Helm

• Helm is a package manager for Kubernetes
• The packaging format is called charts: Related set of K8S resources
• Helm creates charts which are instructions to deploy config files
• values.yaml is a configuration file which stores the information instead of hard coding them into the config files

Installation

# Download and install
curl -fsSL "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/helm/helm/master/scripts/get-helm-3" -o "get_helm.sh"
chmod 700 "get_helm.sh"
./get_helm.sh

# Version
helm version

Helm goals

• Define a common blueprint for all the microservices
• Dynamic values are replaced by placeholders (template file)

# Template files
apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  name: { { .Values.name } }
spec:
  containers:
    - name: { { .Values.container.name } }
      image: { { .Values.container.image } }
      port: { { .Values.container.port } }

# Configuration file (values.yaml) - Default settings for the chart
name: my-app
container:
  name: my-app-container
  image: my-app-image
  port: 9001

• Template + values = Valid k8s yaml