How to package a Kubernetes application with Helm

Helm is the "The package manager for Kubernetes", it allows the management of the life-cycle of a Kubernetes application (deploy, configure, upgrade, retire, ...). It is an Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tool, so it allows us to version control an application and follow its evolution along time, make identical copies (prod, preprod, dev, ...) and predictable upgrades, and of course share and publish the application. It is one of the main tools used upstream, if a tool has a "Kubernetes deployment" it is most likely going to be using Helm.

Introduction

Helm packages applications into Charts. A Helm chart is a collection of YAML templates. In order to create a chart, one must first install the Helm command line tool and install the oc command line tool. Once done, to continue:

Make sure you are logged in:

oc whoami

this should return your Rahti username. Then create an example chart:

$ helm create example
Creating example

the result will be:

$ find example
example
example/Chart.yaml
example/templates
example/templates/tests
example/templates/tests/test-connection.yaml
example/templates/deployment.yaml
example/templates/service.yaml
example/templates/ingress.yaml
example/templates/hpa.yaml
example/templates/serviceaccount.yaml
example/templates/_helpers.tpl
example/templates/NOTES.txt
example/values.yaml
example/charts
example/.helmignore

It creates a mostly self-explanatory skeleton of a Chart. The structure is:

• The Chart.yaml file contains basic description values: name, description, version, ...
• The values.yaml file contains default values for the Chart and shows which parameters can be configured.
• The .helmignore contains the patterns to ignore, it is similar to gitignore. WE will not change this file.
• The charts folder contains the other charts that this one depends on. We will not use this feature.
• Finally the templates folder contains the different API Kubernetes objects to be deployed. The templates engine syntax allows for a great deal of configurability. It supports Built-in Objects that for example show the current cluster capabilities, it supports external values files where each deployment of the application can have its own separate value file, it has an extensive list of template functions, flow control, and more.

Package a deployed application

Before we can start the process, we need to "clean up" the current Helm example chart.

1. Delete (or move anywhere else) all files inside the templates folder.

2. Empty the values.yaml file.

3. Edit Chart.yaml and fill up the values as needed.

helm lint

The helm tool provides a lint command that will report any syntaxt issue with the current template.

$ helm lint example
==> Linting example
[INFO] Chart.yaml: icon is recommended

1 chart(s) linted, 0 chart(s) failed

Now we can create the YAML files that contain the different parts of the application. As an example we will use a simple webserver with a volume attached to it. We will use an iterative process to create a copy of our current deployment. It is iterative because we will first create a simple, not configurable, and probably not working version, test it, come back and make it more complete and configurable, test it again, and so on.

1. List all the API Objects to get an idea of the different parts that it consists of:

   $ oc get dc,deployment,pvc,secret,configmaps,service,route -o name
   deployment.apps/nginx
   persistentvolumeclaim/html
   secret/builder-dockercfg-h4cwh
   secret/builder-token-6fngh
   secret/builder-token-n2rdm
   secret/default-dockercfg-dqfxm
   secret/default-token-kfjlb
   secret/default-token-znxls
   secret/deployer-dockercfg-rpsxj
   secret/deployer-token-gnvzt
   secret/deployer-token-pvws5
   service/glusterfs-dynamic-ed156002-8a7e-11ed-b60d-fa163e0d8841
   service/nginx
   route.route.openshift.io/nginx
   

2. From the list above, we are only interested in deployment.apps, persistentvolumeclaim/html, service/nginx and route.route.openshift.io/nginx. The rest are auto-generated like the secret/ tokens or created by other objects like the service/glusterfs-dynamic-ed156002-8a7e-11ed-b60d-fa163e0d8841 object was created as a result of the creation of the persistentvolumeclaim/ (PVC) creation.

We will write templates one by one, starting with the Volume. There are two simple approaches to accomplish this task, "get and clean" or "recreate from template". We will first try the "get and clean" method.

Get and clean

The idea of get and clean is simple, we will retrieve a yaml representation of an object running in the Kubernetes cluster and then delete all unnecessary information, like status and default configuration options.

