Helm Charts

Helm uses a packaging format called charts which is a collection of files that describe a set of Kubernetes resources. A single chart might be used to deploy something simple, like a memcached pod, or something complex, like a full web app stack with HTTP servers, databases, caches, and so on. Charts are created as files laid out in a particular directory tree, then they can be packaged into versioned archives to be deployed.

Every chart must have a version number
Kubernetes Helm uses version numbers as release markers
Packages in repositories are identified by "name + version"

You can manage the lifecycle of Helm based workloads using the Web Console or RCTL CLI or REST APIs. We strongly recommend that customers automate this either

By integrating RCTL with your existing CI system based automation pipeline, OR
By leveraging the integrated GitOps capability.

Helm Versions¶

The Controller supports both Helm 2 and 3. Users are strongly advised to use Helm 3. Support for Helm 2 support is deprecated and is only meant to be used for legacy charts that are incompatible with Helm 3.

With Helm 3, the Controller acts like a Helm 3 client. It does not have to parse and break down the chart down to its atomic K8s resources. Read more about Helm 2 End of Life.

Create Workload¶

Login into the Console (typically as a Project Admin)
Navigate to Applications -> Workloads
Click on New Workload
Provide a name, select Helm 3 for package type
Select if you would like to "upload" the artifacts or you would like the Controller to "pull" it directly from a configured repository.
Select the namespace where the resources should be deployed

Create Helm Workload-Upload

Tip

Ensure that a namespace where you would like to deploy has already been created.

Option A: Pull from Repository¶

This approach requires the user to first select the type of repository (Git or Helm)

Create Helm Workload-Pull Artifacts

Then, in the next step

Select the repository from the dropdown list
Specify the name of the chart
Optionally, Specify the chart version. If not specified, latest version will be pulled.
Optionally, provide the override "values.yaml" file

Create Helm Workload-Pull Artifacts

Option B: Upload Artifacts¶

This approach is suited for scenarios where the user would like to upload the artifacts to the Controller and not provide any form of access to their Git/Helm repository

Upload the "Helm chart" (a tgz file) and if necessary a "values.yaml" override file

Configure Helm Workload

Multiple Values Files¶

It's possible to have multiple values files for the same helm chart. For Helm 3 workloads created either by Upload files manually or Pull files from Helm Repo, all these values files can be uploaded when creating the workload. They are processed and applied to the chart in the order they are uploaded

Option A

Click Upload Files to upload the Values File(s) from the system that you want to supply to the chart. Upload is the default selection

Multiple values Helm Workload

Option B

To upload the files stored in any other locations like git repository, perform the below steps:

Select Override from git repository option
Enter the Repository name and provide the exact path where the value files are stored
Mention the Revision (branch name where the value files are located) details

Override From Git Repository

Advanced Helm Options¶

Support for advanced Helm options is available under "Helm Options".

Helm Option	Description
Atomic	If enabled, upgrade process rolls back changes made in case of failed upgrade. The --wait flag will be set automatically if this option is enabled. It will wait for as long as the configured timeout duration
Cleanup on Fail	Allow deletion of new resources as part of the upgrade when upgrade fails
Disable Open API Validation	If enabled, the installation/upgrade process will not validate rendered templates against the Kubernetes OpenAPI Schema
Force	Force resource updates through a replacement strategy
Max History	Limit the maximum number of revisions saved per release, default value is 10
Description	Add a custom description
No Hooks	If this option is enabled, pre/post hooks are disabled
Render SubChart Notes	If enabled, subchart notes are rendered along with the parent
Reset Values	When upgrading, reset the values to the ones built into the chart
Reuse Values	When upgrading, reuse the last release's values
Set String	set STRING values
Skip CRDs	If this option is enabled, no CRDs will be installed. By default, CRDs are installed if not already present
Timeout	Time to wait for any individual Kubernetes operation (like Jobs for hooks), default is 5m0s
Wait	If enabled, will wait until all Pods, PVCs, Services, and minimum number of Pods of a Deployment, StatefulSet, or ReplicaSet are in a ready state before marking the release as successful. It will wait for as long as the configured timeout duration
Wait for Jobs	When configured, it will wait until all Jobs are finished before marking the release as successful. It will wait for as long as the configured timeout duration

Warning

If the Atomic option is set, upgrade process will roll back changes automatically in case of a failed upgrade. Please make sure to specify an appropriate timeout (default is 5 min) if you want to set the Atomic option. More information on Advanced Helm Options is available here
When the timeout is set to 0, a default Add-On Timeout of 60 minutes is applied to prevent infinite wait loops. If configured with a higher timeout and the Helm chart encounters issues (e.g., in pre-hooks), the blueprint may remain stuck for that duration. It is recommended to set a reasonable timeout to avoid extended delays.

