Deploy the ignite helm chart on Rancher

Question

Pulumi · Accepted Answer

To deploy the Ignite Helm chart on Rancher, I’ll guide you through a Pulumi program written in TypeScript. We’ll utilize Pulumi’s Rancher2 provider which allows us to interact with Rancher resources like clusters, apps, catalogs, and more.

First, we need to set up the Rancher2 provider and configure it to communicate with your Rancher server. Then we'll deploy the Ignite Helm chart within a Rancher-managed Kubernetes cluster.

Here is a step-by-step Pulumi program that achieves this:

1. **Initialize a new Pulumi project**: If you haven't already, start by creating a new Pulumi project in your desired directory with `pulumi new`.

2. **Install the Rancher2 package**: You would need the Rancher2 Pulumi provider, which you can install with `npm install @pulumi/rancher2`.

3. **Authenticate Pulumi with Rancher**: Ensure you have access to your Rancher API keys, as the provider will need them to interact with your Rancher server.

4. **Set up your Pulumi program**: Write the TypeScript program that defines the resources needed to deploy the Ignite Helm chart.

5. **Deploy**: Run `pulumi up` to deploy your resources.

Now let's look at the actual Pulumi TypeScript program that deploys the Ignite Helm chart on Rancher.

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

// Configure the Rancher provider
const rancherProvider = new rancher2.Provider("rancher", {
    apiUrl: "https://your-rancher-api-url.com/v3", // Replace with your Rancher API URL
    accessKey: "your-rancher-access-key",          // Replace with your Rancher Access Key
    secretKey: "your-rancher-secret-key",          // Replace with your Rancher Secret Key
});

// Your Rancher cluster id where you want to deploy the Helm chart
const clusterId = "cluster-id"; // Replace with your actual Rancher Cluster ID

// Add the Helm chart repository to Rancher
const igniteCatalog = new rancher2.CatalogV2("ignite-catalog", {
    name: "ignite",
    clusterId: clusterId,
    url: "https://apache.github.io/ignite-charts", // The Ignite Helm chart repository URL
    // Set additional properties if necessary, such as credentials.
}, { provider: rancherProvider });

// Create a namespace for the Ignite Helm chart, if it doesn't exist
const namespace = new k8s.core.v1.Namespace("ignite-namespace", {
    metadata: {
        name: "ignite",
        // Assumes that you have a default Rancher project setup
        annotations: { "field.cattle.io/projectId": clusterId },
    },
});

// Deploy the Ignite Helm chart
const igniteHelmChart = new rancher2.AppV2("ignite-app", {
    clusterId: clusterId,
    chartName: "ignite",
    releaseName: "ignite-instance",
    repoName: igniteCatalog.name,
    namespace: namespace.metadata.name,
    // Set additional chart values, such as version and custom values for the deployment
    // values: `key: value`,
}, { provider: rancherProvider });

// When using `pulumi up`, this will output the namespace where Ignite is deployed
export const igniteHelmNamespace = namespace.metadata.name;
```

Explanation:

- We are importing necessary modules for Pulumi, Rancher2, and Kubernetes.
- We configure the Rancher provider by providing the API URL, access key, and secret key.
- Next, we specify our Rancher cluster ID where we want to install Ignite.
- We add the Ignite Helm chart repository as a `CatalogV2` in Rancher.
- We ensure there is a Kubernetes namespace for our Ignite deployment. You can specify a project ID in the annotations if needed.
- We create an `AppV2` resource to represent the Ignite Helm chart deployment. Adjust the `chartName`, `releaseName`, `repoName`, and other settings as necessary.

Make sure to replace placeholder strings like `"https://your-rancher-api-url.com/v3"` and other `your-*` placeholders with relevant details from your Rancher setup.

After setting up this program, simply run `pulumi up` in your command line. Pulumi will handle the communication with Rancher to deploy the Ignite Helm chart to your specified cluster.

Check the Rancher UI or use `kubectl` to verify that your chart has been deployed successfully. You can retrieve the output from your Pulumi program by running `pulumi stack output igniteHelmNamespace`.