I'm writing a helm chart that uses the stable/redis chart as a subchart.
I need to override the storage class name used for both microservices within my chart, and within the redis chart.
I'm using helm 2.12.3
I would like to be able to specify redis.master.persistence.storageClass in terms of a template, like so
storage:
storageClasses:
name: azurefile
redis:
usePassword: false
master:
persistence:
storageClass: {{ $.Values.storage.storageClasses.name }}
Except, as I understand, templates aren't supported within values.yaml
As this is a public chart, I'm not able to modify it to depend on a global value as described here in the documentation
I considered using {{ $.Values.redis.master.persistence.storageClass }} elsewhere in my chart rather than {{ $.Values.storage.storageClasses.name }}, but this would:
Not hide the complexity of the dependencies of my chart
Not scale if I was to add yet another subchart dependency
In my values.yaml file I have:
storage:
storageClasses:
name: azurefile
redis:
master:
persistence:
storageClass: azurefile
I would like to specify a single value in values.yaml that can be overwritten at chart deploy time.
e.g. like this
helm install --set storage.storageClasses.name=foo mychart
rather than
helm install --set storage.storageClasses.name=foo --set redis.master.persistence.storageClass mychart
As you correctly mentioned, helm value files are plain yaml files which cannot contain any templates. For your use case, you'd need to use a templating system for your values files also which basically means you are also generating your value files on the go. I'd suggest taking a look at helmfile. This lets you share values file across multiple charts and application environments.
Related
Right now, I have to install multiple helm charts in different namespaces for my product to work. I am trying to create a super helm chart in which I am planning to add the helm charts (of my tools, as mentioned above) and install them in one shot. My problem is, as these tools are in different namespaces I am not sure where to specify the namespace key where I want that particular dependency (chart) to be installed. For e.g. if below is the Charts.yaml of my super helm chart
dependencies:
- name: first_chart
version: 1.2.3
repository: https://firstchart.repo
- name: second_chart
version: 1.5.6
repository: https://secondchart.repo
I want my first chart to be installed in namespace foo and the second chart to be installed in namespace bar.
I was looking at using conditions but I believe conditions will only take a boolean as a value.
I stumbled upon this link (https://github.com/helm/helm/issues/2060) which says the we can do it in Helm 3 but mostly on how to keep releases between different namespaces. It does not specifically answer my question.
There is no builtin way to do this with pure Helm, but there is with helmfile.
Your example as helmfile.yaml:
releases:
- name: chart1 # name of the release (helm install <...> first_chart)
chart: repo1/first_chart
version: 1.2.3
namespace: foo
- name: chart2
chart: repo2/second_chart
version: 1.5.6
namespace: bar
# in case you want helmfile to automatically update repos
repositories:
- name: repo1
url: https://firstchart.repo
- name: repo2
url: https://secondchart.repo
Then, run:
helmfile sync => run helm install/upgrade on all releases, or
helmfile apply => same as sync, but do a diff first to only upgrade/install releases that changed
There is way more to helmfile, but this is the gist.
PS: if you struggle with values or want to have something similar to how umbrella Chart values are handled, have a look at helmfile: a simple trick to handle values intuitively
The way I solved this for my clusters with with ArgoCD's App of Apps cluster bootstrapping model. Of course, it requires that ArgoCD is install the cluster. However, for many reasons not relevant to this answer I would highly encourage installing ArgoCD regardless of the easy of bootstrapping capabilities.
Assuming ArgoCD is in place the structure is a single Helm chart containing templates for each of the child charts it will deploy and managed via Argo's Application CRD. You will notice there is a definition as part of the CRD, spec.destination.namespace, which governs where the chart will be deployed.
An example Application template which governs my cert-manager chart deployment to the cert-manager namespace looks like:
{{- if .Values.certManager.enabled }}
# ref: https://argo-cd.readthedocs.io/en/stable/operator-manual/declarative-setup/#applications
apiVersion: argoproj.io/v1alpha1
kind: Application
metadata:
name: cert-manager
# You'll usually want to add your resources to the argocd namespace.
namespace: argocd
# Add a this finalizer ONLY if you want these to cascade delete.
finalizers:
- resources-finalizer.argocd.argoproj.io
spec:
