Quickstart Guide (original) (raw)

This guide covers how you can quickly get started using Helm.

Prerequisites

The following prerequisites are required for a successful and properly secured use of Helm.

  1. A Kubernetes cluster
  2. Deciding what security configurations to apply to your installation, if any
  3. Installing and configuring Helm.

Install Kubernetes or have access to a cluster

See theHelm Version Support Policy for the maximum version skew supported between Helm and Kubernetes.

Install Helm

Download a binary release of the Helm client. You can use tools like homebrew, or look atthe official releases page.

For more details, or for other options, seethe installation guide.

Initialize a Helm Chart Repository

Once you have Helm ready, you can add a chart repository. CheckArtifact Hub for available Helm chart repositories.

$ helm repo add bitnami https://charts.bitnami.com/bitnami

Once this is installed, you will be able to list the charts you can install:

$ helm search repo bitnami
NAME                             	CHART VERSION	APP VERSION  	DESCRIPTION
bitnami/bitnami-common           	0.0.9        	0.0.9        	DEPRECATED Chart with custom templates used in ...
bitnami/airflow                  	8.0.2        	2.0.0        	Apache Airflow is a platform to programmaticall...
bitnami/apache                   	8.2.3        	2.4.46       	Chart for Apache HTTP Server
bitnami/aspnet-core              	1.2.3        	3.1.9        	ASP.NET Core is an open-source framework create...
# ... and many more

Install an Example Chart

To install a chart, you can run the helm install command. Helm has several ways to find and install a chart, but the easiest is to use the bitnamicharts.

$ helm repo update              # Make sure we get the latest list of charts
$ helm install bitnami/mysql --generate-name
NAME: mysql-1612624192
LAST DEPLOYED: Sat Feb  6 16:09:56 2021
NAMESPACE: default
STATUS: deployed
REVISION: 1
TEST SUITE: None
NOTES: ...

In the example above, the bitnami/mysql chart was released, and the name of our new release is mysql-1612624192.

You get a simple idea of the features of this MySQL chart by running helm show chart bitnami/mysql. Or you could run helm show all bitnami/mysql to get all information about the chart.

Whenever you install a chart, a new release is created. So one chart can be installed multiple times into the same cluster. And each can be independently managed and upgraded.

The helm install command is a very powerful command with many capabilities. To learn more about it, check out theUsing Helm Guide

Learn About Releases

It's easy to see what has been released using Helm:

$ helm list
NAME            	NAMESPACE	REVISION	UPDATED                             	STATUS  	CHART      	APP VERSION
mysql-1612624192	default  	1       	2021-02-06 16:09:56.283059 +0100 CET	deployed	mysql-8.3.0	8.0.23

The helm list (or helm ls) function will show you a list of all deployed releases.

Uninstall a Release

To uninstall a release, use the helm uninstall command:

$ helm uninstall mysql-1612624192
release "mysql-1612624192" uninstalled

This will uninstall mysql-1612624192 from Kubernetes, which will remove all resources associated with the release as well as the release history.

If the flag --keep-history is provided, release history will be kept. You will be able to request information about that release:

$ helm status mysql-1612624192
Status: UNINSTALLED
...

Because Helm tracks your releases even after you've uninstalled them, you can audit a cluster's history, and even undelete a release (with helm rollback).

Reading the Help Text

To learn more about the available Helm commands, use helm help or type a command followed by the -h flag: