environments.