Deploy the create-secret-manager-secret helm chart on Rancher

Question

Pulumi · Accepted Answer

To deploy a Helm chart on a Kubernetes cluster managed by Rancher, we will be using Pulumi with the rancher2 provider. The rancher2 provider allows you to manage resources in a Rancher v2.x installation. In this case, we'll be focusing on deploying a Helm chart, specifically for creating a secret in the Kubernetes secret management system.

Here's a step-by-step guide on how you can achieve this with Pulumi and TypeScript:

Set up the Pulumi project and stack: Create a new directory for your project, run pulumi new typescript, and follow the prompts. This will set up a new Pulumi TypeScript project and stack for you.
Install the Rancher2 provider: In your Pulumi project, you will need to install the Rancher2 provider. You can do this by running npm install @pulumi/rancher2.
Configure Pulumi to use the Rancher2 provider: Before running your Pulumi code, you will need to configure the Rancher2 provider with the appropriate credentials. This typically includes the URL of the Rancher server and an API token.
Define the secret and Helm chart: In your .ts file, you will define the secret that you want to create and then use the rancher2.CatalogV2 resource to deploy your Helm chart. The CatalogV2 resource represents a catalog of Helm charts that can be installed within the Rancher managed clusters.

Here's the Pulumi program that demonstrates these steps:

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

// Define the Helm chart details
const helmChartName = "create-secret-manager-secret";
const helmChartVersion = "1.0.0"; // Replace this with the actual chart version
const helmCatalogUrl = "https://my-helm-chart-repository/"; // Replace this with the URL of your Helm chart repository

// Define the secret data
const secretData = {
    "api-key": "s3cr3t", // Replace with your actual secret data
    // Add other secret data here
};

// Assume the Rancher2 provider is already configured with the necessary credentials.
// Create a new Catalog V2 (Helm repository) in Rancher to manage Helm chart deployments
const catalog = new rancher2.CatalogV2("my-catalog", {
    clusterId: "<cluster-id>", // Replace with your cluster ID
    url: helmCatalogUrl,
    // Additional optional configuration can be set here.
});

// Use the Helm Chart resource to deploy the secret manager chart from the catalog
const secretManagerChart = new rancher2.HelmChart("secret-manager-chart", {
    chart: helmChartName,
    version: helmChartVersion,
    catalogId: catalog.id,
    values: pulumi.output(secretData).apply(data => ({
        secrets: data,
    })),
    // Additional chart settings such as namespace can be set here.
});

// Export the URL to access the deployed Helm chart
export const chartUrl = pulumi.interpolate(`${helmCatalogUrl}/${helmChartName}`);

This program will set up a new Rancher catalog and deploy a Helm chart to manage secrets in Kubernetes secret management via Rancher's Helm chart support. You need to replace the placeholders like <cluster-id>, helmChartVersion, and helmCatalogUrl with the actual values that are specific to your environment.

To deploy this program:

Run pulumi up in your terminal in the directory where this program resides.
Confirm the deployment in the interactive prompt that Pulumi provides.
Your Helm chart will be deployed or updated in the specified Rancher-managed cluster.

This program does not include error checking or advanced deployment strategies, but it gives you a structure to start from. You'll likely want to expand this example with actual values and additional error checking as needed for your specific workloads.