So I am using the helm chart stable/traefik to deploy a reverse proxy to my cluster. I need to customise it beyond what is possible with the variables I can set for the template.
I want to enable the dashboard service while not creating an ingress for it (I set up OpenVPN to access the traefik dashboard only via VPN).
Both dashboard-ingress.yaml and dashboard-service.yaml conditionally include the ingress or the respective service based on the same variable {{- if .Values.dashboard.enabled }}
From my experience I would fork the helm chart and push the customised version to my own repository.
Is there a way to add that customization but keep the original helm chart from the stable repository?
You don't necessarily have to push to your own repository as you could take the source code and include the chart in your own as source. For example, if you dig into the gitlab chart in their charts dependencies they've included multiple other charts as source their, not packaged .tgz files. That enables you to make changes in the chart within your own source (much as the gitlab guys have). You could get the source using helm fetch stable/traefik --untar
However, including the chart as source is still quite close to forking. If you want to upgrade to get fixes then you still have to reapply your changes. I believe your only other option is to raise the issue on the official chart repo. Perhaps for your case you could suggest to the maintainers that the ingress be included only when .Values.dashboard.enabled and a separate ingress condition is met.
Related
I am trying to set up a helmfile deployment for my local kubernetes cluster which is running using 'kind' (a lightweight alternative to minikube). I have charts set up for my app which are all deploying correctly, however I require an nginx-ingress controller. Luckily 'kind' provides one, which I am currently applying with the command:
kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kubernetes/ingress-nginx/main/deploy/static/provider/kind/deploy.yaml
It seems perverse that I should have everything else set up to deploy at the touch of a button, but still have to 'remember' (and also train my colleagues to remember...) to run this additional command.
I realise I could copy and paste and create my own version, but I would like to keep up to date with any changes made at source. Is it possible to create a chart that makes a reference to an external template?
I am looking at solutions using either helm or helmfile.
Your linked YAML file seems to have been generated from the ingress-nginx chart.
Subchart
You can include ingress-nginx as a subchart in Helm 3 by adding it as a dependency to your own chart. In Helm 3, this is done with the dependencies field in Chart.yaml, e.g.:
apiVersion: v2
name: my-chart
version: 0.1.0
dependencies:
- name: ingress-nginx
version: ~4.0.6
repository: https://kubernetes.github.io/ingress-nginx
condition: ingress-nginx.enabled
This may be problematic, however, if you need to install multiple versions of your own chart in the same cluster. To handle this, you'd need to consider the implications of multiple Ingress controllers.
Chart
Ingress controllers are capable of handling ingresses from various releases across multiple namespaces. Therefore, I would recommend maintaining ingress-nginx separately from your own releases that depend on it. This would mean installing ingress-nginx like you already are or as a separate chart (guide).
If you go this route, there are tools that help make it easier for devs to take a hands-off approach for setting up their K8s environments. Some popular ones include Skaffold, DevSpace, Tilt, and Helmfile.
I'm very curious how I should combine my own Helm chart with a set of contributed charts, i.e. the ones of BitNami.
So say I have my own chart that defines my backend application, how do I add a dependency to the contributed MySQL chart (instead of manually crafting it myself).
Another use case would be to add ArgoCD to my own custom chart. How do I do this in a declarative manner, without running the needed commands on the cluster manually?
I'm aware of the helm repo add and helm install for 3rd party charts, but these commands do not lend them well for CI/CD because they are not idempotent. I would like my chart to be declarative, so a single helm install also installs all listed dependencies. And the weird thing is that I cannot find anything about this topic online.
Would love your feedback!
We have several resources deployed as part of a helm (v3) chart. Some time ago, I made changes to resources deployed by that helm chart manually, via kubectl. This caused some drift between the values in the yaml resources deployed by the helm release (as show by helm get values <release>) and what is actually deployed in the cluster
Example: kubectl describe deployment <deployment> shows an updated image that was manually applied via a kubectl re-apply. Whereas helm show values <release> shows the original image used by helm for said deployment.
I realize that I should have performed a helm upgrade with a modified values.yaml file to execute the image change, but I am wondering if there is a way for me to sync the state of the values I manually updated with the values in the helm release. The goal is to create a new default values.yaml that reflect the current state of the cluster resources.
Thanks!
This is a community wiki answer posted for better visibility. Feel free to expand it.
According to the Helm issue 2730 this feature will not be added in the Helm, as it is outside of the scope of the project.
It looks like there is no existing tool right from the Helm, that would help to port/adapt the life kubernetes resource back into existing or new helm charts/releases.
Based on this, you can use one of the following options:
As suggested by #David Maze. The Helm Diff Plugin will show you the difference between the chart output and the cluster, but then you need to manually update values.yaml and templates.
The helm-adopt plugin is a helm plugin to adopt existing k8s resources into a new generated helm chart.
I have several microservices that have practically the same settings in YAML, some values change (e.g. image, version, a specific environment variable ...), and they are in different repositories, with a different pipeline each. How do I use the same template between them without getting repeated code?
This is how we do it in the place I currently work.
We have our own generic Helm chart that is version controlled and hosted in our Artifactory, every parameter in that chart that may need changing is exposed in values.yaml.
The Artifactory gets added to helm as repository, then you only need separate a values.yaml for each microservice you want deployed as the chart gets sourced centrally.
helm install -f values.yaml microservice01 artifcatory/global-helm-chart
On top of that we use helmfile, but this is not necessary in order to achieve your goal.
The key points are:
make the chart generic
host it centrally
add the repository to helm.
You can also update the values.yaml from pipeline and then package the chart and deploy it..In that way you can still have the same yaml file but the values will differ from which pipeline they are deployed.
Alternatively and easy way will be to maintain different values.yaml for different environment in the helm chart itself and pass them during helm install/upgrade from pipeline.
We do it for about 90 microservices. We have common Chart and we run values file through kindof sed script which changes what we need. Then whole package gets deployed
I'm using helm charts to create deploy micro services, by executing helm create it creates basic chart with deployment, services and ingress but I have few other configurations such as horizontal pod autoscaler, pod disruption budget.
what I do currently copy the yaml and change accordingly, but this takes lot of time and I don't see this as a (correct way/best practice) to do it.
helm create <chartname>
I want to know how you can create helm charts and have your extra configurations as well.
Bitnami's guide to creating your first helm chart describes helm create as "the best way to get started" and says that "if you already have definitions for your application, all you need to do is replace the generated YAML files for your own". The approach is also suggested in the official helm docs and the chart developer guide. So you are acting on best advice.
It would be cool if there were a wizard you could use to take existing kubernetes yaml files and make a helm chart from them. One tool like this that is currently available is chartify. It is listed on helm's related projects page (and I couldn't see any others that would be relevant).
You can try using Move2Kube. You will have to put all your yamls (if the source is kubernetes yamls) or other source artifacts in a directory (say src) and do move2kube translate -s src/.
In the wizard that comes up, you can choose helm instead of yamls and it will create a helm chart for you.