Deploy the nginx-vts-exporter helm chart on Digital Ocean Kubernetes Service

Question

Pulumi · Accepted Answer

Deploying the `nginx-vts-exporter` Helm chart on a Digital Ocean Kubernetes Service (DOKS) cluster involves a few steps:

1. **Setting up a DOKS Cluster:** First, you need to create a Kubernetes cluster on Digital Ocean. This is where the Helm chart will be deployed.

2. **Installing the Helm Chart:** After the cluster is up and running, you can use the Helm Package Manager to install the `nginx-vts-exporter` chart into the cluster.

The following Pulumi program written in TypeScript demonstrates how to accomplish the above steps. It assumes that you have the necessary prerequisites installed:
- Pulumi CLI
- Kubernetes CLI (`kubectl`)
- Helm CLI (`helm`)

Before running the Pulumi program, ensure that you have authenticated with Digital Ocean and have set up the Pulumi CLI with credentials to interact with Digital Ocean's API.

### Detailed Pulumi Program

Below is the Pulumi program that accomplishes the task:

```typescript
import * as pulumi from '@pulumi/pulumi';
import * as digitalocean from '@pulumi/digitalocean';
import * as k8s from '@pulumi/kubernetes';

// Step 1: Create a new Digital Ocean Kubernetes cluster
const cluster = new digitalocean.KubernetesCluster('do-cluster', {
    region: digitalocean.Regions.NYC1, // Choose the region that is best for you
    version: 'latest', // Specify the DOKS version or use 'latest'
    nodePool: {
        name: 'default',
        size: digitalocean.DropletSlugs.DOS2vCPU4GB, // Choose the droplet size
        nodeCount: 3, // Set the number of nodes in the pool
    },
});

// Step 2: Using a Kubernetes Provider to interact with the DOKS cluster
const k8sProvider = new k8s.Provider('k8s-provider', {
    kubeconfig: cluster.kubeConfigs[0].rawConfig,
});

// Step 3: Install the nginx-vts-exporter Helm chart into the cluster
const nginxVtsExporter = new k8s.helm.v3.Chart('nginx-vts-exporter', {
    chart: 'nginx-vts-exporter',   // This should be the name of the chart in the Helm repository
    version: '0.10.3',             // Specify the chart version you want to deploy
    fetchOpts: {
        repo: 'https://helm.repo.url/', // Add the URL of the Helm repository containing your chart
    },
}, { provider: k8sProvider });

// Export the cluster's kubeconfig.
export const kubeconfig = cluster.kubeConfigs[0].rawConfig;

// After running `pulumi up`, the DOKS cluster will be created and the nginx-vts-exporter Helm chart will be installed.
```

Make sure to replace the placeholders (like `https://helm.repo.url/` with the actual helm repository URL where the `nginx-vts-exporter` chart is hosted) with the appropriate values.

I would like to emphasize that the `chart` property under `nginxVtsExporter` should be the actual chart name found within the repository, and `version` should be the desired chart version.

**A Note on Versions:**
Specifying `'latest'` for the Kubernetes cluster version will ensure that you get the latest stable release of Kubernetes supported by Digital Ocean. Be sure to manage versions responsibly in production environments to ensure compatibility and avoid surprises from automatic upgrades.

After writing and deploying the above Pulumi program (using `pulumi up`), you should have a DOKS cluster running and the `nginx-vts-exporter` Helm chart deployed.

Additionally, the `kubeconfig` is exported from the script, which will allow you to interact with your Kubernetes cluster using `kubectl` with the proper context set. Remember to keep your kubeconfig secure, as it grants access to your Kubernetes cluster.

To check that the `nginx-vts-exporter` is running, you can run `kubectl get pods` once the Pulumi program has successfully completed. This will list the running Pods in the cluster, and you should see the `nginx-vts-exporter` listed there.