Helm
Helm is the package management tool of choice for Kubernetes. Helm charts provide templating syntax for Kubernetes YAML manifest documents. With Helm, developers or cluster administrators can create configurable templates known as Charts, instead of just using static manifests. For more information about creating your own Chart catalog, check out the docs at https://helm.sh/docs/intro/quickstart/.
K3s does not require any special configuration to support Helm. Just be sure you have properly set the kubeconfig path as per the cluster access documentation.
K3s includes a Helm Controller that manages installing, upgrading/reconfiguring, and uninstalling Helm charts using a HelmChart Custom Resource Definition (CRD). Paired with auto-deploying AddOn manifests, installing a Helm chart on your cluster can be automated by creating a single file on disk.
Using the Helm Controller
The HelmChart Custom Resource captures most of the options you would normally pass to the helm
command-line tool.
HelmChart Field Definitions
The name
field should follow the Helm chart naming conventions, in addition to Kubernetes rules for object names and IDs. Refer to the Helm Best Practices documentation to learn more.
Field | Default | Description | Helm Argument / Flag Equivalent |
---|---|---|---|
metadata.name | Helm Chart name | NAME | |
spec.chart | Helm Chart name in repository, or complete HTTPS URL to chart archive (.tgz) | CHART | |
spec.chartContent | Base64-encoded chart archive .tgz - overrides spec.chart | CHART | |
spec.targetNamespace | default | Helm Chart target namespace | --namespace |
spec.createNamespace | false | Create target namespace if not present | --create-namespace |
spec.version | Helm Chart version (when installing from repository) | --version | |
spec.repo | Helm Chart repository URL | --repo | |
spec.repoCA | Verify certificates of HTTPS-enabled servers using this CA bundle. Should be a string containing one or more PEM-encoded CA Certificates. | --ca-file | |
spec.repoCAConfigMap | Reference to a ConfigMap containing CA Certificates to be be trusted by Helm. Can be used along with or instead of repoCA | --ca-file | |
spec.plainHTTP | false | Use insecure HTTP connections for the chart download. | --plain-http |
spec.insecureSkipTLSVerify | false | Skip TLS certificate checks for the chart download. | --insecure-skip-tls-verify |
spec.helmVersion | v3 | Helm version to use. Only v3 is currently supported. | |
spec.bootstrap | false | Set to True if this chart is needed to bootstrap the cluster (Cloud Controller Manager, etc) | |
spec.jobImage | Specify the image to use when installing the helm chart. E.g. rancher/klipper-helm:v0.3.0 . | ||
spec.podSecurityContext | Custom v1.PodSecurityContext for the Helm job pod | ||
spec.securityContext | Custom v1.SecurityContext for the Helm job pod's containers | ||
spec.backOffLimit | 1000 | Specify the number of retries before considering a job failed. | |
spec.timeout | 300s | Timeout for Helm operations, as a duration string (300s , 10m , 1h , etc) | --timeout |
spec.failurePolicy | reinstall | Set to abort which case the Helm operation is aborted, pending manual intervention by the operator. | |
spec.authSecret | Reference to Secret of type kubernetes.io/basic-auth holding Basic auth credentials for the Chart repo. | ||
spec.authPassCredentials | false | Pass Basic auth credentials to all domains. | --pass-credentials |
spec.dockerRegistrySecret | Reference to Secret of type kubernetes.io/dockerconfigjson holding Docker auth credentials for the OCI-based registry acting as the Chart repo. | ||
spec.set | Override simple Chart values. These take precedence over options set via valuesContent. | --set / --set-string | |
spec.valuesContent | Override complex Chart values via inline YAML content | --values | |
spec.valuesSecrets | Override complex Chart values via references to external Secrets | --values |
Content placed in /var/lib/rancher/k3s/server/static/
can be accessed anonymously via the Kubernetes APIServer from within the cluster.
This URL can be templated using the special variable %{KUBERNETES_API}%
in the spec.chart
field.
For example, the packaged Traefik component loads its chart from https://%{KUBERNETES_API}%/static/charts/traefik-VERSION.tgz
.
