Deep Dive for Helm....!

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Ankita Lunawat
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3 min read

  • Helm is a package manager for Kubernetes that simplifies the process of installing, managing, and upgrading complex Kubernetes applications by packaging them into "charts," which are collections of Kubernetes resource definitions like Deployments and Services.

what is helm chart?

In Kubernetes, a Helm Chart is a packaging format for deploying applications. Think of it like a package manager for Kubernetes, similar to how you use apt or yum to install software on a Linux system.

Helm Charts significantly improve the efficiency, consistency, and maintainability of Kubernetes deployments. By leveraging Helm, you can streamline your development workflows, reduce operational overhead, and enhance the overall reliability of your Kubernetes applications.

Installing Helm on Ubuntu

  1. Download the Helm binary

    • Visit the official Helm releases page: https://github.com/helm/helm/releases

    • Download the appropriate binary for your system architecture (e.g., helm-vX.Y.Z-linux-amd64.tar.gz).

    • Run the following commands to download and change the permission

        curl -fsSL -o get_helm.sh https://raw.githubusercontent.com/helm/helm/main/scripts/get-helm-3
  chmod 700 get_helm.sh
  ./get_helm.sh

Create a HELM Chart

Open your terminal to create Helm charts for your service by running the command helm create hello-world. You should see the output on your terminal as Creating new-chart.

Navigate to newly created directory

    cd helm-world

This creates a simple charts for your service

With ls command, you can see the contents of the new-chart folder.

  1.  ubuntu@ip-172-31-0-11:~/hello-world$ ls Chart.yaml charts templates values.yaml

    Structure of HELM Chart

    To view tree structure of your helm charts run below command

     tree hello-world

    Basic HELM commands

    Explanation:

    • helm search repo <chart_name>:

      • Searches for a specific chart in the configured repositories.

    • helm repo add <repo_name> <repository_url>:

      • Adds a new repository to the list of known repositories.

    • helm repo update:

      • Updates the list of charts available in all configured repositories.

    • helm install <release_name> <repository>/<chart_name>:

      • Installs a chart from a repository, giving it a unique release name.

    • helm upgrade <release_name> <repository>/<chart_name>:

      • Upgrades an existing release to a newer version of the chart.

    • helm list:

      • Lists all installed releases.

    • helm get manifest <release_name>:

      • Displays the Kubernetes manifests generated for a specific release.

    • helm delete <release_name>:

      • Deletes a release. By default, it keeps the history of the release.

    • helm delete <release_name> --purge:

      • Deletes a release and all its associated history.

    • helm get values <release_name>:

      • Displays the values used for a specific release.

    • helm status <release_name>:

      • Shows the status of a release, including its pods, services, and other resources.

These are some of the most common Helm commands. Helm provides many other useful commands for managing charts and releases. You can find the complete list of commands in the Helm documentation. The error message you're encountering is due to the missing quotes around the <chart_name>.

HelmKubernetes