Deploy the myhelmapp helm chart on Rancher

Question

Pulumi · Accepted Answer

If you want to deploy a Helm chart on a Rancher-managed Kubernetes cluster using Pulumi, you would need to use the Pulumi Rancher2 provider. This provider allows you to interact with Rancher2 resources within your Pulumi program. To deploy a Helm chart, you'd typically use resources like `rancher2.CatalogV2` to define a Helm chart repository, and `rancher2.AppV2` to deploy the Helm chart from the catalog.

Below is a Pulumi TypeScript program that demonstrates how to deploy a Helm chart called `myhelmapp` on Rancher. I'll guide you through it step-by-step.

First, ensure that you've set up your Pulumi environment with the necessary credentials to interact with your Rancher instance and that you have installed the `@pulumi/rancher2` package:

```bash
npm install @pulumi/rancher2
```

Here's a step-by-step guide and the TypeScript program for deploying a Helm chart on Rancher:

1. **Define the Helm Chart Repository**: Create a new `rancher2.CatalogV2` instance to add the repository that contains your Helm chart.
2. **Deploy the Helm Chart**: Create a new `rancher2.AppV2` instance that references the Helm chart from the added repository.

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

// Define the Helm chart repository by creating a catalog
const catalog = new rancher2.CatalogV2("my-catalog", {
    // The Helm chart repository URL
    url: "https://your-helm-chart-repo.com",
    // The Rancher cluster ID where you want to deploy the chart
    clusterId: "your-cluster-id",
});

// Deploy the Helm chart using the AppV2 resource
const app = new rancher2.AppV2("my-helm-app", {
    // The name of your Helm chart as listed in the repository
    chartName: "myhelmapp",
    // The version of the Helm chart you want to deploy
    chartVersion: "1.0.0",
    // The namespace where you want to deploy the Helm chart
    namespace: "default",
    // Reference the Helm chart repository's name from above
    repoName: catalog.name,
    // The Rancher cluster ID where you want to deploy the chart
    clusterId: "your-cluster-id",
    // Specify values to customize the Helm chart deployment, use key-value pair
    values: {
        key: "value", // Replace with actual value keys for the Helm chart
    },
});

// Export the App ID
export const appId = app.id;
```

Make sure to replace `"https://your-helm-chart-repo.com"` with the actual URL of your Helm chart repository. Also, use the appropriate Rancher `clusterId` and set any values that your Helm chart requires in the `values` object.

After initializing your Pulumi program with `pulumi new`, you can run it using the following commands:

```bash
pulumi up # This command creates or updates resources
```

The `pulumi up` command will prompt you to confirm the deployment after showing you the plan of what resources will be created or updated. Once you confirm, Pulumi will communicate with your Rancher instance to deploy the specified Helm chart.

The program concludes by exporting the ID of the deployed Helm chart as `appId`, which you can use to reference the application in additional Pulumi scripts or for outputting information about the deployment.

Remember to use meaningful values for `chartVersion`, `namespace`, `clusterId`, and any other `values` required by the Helm chart to customize the deployment. These will vary based on your specific Helm chart and Rancher setup.