Chart values are used in the following order, from least to greatest precedence:
- Chart default values
- HelmChart
spec.valuesContent
- HelmChart
spec.valuesSecrets
in listed order of secret name and keys - HelmChartConfig
spec.valuesContent
- HelmChartConfig
spec.valuesSecrets
in listed order of secret name and keys - HelmChart
spec.set
Here's an example of how you might deploy Apache from the Bitnami chart repository, overriding some of the default chart values. Note that the HelmChart resource itself is in the kube-system
namespace, but the chart's resources will be deployed to the web
namespace, which is created in the same manifest. This can be useful if you want to keep your HelmChart resources separated from the the resources they deploy.
apiVersion: v1
kind: Namespace
metadata:
name: web
---
apiVersion: helm.cattle.io/v1
kind: HelmChart
metadata:
name: apache
namespace: kube-system
spec:
repo: https://charts.bitnami.com/bitnami
chart: apache
targetNamespace: web
valuesContent: |-
service:
type: ClusterIP
ingress:
enabled: true
hostname: www.example.com
metrics:
enabled: true
An example of deploying a helm chart from a private repo with authentication:
apiVersion: helm.cattle.io/v1
kind: HelmChart
metadata:
namespace: kube-system
name: example-app
spec:
targetNamespace: example-namespace
createNamespace: true
version: v1.2.3
chart: example-app
repo: https://secure-repo.example.com
authSecret:
name: example-repo-auth
repoCAConfigMap:
name: example-repo-ca
valuesContent: |-
image:
tag: v1.2.2
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
namespace: kube-system
name: example-repo-auth
type: kubernetes.io/basic-auth
stringData:
username: user
password: pass
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
namespace: kube-system
name: example-repo-ca
data:
ca.crt: |-
-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
<YOUR CERTIFICATE>
-----END CERTIFICATE-----
Chart Values from Secrets
Chart values can be read from externally-managed Secrets, instead of storing the values in the spec.set
or spec.valuesContent
fields.
This should be done when passing confidential information such as credentials in to Charts that do not support referring to existing Secrets via the existingSecret
pattern.
As with other Secrets (spec.authSecret
and spec.dockerRegistrySecret
), Secrets referenced in spec.valuesSecrets
must be in the same namespace as the HelmChart.
Each listed valuesSecrets
entry has the following fields:
Field | Description |
---|---|
name | The name of the Secret. Required. |
keys | List of keys to read values from, values are used in the listed order. Required. |
ignoreUpdates | Mark this Secret as optional, and do not update the chart if the Secret changes. Optional, defaults to false . |
- If
ignoreUpdates
is set tofalse
or unspecified, the Secret and all listed keys must exist. Any change to a referenced values Secret will cause the chart to be updated with new values. - If
ignoreUpdates
is set totrue
, the Secret is used if it exists when the Chart is created, or updated due to any other change to related resources. Changes to the Secret will not cause the chart to be updated.
An example of deploying a helm chart using an existing Secret with two keys:
apiVersion: helm.cattle.io/v1
kind: HelmChart
metadata:
namespace: kube-system
name: example-app
spec:
targetNamespace: example-namespace
createNamespace: true
version: v1.2.3
chart: example-app
repo: https://repo.example.com
valuesContent: |-
image:
tag: v1.2.2
valuesSecrets:
- name: example-app-custom-values
ignoreUpdates: false
keys:
- someValues
- moreValues
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
namespace: kube-system
name: example-app-custom-values
stringData:
moreValues: |-
database:
address: db.example.com
username: user
password: pass
someValues: |-
adminUser:
create: true
username: admin
password: secret
Customizing Packaged Components with HelmChartConfig
To allow overriding values for packaged components that are deployed as HelmCharts (such as Traefik), K3s supports customizing deployments via a HelmChartConfig resources. The HelmChartConfig resource must match the name and namespace of its corresponding HelmChart, and it supports providing additional valuesContent
, which is passed to the helm
command as an additional value file.
HelmChartConfig Field Definitions
Field | Description |
---|---|
metadata.name | Helm Chart name - must match the HelmChart resource name. |
spec.valuesContent | Override complex default Chart values via YAML file content. |
spec.valuesSecrets | Override complect default Chart values via external Secrets. |
spec.failurePolicy | Set to abort which case the Helm operation is aborted, pending manual intervention by the operator. |
HelmChart spec.set
values override HelmChart and HelmChartConfig spec.valuesContent
and spec.valuesSecrets
settings, as described above.
For example, to customize the packaged Traefik ingress configuration, you can create a file named /var/lib/rancher/k3s/server/manifests/traefik-config.yaml
and populate it with the following content:
apiVersion: helm.cattle.io/v1
kind: HelmChartConfig
metadata:
name: traefik
namespace: kube-system
spec:
valuesContent: |-
image:
repository: docker.io/library/traefik
tag: 3.3.5
ports:
web:
forwardedHeaders:
trustedIPs:
- 10.0.0.0/8