Deploy the argocd-cr helm chart on Rancher

Question

Pulumi · Accepted Answer

To deploy the Argo CD Helm chart on a Kubernetes cluster managed by Rancher, you would typically follow these steps:

1. Set up access to your Rancher-managed Kubernetes cluster.
2. Install the Pulumi Rancher2 provider which allows you to interact with the Rancher API.
3. Write a Pulumi program to deploy the desired Helm chart to the cluster.

First, make sure you have access to your Rancher-managed cluster. This usually involves obtaining a `kubeconfig` file which is configured to connect to your Kubernetes cluster.

With Pulumi, you can use the `rancher2` package to work with Rancher. Unfortunately, there is no direct support in the `rancher2` provider for deploying a helm chart. However, you can deploy Helm charts to Kubernetes with Pulumi using the `kubernetes` package.

Here is how you could write a Pulumi program in TypeScript to deploy the Argo CD helm chart using the `kubernetes` package.

Before starting, make sure you have Pulumi installed and you’re logged into the Pulumi service. Ensure that you've installed the required Pulumi providers with npm for this program to work:

```bash
npm install @pulumi/kubernetes
```

Now, let’s describe what each part of the following TypeScript program is doing:

- Import the necessary Pulumi packages.
- Use the Kubernetes package to create a `helm.v3.Chart` resource, specifying the Argo CD chart by name and version (if desired), along with any custom values.
- Configure the Helm chart deployment with settings that you would define in a Helm values file.
- Optionally, you can specify the Kubernetes cluster details if your `kubeconfig` is not already pointing to the Rancher-managed Kubernetes cluster.

Here is the TypeScript Pulumi program for deploying the Helm chart:

```typescript
import * as k8s from "@pulumi/kubernetes";

// Define the settings for the argocd Helm chart
const argocdChartSettings = {
    // Replace with the namespace where you want to deploy Argo CD
    namespace: "argocd",
    // The values/options for the chart can be specified here.
    // These values would override the default values from the chart.
    values: {
        server: {
            service: {
                type: "LoadBalancer" // Use LoadBalancer if you want to access Argo CD externally
            }
        }
    }
};

// Deploy the argocd Helm chart using the chart settings defined above
const argocdChart = new k8s.helm.v3.Chart("argocd", {
    chart: "argo-cd", // The name of the chart in the Helm repository
    fetchOpts: {
        // The Argo CD chart repository URL
        // Replace if the chart is hosted in a different repository
        repo: "https://argoproj.github.io/argo-helm"
    },
    version: "4.5.6", // The specific chart version to deploy; omit to deploy the latest version
    ...argocdChartSettings
});

// Export the Argo CD server endpoint
export const argocdServerEndpoint = argocdChart.getResourceProperty("v1/Service", "argocd-argocd-server", "status")
    .apply(status => status.loadBalancer.ingress[0].ip || status.loadBalancer.ingress[0].hostname);
```

In this code, you've defined a `helm.v3.Chart` resource which will install the Argo CD Helm chart into your Rancher-managed Kubernetes cluster. You've also specified to use a `LoadBalancer` service type for the Argo CD server which means it will be accessible over the internet. The endpoint of the Argo CD server, either an IP address or a hostname, is being exported as an output of the Pulumi program.

To run this Pulumi program, save it as `index.ts` and then execute `pulumi up` in the terminal. Pulumi will perform the deployment and print the resulting Argo CD server endpoint.