Deploy the robot-shop helm chart on Rancher

Question

Pulumi · Accepted Answer

To deploy the Robot Shop Helm chart on Rancher using Pulumi, you will need to use the rancher2 provider for Pulumi. This provider allows you to manage Rancher resources such as clusters, catalogs, and Helm chart deployments.

Before you begin, make sure you have installed Pulumi and set up your Rancher environment. You should have the kubeconfig file configured for Pulumi to interact with your Rancher-based Kubernetes cluster.

Here's a high-level overview of what we'll do:

Set up the rancher2 provider to authenticate with your Rancher installation.
Add a catalog to Rancher, which contains the Helm charts you want to deploy.
Deploy a Helm chart from the catalog onto your Rancher managed cluster.

Below is a comprehensive TypeScript program that performs these actions:

import * as pulumi from "@pulumi/pulumi";
import * as rancher2 from "@pulumi/rancher2";

// Step 1: Ensure the rancher2 provider has the correct configuration
// This will use the Rancher API to manage resources.
// Configuration will need the Rancher API URL, Access Key, and Secret Key.
// Refer to the Rancher2 provider documentation for more details: https://www.pulumi.com/registry/packages/rancher2/
const provider = new rancher2.Provider("rancher", {
    apiBaseUrl: "https://<RANCHER_API_URL>",
    accessToken: "token-xxxxx",
    secretKey: "xxxxx",
});

// Step 2: Add a catalog to Rancher
// The catalog is where Rancher pulls Helm charts from.
// Replace `<CATALOG_NAME>`, `<CATALOG_URL>`, and `<HELM_CHART_VERSION>` with appropriate values.
const catalog = new rancher2.CatalogV2("robot-shop-catalog", {
    name: "<CATALOG_NAME>",
    // Official Helm chart repository for 'robot-shop' could be used, or the URL to your own chart repository.
    url: "<CATALOG_URL>",
    clusterId: "<CLUSTER_ID>", // The ID of the Rancher cluster where you want to deploy the Helm chart.
    // Use a specific branch if necessary
    gitBranch: "main",
}, { provider: provider });

// Step 3: Deploy the Robot Shop Helm chart onto your Rancher managed cluster
// The name and chart variables are specific to the Helm chart you want to deploy.
// Replace `<HELM_CHART_NAME>` and `<NAMESPACE>` with appropriate values.
const install = new rancher2.AppV2("robot-shop", {
    // Reference the catalog created earlier
    catalogName: catalog.name,
    clusterId: "<CLUSTER_ID>",
    // Helm chart details
    chartName: "<HELM_CHART_NAME>",
    namespace: "<NAMESPACE>",
    // The version of the Helm chart to deploy
    version: "<HELM_CHART_VERSION>",
    // Values passed to the Helm chart. This is equivalent to using `--set` or `values.yaml` with Helm.
    values: pulumi.output({
        "<VALUE_NAME>": "<VALUE>",
        // ...additional Helm chart values
    }),
}, { provider: provider, dependsOn: [catalog] });

// Exports the publicly accessible URL, if applicable.
// This is hypothetical since exposing a service URL depends on the chart values.
export const robotShopUrl = pulumi.interpolate`http://${install.status.publicEndpoints[0].addresses[0]}:${install.status.publicEndpoints[0].port}`;

How this program works:

We start by creating a provider instance for the rancher2 provider, which requires the API URL, Access Key, and Secret Key for authentication. You will need to replace placeholders with your Rancher API URL and credentials.
We then define a catalog that points to a repository containing Helm charts. Replace <CATALOG_NAME>, <CATALOG_URL>, and <HELM_CHART_VERSION> with the appropriate values where you have hosted the Robot Shop Helm chart.
Finally, we deploy the Robot Shop Helm chart onto the cluster by creating an instance of rancher2.AppV2. The values for catalogName, clusterId, chartName, namespace, and version must be set according to your environment.
Optionally, the program exports the public URL of the Robot Shop application if it is made publicly accessible by the deployment. You'll need to adjust this according to the actual output provided by the Robot Shop Helm chart.

Remember to substitute placeholders such as <RANCHER_API_URL>, <CLUSTER_ID>, <HELM_CHART_NAME>, <NAMESPACE>, and <HELM_CHART_VERSION> with appropriate values specific to your environment. The same goes for <VALUE_NAME> and <VALUE> pairs, which should represent the configuration values you want to set for the Helm chart.

After writing this code into a index.ts file, you should run pulumi up in the same directory to create the resources with Pulumi.