Helm3: The Kubernetes Package Manager.
Published Date: 11-NOV-2019
If you've ever tried to automate the helm v2 setup which involved tiller for your infrastructure-as-code repo you'd know that is a pain in the ass. Now, to be fair I haven't had too bad a time with tiller per-se myself. It's there, it runs, keeps a list of deployment releases etc, but otherwise I haven't had too many run-ins. In saying that, I completely agree with the security aspect of why tiller's not popular, and with Helm 3, we not only get rid of that security issue, we also seem to be simplifying the helm chart deployment process.
You get helm3. You deploy charts. That's pretty much it. No more client-server relationship setup from your machine to the K8s cluster. Just make sure your ~/.kube/config file is in order and things "just work".
Full Credit to Thornsten Han's blog on helm3 which has a lot more details on the new Helm 3 release (not final yet), and this post is just my own outputs & notes on playing with Helm3.
Pre-requirements
- a running Kubernetes cluster
- a copy of
kubectland relevantkubeconfig
Download & Setup helm3
- Go to the helm releases GitHub page
ubuntudevbox:~/helm3$ wget https://get.helm.sh/helm-v3.0.0-rc.3-linux-amd64.tar.gz
- grab the sha256 checksum & check your download
ubuntudevbox:~/helm3$ wget https://get.helm.sh/helm-v3.0.0-rc.3-linux-amd64.tar.gz.sha256
ubuntudevbox:~/helm3$ cat helm-v3.0.0-rc.3-linux-amd64.tar.gz.sha256
c4d3eadeb46230430304511166a404cb412ff0dc7ff0999e5b50d18a465c565f
ubuntudevbox:~/helm3$ sha256sum helm-v3.0.0-rc.3-linux-amd64.tar.gz
c4d3eadeb46230430304511166a404cb412ff0dc7ff0999e5b50d18a465c565f helm-v3.0.0-rc.3-linux-amd64.tar.gz
looks good!
- un-pack & check the binary
ubuntudevbox:~/helm3$ tar zxvf helm-v3.0.0-rc.3-linux-amd64.tar.gz
linux-amd64/
linux-amd64/README.md
linux-amd64/helm
linux-amd64/LICENSE
ubuntudevbox:~/helm3$ ./linux-amd64/helm version
version.BuildInfo{Version:"v3.0.0-rc.3", GitCommit:"2ed206799b451830c68bff30af2a52879b8b937a", GitTreeState:"clean", GoVersion:"go1.13.4"}
- create symlink to use
ubuntudevbox:~/helm3$ sudo ln -s ~/helm3/linux-amd64/helm /usr/bin/helm3
Create and Deploy Helm3 Chart to K8s
ubuntudevbox:~/helm3/charts$ helm3 create first-helm3
Creating first-helm3
default folder layout
ubuntudevbox:~/helm3/charts$ tree first-helm3/
first-helm3/
├── charts
├── Chart.yaml
├── templates
│ ├── deployment.yaml
│ ├── _helpers.tpl
│ ├── ingress.yaml
│ ├── NOTES.txt
│ ├── serviceaccount.yaml
│ ├── service.yaml
│ └── tests
│ └── test-connection.yaml
└── values.yaml
3 directories, 9 files
Create some helm3 namespaces
ubuntudevbox:~/helm3/charts$ kubectl create ns helm3-ns1
namespace/helm3-ns1 created
ubuntudevbox:~/helm3/charts$ kubectl create ns helm3-ns2
namespace/helm3-ns2 created
Deploy time
ubuntudevbox:~/helm3/charts$ helm3 install demo-deploy first-helm3 -n helm3-ns1
NAME: demo-deploy
LAST DEPLOYED: Mon Nov 11 23:19:23 2019
NAMESPACE: helm3-ns1
STATUS: deployed
REVISION: 1
NOTES:
1. Get the application URL by running these commands:
export POD_NAME=$(kubectl get pods --namespace helm3-ns1 -l "app.kubernetes.io/name=first-helm3,app.kubernetes.io/instance=demo-deploy" -o jsonpath="{.items[0].metadata.name}")
echo "Visit http://127.0.0.1:8080 to use your application"
kubectl --namespace helm3-ns1 port-forward $POD_NAME 8080:80
do a 2nd deploy to helm3-ns2 with the same release name demo-deploy.
ubuntudevbox:~/helm3/charts$ helm3 install demo-deploy first-helm3 -n helm3-ns2
Check deploys & Release names
Why is the following important/different? Before in helm v2 a helm list would give you EVERY release in tiller's records. These releases were cluster-wide so the release name had to be unique every time.
