Install and Use Helm 3 on Kubernetes Cluster

Welcome to today’s guide on how to install and use Helm 3 in your Kubernetes environment. Helm is the ultimate package manager for Kubernetes. It helps you manage Kubernetes applications by using Helm Charts — With it you can define, install, and upgrade basic to the most complex Kubernetes applications alike.

Helm 3 doesn’t have the server/client architecture like Helm 2. There is no tiller server component. So the installation is just for the helm command line component which interacts with Kubernetes through your kubectl configuration file and the default Kubernetes RBAC.

For Helm 2, checkout: Install and Use Helm 2 on Kubernetes Cluster

Step 1: Install Helm 3 on Linux | macOS

Download Helm 3 installation script.

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

Give the script execute permissions.

chmod 700 get_helm.sh

Run the installer.

sudo ./get_helm.sh

Here is a sample installation output:

Downloading https://get.helm.sh/helm-v3.7.1-linux-amd64.tar.gz

Verifying checksum... Done.

Preparing to install helm into /usr/local/bin

helm installed into /usr/local/bin/helm

Confirm installation of Helm 3

$ helm version

version.BuildInfoVersion:"v3.7.1", GitCommit:"1d11fcb5d3f3bf00dbe6fe31b8412839a96b3dc4", GitTreeState:"clean", GoVersion:"go1.16.9"

Step 2: Add Helm Chart repository

Once you have Helm installed, add a chart repository. Add official charts repository:

$ helm repo add stable https://charts.helm.sh/stable

"stable" has been added to your repositories

In this example we’ll add bitnami repository:

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

"bitnami" has been added to your repositories

You will then be able to list the charts that can be installed:

$ helm search repo stable

Listing charts in the bitnami repository:

$ helm search repo bitnami

Step 3: Install Applications on Helm Chart

Confirm that your Kubernetes CLI is using the right cluster context by first listing the available contexts.

$ kubectl config get-contexts

CURRENT   NAME       CLUSTER    AUTHINFO         NAMESPACE

*         k3s        k3s        k3s-admin        kube-system

          prod       prod       prod-admin

Switch to desired context:

$ kubectl config use-context k3s

Switched to context "k3s".

We will confirm if we can use Helm 3 to install applications on our Kubernetes cluster. In this setup, I’ll install Nginx ingress controller. NGINX Ingress controller can be easily installed from official Helm chart stable/nginx-ingress repository.

$ helm repo update

Hang tight while we grab the latest from your chart repositories...

...Successfully got an update from the "stable" chart repository

...Successfully got an update from the "bitnami" chart repository

Update Complete. ⎈Happy Helming!⎈

Get chart features:

$ helm show chart stable/nginx-ingress

apiVersion: v1

appVersion: v0.34.1

deprecated: true

description: DEPRECATED! An nginx Ingress controller that uses ConfigMap to store

  the nginx configuration.

home: https://github.com/kubernetes/ingress-nginx

icon: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c5/Nginx_logo.svg/500px-Nginx_logo.svg.png

keywords:

- ingress

- nginx

kubeVersion: '>=1.10.0-0'

name: nginx-ingress

sources:

- https://github.com/kubernetes/ingress-nginx

version: 1.41.3

Install the chart using the helm install command.

$ helm install nginx-ingress stable/nginx-ingress

You can as well let the installer generate the name of your chart release (omits the NAME parameter). You will be greeted with a message like below after the installation.

NAME: nginx-ingress

LAST DEPLOYED: Mon Dec 16 00:08:12 2019

NAMESPACE: kube-system

STATUS: deployed

REVISION: 1

TEST SUITE: None

NOTES:

The nginx-ingress controller has been installed.

It may take a few minutes for the LoadBalancer IP to be available.

You can watch the status by running 'kubectl --namespace kube-system get services -o wide -w nginx-ingress-controller'



An example Ingress that makes use of the controller:



  apiVersion: extensions/v1beta1

  kind: Ingress

  metadata:

    annotations:

      kubernetes.io/ingress.class: nginx

    name: example

    namespace: foo

  spec:

    rules:

      - host: www.example.com

        http:

          paths:

            - backend:

                serviceName: exampleService

                servicePort: 80

              path: /

    # This section is only required if TLS is to be enabled for the Ingress

    tls:

        - hosts:

            - www.example.com

          secretName: example-tls



If TLS is enabled for the Ingress, a Secret containing the certificate and key must also be provided:



  apiVersion: v1

  kind: Secret

  metadata:

    name: example-tls

    namespace: foo

  data:

    tls.crt: 

    tls.key: 

  type: kubernetes.io/tls

Confirm installation:

$ helm ls

NAME         	NAMESPACE  	REVISION	UPDATED                                	STATUS  	CHART               	APP VERSION

nginx-ingress	kube-system	1       	2019-12-16 00:08:12.513438985 +0300 EAT	deployed	nginx-ingress-1.26.2	0.26.1

To uninstall a release, use the helm uninstall command:

$ helm uninstall nginx-ingress

release "nginx-ingress" uninstalled



$ helm list                   

NAME	NAMESPACE	REVISION	UPDATED	STATUS	CHART	APP VERSION

Below example if for the installation of DokuWiki on Kubernetes using Helm.

$ helm install dokuwiki stable/dokuwiki 

NAME: dokuwiki

LAST DEPLOYED: Mon Dec 23 13:32:52 2019

NAMESPACE: kube-system

STATUS: deployed

REVISION: 1

TEST SUITE: None

NOTES:

** Please be patient while the chart is being deployed **



1. Get the DokuWiki URL by running:



** Please ensure an external IP is associated to the dokuwiki service before proceeding **

** Watch the status using: kubectl get svc --namespace kube-system -w dokuwiki **



  export SERVICE_IP=$(kubectl get svc --namespace kube-system dokuwiki --template " range (index .status.loadBalancer.ingress 0) . end ")

  echo "URL: http://$SERVICE_IP/"



2. Login with the following credentials



  echo Username: user

  echo Password: $(kubectl get secret --namespace kube-system dokuwiki -o jsonpath=".data.dokuwiki-password" | base64 --decode)

Enjoy using Helm to manage Applications lifecycle in your Kubernetes environment.

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