# The project the application belongs to.
project: cluster-configs
# Source of the application manifests
source:
repoURL: https://github.com/yourOrg/Helm
targetRevision: {{ .Values.targetRevision }}
path: charts/cert-manager-chart
# helm specific config
helm:
# Helm values files for overriding values in the helm chart
# The path is relative to the spec.source.path directory defined above
valueFiles:
{{- range .Values.certManager.valueFiles }}
- {{ . }}
{{- end }}
# Optional Helm version to template with. If omitted it will fall back to look at the 'apiVersion' in Chart.yaml
# and decide which Helm binary to use automatically. This field can be either 'v2' or 'v3'.
version: v3
# Destination cluster and namespace to deploy the application
destination:
server: https://kubernetes.default.svc
namespace: cert-manager
{{- end }}
With a corresponding values.yaml file for this parent chart which may look something like the following with the path to desired value file(s) in that child chart's directory specified.
targetRevision: v1.11.0
certManager:
enabled: true
valueFiles:
- "values.yaml"
clusterAutoScaler:
valueFiles:
- "envs/dev-account/saas/values.yaml"
clusterResourceLimits:
valueFiles:
- "values.yaml"
externalDns:
valueFiles:
- "envs/dev-account/saas/values.yaml"
ingressNginx:
enabled: true
valueFiles:
- "values.yaml"
Below is a screenshot of one of my app of apps directory to complete the example.
I am currently using Kustomize. We are have multiple deployments and services. These have the same spec but different names. Is it possible to store the spec in individual files & refer them across all the deployments files?
Helm is a good fit for the solution.
However, since we were already using Kustomize & migration to Helm would have needed time, we solved the problem using namePrefix & label modifiers in Kustomize.
Use Helm, in ArgoCD create a pipeline with helm:3 container and create a helm-chart directory or repository. Pull the chart repository, deploy with helm. Use values.yaml for the dynamic values you want to use. Also, you will need to add kubeconfig file to your pipeline but that is another issue.
This is the best offer I can give. For further information I need to inspect ArgoCD.
I was faced with this problem and I resolved it using Helm3 charts:
I have a chart. Yaml file where I indicated my release name and version
values. Yam where I define all variable to use for a specific environment.
Values-test. Yaml a file to use, for example, in a test environment where you should only put the variable that must be changed from an environment to another.
I hope that can help you to resolve your issue.
I would also suggest using Helm. However a restriction of Helm is that you cannot create dynamic values.yaml files (https://github.com/helm/helm/issues/6699) - this can be very annoying, especially for multi-environment setups. However, ArgoCD provides a very nice way to do this with its Application type.
The solution is to create a custom Helm chart for generating your ArgoCD applications (which can be called with different config for each environment). The templates in this helm chart will generate ArgoCD Application types. This type supports a source.helm.values field where you can dynamically set the values.yaml.
For example, the values.yaml for HashiCorp Vault can be highly complex and this is a scenario where a dynamic values.yaml per environment is highly desirable (as this prevents having multiple values.yaml files for each environment which are large but very similar).
If your custom ArgoCD helm chart is my-argocd-application-helm, then the following are example values.yaml and the template which generates your Vault application i.e.
values.yaml
server: 1.2.3.4 # Target kubernetes server for all applications
vault:
name: vault-dev
repoURL: https://git.acme.com/myapp/vault-helm.git
targetRevision: master
path: helm/vault-chart
namespace: vault
hostname: 5.6.7.8 # target server for Vault
...
templates/vault-application.yaml
apiVersion: argoproj.io/v1alpha1
kind: Application
metadata:
name: {{ .Values.vault.name }}
namespace: argocd
finalizers:
- resources-finalizer.argocd.argoproj.io
spec:
destination:
namespace: 'vault'
server: {{ .Values.server }}
project: 'default'
source:
path: '{{ .Values.vault.path }}'
repoURL: {{ .Values.vault.repoURL }}
targetRevision: {{ .Values.vault.targetRevision }}
helm:
# Dynamically generate `values.yaml`
values: |
vault:
server:
ingress:
activeService: true
hosts:
- host: {{ required "Please set 'vault.hostname'" .Values.vault.hostname | quote }}
paths:
- /
ha:
enabled: true
config: |
ui = true
...
These values will then override any base configuration residing in the values.yaml specified by {{ .Values.vault.repoURL }} which can contain config which doesn't change for each environment.