Now you can have the same release name, but "namespaced" i.e. can limit it to individual namespaces.
amosar@ubuntudevbox:~/helm3/charts$ helm3 list
NAME NAMESPACE REVISION UPDATED STATUS CHART APP VERSION
amosar@ubuntudevbox:~/helm3/charts$ helm3 list --all-namespaces
NAME NAMESPACE REVISION UPDATED STATUS CHART APP VERSION
demo-deploy helm3-ns1 1 2019-11-11 23:19:23.929552772 +1300 NZDT deployed first-helm3-0.1.0 1.16.0
demo-deploy helm3-ns2 1 2019-11-11 23:20:46.85356628 +1300 NZDT deployed first-helm3-0.1.0 1.16.0
although if you try to re-install an existing chart you get
ubuntudevbox:~/helm3/charts$ helm3 install demo-deploy first-helm3 -n helm3-ns1
Error: cannot re-use a name that is still in use
Deployments as K8s Secrets
I thought this was important to know: deployments are tracked as secrets of type 'helm.sh/release.v#' in their respective namespaces.
e.g.
ubuntudevbox:~/helm3/charts$ kubectl get secret -n helm3-ns1
NAME TYPE DATA AGE
default-token-5d4rt kubernetes.io/service-account-token 3 8m44s
demo-deploy-first-helm3-token-njxbf kubernetes.io/service-account-token 3 7m
sh.helm.release.v1.demo-deploy.v1 helm.sh/release.v1 1 7m
Update Chart & Upgrade Helm Release
using the upgrade subcommand on helm3
ubuntudevbox:~/helm3/charts$ helm3 upgrade demo-deploy first-helm3 -n helm3-ns1
Release "demo-deploy" has been upgraded. Happy Helming!
NAME: demo-deploy
LAST DEPLOYED: Mon Nov 11 23:29:02 2019
NAMESPACE: helm3-ns1
STATUS: deployed
REVISION: 2
NOTES:
1. Get the application URL by running these commands:
export POD_NAME=$(kubectl get pods --namespace helm3-ns1 -l "app.kubernetes.io/name=first-helm3,app.kubernetes.io/instance=demo-deploy" -o jsonpath="{.items[0].metadata.name}")
echo "Visit http://127.0.0.1:8080 to use your application"
kubectl --namespace helm3-ns1 port-forward $POD_NAME 8080:80
and now check the 'secrets' aka where the releases are tracked
ubuntudevbox:~/helm3/charts$ kubectl get secret -n helm3-ns1
NAME TYPE DATA AGE
default-token-5d4rt kubernetes.io/service-account-token 3 12m
demo-deploy-first-helm3-token-njxbf kubernetes.io/service-account-token 3 10m
sh.helm.release.v1.demo-deploy.v1 helm.sh/release.v1 1 10m
sh.helm.release.v1.demo-deploy.v2 helm.sh/release.v1 1 69s
we've got sh.helm.release.v1.demo-deploy.v1 and sh.helm.release.v1.demo-deploy.v2 now.
ubuntudevbox:~/helm3/charts$ helm3 list --all-namespaces
NAME NAMESPACE REVISION UPDATED STATUS CHART APP VERSION
demo-deploy helm3-ns1 2 2019-11-11 23:29:02.572760512 +1300 NZDT deployed first-helm3-0.1.0 1.16.0
demo-deploy helm3-ns2 1 2019-11-11 23:20:46.85356628 +1300 NZDT deployed first-helm3-0.1.0 1.16.0
Thanks for reading!