Deploy the witcom-id-generator helm chart on Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)

Question

Pulumi · Accepted Answer

To deploy the `witcom-id-generator` Helm chart on Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), we'll be walking through the following steps:

1. **Set up AKS Cluster**: We'll start by creating an AKS cluster in Azure, which will be used to host our Kubernetes applications.
   
2. **Deploy Helm Chart**: After the cluster is available, we'll then proceed with deploying the Helm chart to the cluster using Pulumi's Kubernetes provider.

For the AKS cluster setup, we are going to use the [`azure-native.containerservice.KubernetesCluster`](https://www.pulumi.com/registry/packages/azure-native/api-docs/containerservice/kubernetescluster/) resource, which allows us to create and manage AKS clusters directly.

For the Helm chart deployment, we'll leverage the [`kubernetes.helm.v3.Chart`](https://www.pulumi.com/registry/packages/kubernetes/api-docs/helm/v3/chart/) resource from Pulumi's Kubernetes provider which allows us to manage Helm chart deployments in a Pulumi program.

### Prerequisites:
- An Azure account with appropriate permissions to create resources.
- Installed Pulumi CLI and connected it to an Azure account.
- Helm CLI installed, if we need to manually inspect or generate chart values.
- Node.js and npm installed if not already.

Here is how you can achieve this deployment using Pulumi with TypeScript:

```typescript
import * as pulumi from "@pulumi/pulumi";
import * as azure_native from "@pulumi/azure-native";
import * as k8s from "@pulumi/kubernetes";

// Step 1: Set up AKS Cluster
const resourceGroupName = new azure_native.resources.ResourceGroup("resourceGroup", {
    location: "westus2", // You can choose a different Azure region
});

const aksCluster = new azure_native.containerservice.KubernetesCluster("aksCluster", {
    resourceGroupName: resourceGroupName.name,
    location: resourceGroupName.location,
    // Define the properties of the AKS Cluster as required
    defaultNodePool: {
        name: "default",
        nodeCount: 2, // Specify the number of nodes you'd like in the default node pool
        vmSize: "Standard_DS2_v2", // The VM size of nodes
    },
    dnsPrefix: "witcom-id-gen-aks", // Ensure this is unique in the cloud region
    identity: {
        type: "SystemAssigned",
    },
});

// Export the Kubeconfig for the AKS cluster
export const kubeconfig = aksCluster.kubeConfigRaw;

// Step 2: Deploy Helm Chart on AKS
const aksKubeConfig = aksCluster.kubeConfigRaw.apply(kubeConfig => Buffer.from(kubeConfig, 'base64').toString('utf-8'));

const k8sProvider = new k8s.Provider("k8sProvider", {
    kubeconfig: aksKubeConfig,
});

// Specify the Helm chart and the repository (ensure this Helm chart and repo exist or adjust accordingly)
const helmChart = new k8s.helm.v3.Chart("witcom-id-generator", {
    chart: "witcom-id-generator",
    version: "1.0.0", // Specify the version of the chart to deploy
    fetchOpts: {
        // Assume Helm repository was added with `helm repo add` command, otherwise specify `repo` field
        repo: "http://charts.example.com/", // Provide the correct repository URL here
    },
}, { provider: k8sProvider });

// Optionally, if you need to pass some values to the Helm chart, you can include `values` in the chart arguments
const helmChartWithValues = new k8s.helm.v3.Chart("witcom-id-generator", {
    chart: "witcom-id-generator",
    version: "1.0.0", // Specify the version of the chart to deploy
    values: {
        // Insert any required chart values here
        // Example:
        // service: {
        //     type: "LoadBalancer",
        // },
    },
    fetchOpts: {
        repo: "http://charts.example.com/",
    },
}, { provider: k8sProvider });

// If the Helm chart creates a Kubernetes Service with type LoadBalancer, we may want to export the endpoint.
// For this, you'll need to refer to the service name and possibly adjust this depending on your setup.
const service = helmChart.getResource("v1/Service", "witcom-id-generator-service");
export const serviceEndpoint = service.status.apply(s => s.loadBalancer.ingress[0].ip);
```

This program performs the following actions:
- Defines an Azure resource group in which all resources will be organized.
- Creates an AKS cluster within that resource group.
- Exports the kubeconfig of the AKS cluster, which can be used to interact with the cluster with `kubectl` or other tools.
- Sets up the Pulumi Kubernetes provider using the kubeconfig from the newly created AKS cluster.
- Deploys the Helm chart `witcom-id-generator` to the AKS cluster. Assumes that you have a helm chart with that name and a valid Helm repo where it's stored.
- Optionally, it also demonstrates how to pass custom values to your Helm chart, should that be needed.

Remember to replace any placeholder values to reflect the actual Helm chart name, its version, potentially its values, and the correct repository URL. Additionally, you may have to set up the AKS cluster with the right configuration to suit your use case, like choosing the right VM size or node count for the node pools.

Once your Pulumi program is ready, you can run it using these commands:
```sh
pulumi up      # To preview and deploy changes
pulumi stack output kubeconfig > kubeconfig.yaml    # To save kubeconfig to a file
export KUBECONFIG=./kubeconfig.yaml    # To set kubeconfig environment variable for `kubectl`
kubectl get svc   # To verify the Helm chart service is running
```

Make sure to run `pulumi stack output kubeconfig` after the initial deployment since the AKS cluster may take some time to become fully provisioned and for the kubeconfig to become available.