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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 default Chart values. These take precedence over options set via valuesContent.

--set / --set-string

spec.valuesContent

Override complex default Chart values via YAML file 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:

  1. Chart default values

  2. HelmChart spec.valuesContent

  3. HelmChart spec.valuesSecrets in listed order of secret name and keys

  4. HelmChartConfig spec.valuesContent

  5. HelmChartConfig spec.valuesSecrets in listed order of secret name and keys

  6. 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 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 to false 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 to true, 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