Advanced Helm Options

Placement Policy¶

In this step, specify the placement policy for the workload.

In the example below, the user has selected

"Not Set" for Drift Detection
The "Specific Clusters" placement policy

Publish Helm Workload

Publish Workload¶

We are now ready to publish the workload. Click on Publish to start the deployment process

Publish Helm Workload

Progress/Status¶

Depending on the complexity of the placement policy (e.g. multiple clusters), the Helm chart (e.g. lots of readiness process), the deployment process can take 30 seconds to a few minutes. If the deployment was successful, appropriate status is shown to the user.

Successful Helm Deployment

Use the Card View or Table View icons to view the workload details like status, namespace, last modified date & time, etc on the main workload list page. Table view is the default.

To view the cost details of a specific workload, click on the $ icon. This will navigate you to the Cost Explorer page, where you can access detailed cost information for the required workload.

Workload List

To get the list of workloads in the table view, use the Table View icon. Clicking on Deployment Status Ready workload shows the current state of the workload by cluster

Workload List

Pod Metrics¶

To have the managed prometheus addon scrape pod metrics, add the following annotations to the pods with these parameters

metadata:
  annotations:
    prometheus.io/scrape: "true"
    prometheus.io/path: /metrics
    prometheus.io/port: "8080"
spec:

Adjust the prometheus.io/path based on the URL from where the pod serves metrics. Set prometheus.io/port to the port from where the pod serves metrics. The values for prometheus.io/scrape and prometheus.io/port must be enclosed within double quotes

Important

The collected metrics in Prometheus will be retained for 3 hours

Debugging/Troubleshooting¶

If there are application related issues during deployment, both the application developer and/or the operations user will require RBAC secure facilities to remotely debug. Built in "secure, interactive capabilities" are provided to help streamline the debugging and troubleshooting process.

Navigate to the Workload publish screen
Click Debug to view the deployed Workload, Age (time in minutes since the deployment is complete), Message, Namespace, Reason, Type, Involved Object, Source, and Count
Use the gear icon to show/hide the required columns

Debug Workload

For more information on Debug, refer Debug

Developers¶

Developers that are responsible for a microservice or just the workload will not be provided. This persona is typically provisioned with a "Project Admin" role OR a "Project Read Only" role (in production environments).

Navigate to the workload's publish screen or from the main workload list page, click on options
Click on Debug

This will take the user to the "main debug page"

For multi cluster deployments, select the cluster from the drop-down on the left
A live channel is established to the remote cluster based on the zero trust control channel

Debug Helm Workload

KubeCTL

Click on "KubeCTL" to launch a browser based Zero Trust KubeCTL shell. Note the KubeCTL operations this user can perform is access controlled and secured using the configured ROLE. All actions performed by the user are audited for compliance.

Kubernetes Events

Click on "Show Events" to view the K8s events associated with the workload's resources.

Debug - k8s Events

Logs and Shell

Click on "Launch" under Logs & Shell to establish a "live, interactive" debug channel to the pod on the remote cluster.

Infrastructure/Operations¶

This persona is generally an "Infrastructure Administrator" with privileged access to the Kubernetes Cluster.

All Workloads

Infrastructure admins are provided a bird's eye view of all workloads and their status on Kubernetes clusters. Click on the "Workloads" link on the cluster card.

In the example below, you can see the deployment status of our "apache-helm3" workload

Workloads on Cluster Card

K8s Resources By Workload

Infrastructure admins can view details about the K8s resources for a given workload on a cluster.

Click on the Cluster Dashboard
Click on Resources
Select "Workloads" for "View By"
Select the "workload name"

In the example below, you can view the details of all the K8s resources for our workload.

k8s Resources by Workload

By Helm Release

Click on the Cluster Dashboard
Click on Resources
Select "Helm Releases" for "View By"

In the example below, the Operations persona can see the Helm Chart's name, release, app version and other status information. If users have the Helm CLI configured to communicate with their cluster, they can use it to check status directly.

Helm Releases

Unpublish¶

To unpublish the workload, click on the "unpublish button". The deployed resources on the remote clusters will be automatically removed.

Important

If the remote cluster was offline when the unpublish operation was initiated, the Controller will send this instruction to the cluster when it reconnects.

Actions¶

Edit or delete one (or) more workload(s) using the respective icons from the main workloads list page. Follow the prompts to delete a workload.

Helm Releases

Note: When modifying a published workload, republish it