Persistent Volume Claim

Get the PVC object in YAML format into the file pvc.yaml:

oc get persistentvolumeclaim/html -o yaml > pvc.yaml

Most of the information in the YAML retrieved is status information generated by OpenShift and can be deleted:

@@ -1,18 +1,7 @@
 apiVersion: v1
 kind: PersistentVolumeClaim
 metadata:
-  annotations:
-    pv.kubernetes.io/bind-completed: "yes"
-    pv.kubernetes.io/bound-by-controller: "yes"
-    volume.beta.kubernetes.io/storage-provisioner: kubernetes.io/glusterfs
-  creationTimestamp: "2023-01-02T09:22:06Z"
-  finalizers:
-  - kubernetes.io/pvc-protection
   name: html
-  namespace: test
-  resourceVersion: "1771053847"
-  selfLink: /api/v1/namespaces/test/persistentvolumeclaims/html
-  uid: ed156002-8a7e-11ed-b60d-fa163e0d8841
 spec:
   accessModes:
   - ReadWriteOnce
@@ -20,10 +9,4 @@
     requests:
       storage: 1Gi
   storageClassName: glusterfs-storage
-  volumeName: pvc-ed156002-8a7e-11ed-b60d-fa163e0d8841
-status:
-  accessModes:
-  - ReadWriteOnce
-  capacity:
-    storage: 1Gi
-  phase: Bound
+status: {}

The main fields are metadata > name, spec > resources > requests > storage, and spec > storageClassName, and the result will be:

apiVersion: v1
kind: PersistentVolumeClaim
metadata:
  name: html
spec:
  accessModes:
  - ReadWriteOnce
  resources:
    requests:
      storage: 1Gi
  storageClassName: standard-csi
status: {}

Deployment

The same process can be repeated for deployment.apps/nginx:

oc get deployment.apps/nginx -o yaml >deploy.yaml

• First, for the image used, we need to replace the @sha256 hash by :latest. This way we will always get the actual latest version of the image. It is also possible to replace it by a specific version like :1.23.3.
• Then we will delete the status information. An example of "status" entries are lastTransitionTime and creationTimestamp. This has no place to be in a template as it is information 100% generated by Kubernetes about the current running object, not the one we want to create.
• Finally we will delete the auto-generated configuration options. An example of "configuration options" are the rollingParams. These configuration options are generated from the defaults of the Kubernetes cluster. It is also possible to keep these default options, so the user of the chart can change them before the creation is started, for example it could be necessary to increase the timeoutSeconds because the application takes more than 10 minutes to start.

@@ -1,44 +1,24 @@
 apiVersion: apps/v1
 kind: Deployment
 metadata:
   labels:
     app: nginx
   name: nginx
-  namespace: test
-  resourceVersion: "1771055913"
-  selfLink: /apis/apps.openshift.io/v1/namespaces/test/deployments/nginx
-  uid: a828c0db-8a7e-11ed-b60d-fa163e0d8841
 spec:
   replicas: 1
   selector:
     matchLabels:
       app: nginx
   strategy:
-    activeDeadlineSeconds: 21600
-    resources: {}
-    rollingParams:
-      intervalSeconds: 1
-      maxSurge: 25%
-      maxUnavailable: 25%
-      timeoutSeconds: 600
-      updatePeriodSeconds: 1
     type: RollingUpdate
   template:
     metadata:
-      annotations:
-        openshift.io/generated-by: OpenShiftWebConsole
-      creationTimestamp: null
       labels:
           app: nginx
     spec:
       containers:
-      - image: bitnami/nginx@sha256:abe48bff022ec9c675612653292b2e685c91ce24bc4374199723c4f69603a127
-        imagePullPolicy: Always
+      - image: docker.io/bitnami/nginx:latest
     name: nginx
     ports:
     - containerPort: 8080
@@ -46,21 +26,12 @@
     - containerPort: 8443
       protocol: TCP
     resources: {}
-        terminationMessagePath: /dev/termination-log
-        terminationMessagePolicy: File
     volumeMounts:
     - mountPath: /opt/bitnami/nginx/html/
       name: html
-      dnsPolicy: ClusterFirst
-      restartPolicy: Always
-      schedulerName: default-scheduler
-      securityContext: {}
-      terminationGracePeriodSeconds: 30
       volumes:
       - name: html
     persistentVolumeClaim:
       claimName: html
-  test: false
@@ -71,29 +42,5 @@
-   kind: ImageStreamTag
-   name: nginx:latest
-   namespace: test
-      lastTriggeredImage: bitnami/nginx@sha256:abe48bff022ec9c675612653292b2e685c91ce24bc4374199723c4f69603a127
-     type: ImageChange