I am creating a helm chart that uses multiple dependencies. For some of those dependencies I would like to use their values-production.yaml instead of the default values.yaml. I have tried adding a tag section to the dependencies to call the production values but that doesn't seem to work. For example the redis chart has production-values.yaml and values.yaml. Is there a way for me to use the production-values within my chart's dependencies?
Eg my helm Chart.yaml looks like:
apiVersion: v2
name: parentChart
...
dependencies:
- name: redis
version: 10.5.3
repository: "#stable"
tags:
- prd-values
There are two ways to provide your values file.
helm install -f myvals.yaml ./mychart
helm install --set foo=bar ./mychart
The order of specificity: values.yaml is the default, which can be overridden by a parent chart’s values.yaml, which can in turn be overridden by a user-supplied values file, which can in turn be overridden by --set parameters.
This means if you have same values in your values.yaml and values-production.yaml then only values-production.yaml will be used as it will overwrite the fields in values.yaml.
I searched for hours, but I can't find any solution for my problem.
Short Version: Is it possible to genarate new .Value properties at templating time?
Long Version: I want to deploy the ElasticStack with Logstash, Kibana, Elasticsearch and I want to use the offical helm templates for Kibana and Elasticsearch.
My Idea is to create a new Chart (elk) with the 3 subcharts.
elk
charts
elasticsearch (official helm template)
values.yaml
kibana (official helm template)
values.yaml
logstash
values.yaml
templates
values.yaml
My problem is the multiple declaration of the same property in the top-level values.yaml
My elk/values.yaml looks like the following
elasticsearch:
clusterName: "elasticsearchtest"
imageTag: "7.3.0"
replicas: 3
minimumMasterNodes: 2
volumeClaimTemplate:
storageClassName: gp2-resize
kibana:
elasticsearchHosts: "http://elasticsearchtest-master:9200"
imageTag: "7.3.0"
logstash:
elasticsearchHosts: "http://elasticsearchtest-master:9200"
imageTag: "7.3.0"
Note the repitition if I want to change the clustername or specify the imagetag. It feels really bad to overwrite the subcharts' values in this way.
It is possible to create a top-level values.yaml like this:
clusterName: "elasticsearchtest"
imageTag: "7.3.0"
and overwrite the subcharts values at templating time?
There is no way to template values.yaml, if you are not going to use external tools (eg. Ytt)
https://github.com/helm/helm/issues/2492
However, if you can change values.yaml in the subcharts, then you can assign it to the global variables, and define them once in the parent Helm chart.
Im using this helm chart to deploy: https://github.com/helm/charts/tree/master/stable/atlantis
It deploys this stateful set: https://github.com/helm/charts/blob/master/stable/atlantis/templates/statefulset.yaml
Is there a way I can add arbitrary config values to a pod spec that was deployed with a helm chart without having to modify the chart? For example I want to add an env: var that gets its value from a secret to the pod spec of the stateful set this chart deploys
Can I create my own helm chart that references this helm chart and add to the config of the pod spec? again without modifying the original chart?
EDIT: what Im talking about is adding an env var like this:
env:
- name: GET_THIS_VAR_IN_ATLANTIS
valueFrom:
secretKeyRef:
name: my-secret
key: abc
Maybe I can create another chart as a parent of this chart and override the entire env: block?
Is there a way I can add arbitrary config values to a pod spec that was deployed with a helm chart without having to modify the chart?
You can only make changes that the chart itself supports.
If you look at the StatefulSet definition you linked to, there are a lot of {{ if .Values.foo }} knobs there. This is an fairly customizable chart and you probably can change most things. As a chart author, you'd have to explicitly write all of these conditionals and macro expansions in.
For example I want to add an env: var that gets its value from a secret to the pod spec of the stateful set this chart deploys
This very specific chart contains a block
{{- range $key, $value := .Values.environment }}
- name: {{ $key }}
value: {{ $value | quote }}
{{- end }}
so you could write a custom Helm YAML values file and add in
environment:
arbitraryKey: "any fixed value you want"
and then use the helm install -f option to supply that option when you install the chart.
This chart does not support injecting environment values from secrets, beyond a half-dozen specific values it supports by default (e.g., GitHub tokens).
As I say, this isn't generic at all: this is very specific to what this specific chart supports in its template expansions.
Should have marked the previous answer as the answer but things have changed in helm3.
While there is still no built-in way of patching a chart there is now builtin support for a "post renderer" https://helm.sh/docs/topics/advanced/
So, calling kustomize as a post renderer would probably be what most would suggest now with helm3