The result being:

apiVersion: apps.openshift.io/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  labels:
    app: nginx
  name: nginx
spec:
  replicas: 1
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: nginx
  strategy:
    type: RollingUpdate
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: nginx
    spec:
      containers:
      - image: docker.io/bitnami/nginx:latest
        name: nginx
        ports:
        - containerPort: 8080
          protocol: TCP
        - containerPort: 8443
          protocol: TCP
        resources: {}
        volumeMounts:
        - mountPath: /opt/bitnami/nginx/html/
          name: html
      volumes:
      - name: html
        persistentVolumeClaim:
          claimName: html

Recreate from template

For the two remaining objects: service and route, we will use the "recreate from template" method, where we start from a simple object and fill up the blanks with the configuration we need.

Route

This is a minimal route:

apiVersion: v1
kind: Route
metadata:
  name: XXXX
spec:
  host: YYYY
  to:
    kind: Service
    name: ZZZZ

Where XXXX is the name of the route, YYYY is the host where the application will be configured to listen, and ZZZZ is the Service connected to it.

Service

A minimal possible service is:

apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: XXXX
spec:
  selector:
    app: YYYY
  ports:
  - nodePort: 0
    port: NNNN
    protocol: TCP
    targetPort: NNNN

Where XXXX is the name of the service we filled up in the Route, YYYY is the name of the deployment, and NNNN is the port the deployment is listening to.

Test

The tests should be done in a separate namespace, and there are two approaches:

• Test them individually by:

  oc create -f pvc.yaml
  

  The command above will create a PVC object in the selected namespace. You should check that it works as expected. You can destroy it by:

  oc delete pvc/XXXX
  

  where XXXX is the name of the volume.

• Or all together in the Helm chart, by copying all the yaml files we created into the templates folder.

  • We can then install it:

  helm install test-name example/
  

  Note: With --dry-run you can preview what helm will deploy without making any change.

  • We can see the status of the installed chart by:

  $ helm ls
  NAME        NAMESPACE       REVISION    UPDATED                                 STATUS      CHART           APP VERSION
  test-name   test        1           2023-01-03 14:59:04.026623633 +0200 EET deployed    example-0.1.0   1.16.0
  

  • After making a change in the chart templates we can upgrade it:

  $ helm upgrade test-name example
  Release "test-name" has been upgraded. Happy Helming!
  NAME: test-name
  LAST DEPLOYED: Tue Jan  3 15:54:15 2023
  NAMESPACE: test
  STATUS: deployed
  REVISION: 2
  TEST SUITE: None
  

  • And finally to destroy it:

  $ helm uninstall test-name
  release "test-name" uninstalled
  

Configuration

One of the powerful aspects of Helm is the possibility to, instead of using hardwired values, parametrize them, or to use provided built-in values. By removing hardwired values, we provide easy customization that will allow to use the template in more circumstances and for a longer period of time, for example by changing the template image. A user of the template just needs to worry about the values.yaml file and not how these values fit into the complexities of the Chart. Helm uses Go templates to accomplish this.

The built-in values can be very handy, but we will mention only two of sets of them:

• Release variables offer the basic information of this chart deployment. Information like the Namespace we are deploying this template to, or the Name of the Chart.
• Capabilities is a more advance feature that provides information about what API objects and that version the Kubernetes cluster supports. For example the version of Kubernetes, or if Ingress or Route are supported. These two pieces of information allow us to make more widely compatible templates, as different versions of Kubernetes will need slightly different options.

We can also define our own configuration variables. We will set up a default value and at the same time allow the values.yaml file to override it. Let's start with the Volume yaml file from previous steps:

apiVersion: v1
kind: PersistentVolumeClaim
metadata:
  name: html
spec:
  accessModes:
  - ReadWriteOnce
  resources:
    requests:
      storage: 1Gi
  storageClassName: glusterfs-storage
status: {}

In this template we would like to parametrize at least two of the values: the storage size and the storage class. One allows the user to use more or less disk space, and the second allows to change the driver used for the storage. The resulting file would be something like this:

apiVersion: v1
kind: PersistentVolumeClaim
metadata:
  name: html
spec:
  accessModes:
  - ReadWriteOnce
  resources:
    requests:
      storage: {{ .Values.storage.size | default "500Mi" }}
  storageClassName: {{ .Values.storage.class | default "glusterfs-storage" }}
status: {}

And then a values.yaml file like:

storage:
  size: 1Gi
  class: glusterfs-storage

As you can see all variables in the values.yaml file can be found from {{ .Values }}. We have also set up a default of 500Mi in the template itself using the default function, and configured a value of 1Gi at values.yaml. In this example the storage of 1Gi will be used, but if we removed the line size: 1Gi, the storage will be the default of 500Mi.

Other values that might be interesting to configure:

• The host which the application will be available at.
• The image to use.
• The number of replicas for the application.

Conditionals

It is possible to have conditionals in the templates, based on capabilities of the cluster, or in a configuration option. For example to activate tls or not

apiVersion: route.openshift.io/v1
kind: Route
metadata:
  name: nginx
spec:
  host: {{ .Values.host }}
  {{ if eq .Values.tls "active" }}
  tls:
    insecureEdgeTerminationPolicy: Redirect
    termination: edge
  {{ end }}
  to:
    kind: Service
    weight: 100
    name: nginx
status:
  ingress: []

Which needs to have an option in values.yaml like:

tls: active

Final product

The final chart will be:

$ find
.
./Chart.yaml
./templates
./templates/deployment.yaml
./templates/service.yaml
./templates/pvc.yaml
./templates/route.yaml
./values.yaml
./charts
./.helmignore

• Chart.yaml:

apiVersion: v2
name: example
description: A Helm chart for Kubernetes
type: application

version: 0.1.0

appVersion: "1.16.0"

• templates/deployment.yaml:

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  labels:
    app: nginx
  name: nginx
spec:
  replicas: 1
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: nginx
  strategy:
    type: Rolling
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: nginx
    spec:
      containers:
      - image: docker.io/bitnami/nginx:latest
        name: nginx
        ports:
        - containerPort: 8080
          protocol: TCP
        - containerPort: 8443
          protocol: TCP
        resources: {}
        volumeMounts:
        - mountPath: /opt/bitnami/nginx/html/
          name: html
      volumes:
      - name: html
        persistentVolumeClaim:
          claimName: html

• templates/service.yaml:

apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: nginx
spec:
  selector:
    app: nginx
  ports:
  - nodePort: 0
    port: 8080
    protocol: TCP
    targetPort: 8080

• templates/pvc.yaml:

apiVersion: v1
kind: PersistentVolumeClaim
metadata:
  name: html
spec:
  accessModes:
  - ReadWriteOnce
  resources:
    requests:
      storage: {{ .Values.storage.size | default "500Mi" }}
  storageClassName: {{ .Values.storage.class | default "glusterfs-storage" }}
status: {}

• templates/route.yaml:

apiVersion: route.openshift.io/v1
kind: Route
metadata:
  name: nginx
spec:
  host: {{ .Values.host }}
  {{ if eq .Values.tls "active" }}
  tls:
    insecureEdgeTerminationPolicy: Redirect
    termination: edge
  {{ end }}
  to:
    kind: Service
    weight: 100
    name: nginx
status:
  ingress: []

• ./values.yaml:

image: bitnami/nginx:latest
host: example.2.rahtiapp.fi
tls: active

storage:
  size: 1Gi
  class: glusterfs-storage

Using online Helm Repo

Adding a repo

It's also possible to install repository and then use them for deploying applications.
For example JupyterHub, you can install the repo with this command:

helm repo add jupyterhub https://hub.jupyter.org/helm-chart/

If you type this command:

helm repo list   

You should see your newly added repostory.

It also possible to check for updates (and update your repo) with this command:

helm repo update

You can search and check the packages available:

helm search repo jupyterhub
NAME                            CHART VERSION   APP VERSION     DESCRIPTION                    
jupyterhub/jupyterhub           3.1.0           4.0.2           Multi-user Jupyter installation                   

Check values

When installing an online repo, you can check the default values used when you deploy it. For that, type the following command:

helm show values jupyterhub/jupyterhub > values.yaml

ArtifactHub is a good site where you can find packages

Edit and install from a repo

After exporting the default values you can edit or create a config file with your own values.
Then, you can install the Chart using this command:

helm install my-jupyterhub jupyterhub/jupyterhub -f config.yaml

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