hub VS helm

Let's now install a helm chart from an opensource oci repository (ref: https://artifacthub.io/); Just for an example we will install nginx chart.

Helm charts are stored in a chart repository. This repository analogy is similar to docker hub where you can pull or push images. In a chart repository, you can also pull your charts from the repository and update the repository locally for you to use the chart. The repository that hosts Helm charts is ArtifactHub. ArtifactHub is a web based application that enables finding, installing and publishing Kubernetes packages and configurations. Searching for the helm charts can be done in two ways:

When you're on the lookout for readily deployable and customizable applications to integrate into your cluster, your ideal destination is ArtifactHub. This centralized platform serves as a comprehensive resource, gathering an array of public Helm Chart links for your convenience.

Helm has an official Helm Chart repository called ArtifactHub where developers can push and publish their Helm Charts. In this repository, you can easily find Helm charts for any Kubernetes application and reuse them. For complex applications like Jenkins, it is best to use the official Jenkins Helm Chart. Many Developers have contributed to the Jenkins Helm chart and it has all the Kubernetes YAML files. It will save us time in creating our custom Jenkins Helm chart. In this tutorial will search and download the official Jenkins Helm Chart from ArtifactHub. We will then install the official Jenkins Helm Chart on the Kubernetes Cluster using Helm. Let's install Helm.

The next time you want to search for public Helm Charts, I recommend first searching through Artifact Hub (sort by Stars).

You can also add the artifacthub repo file, to claim ownership, it's optional though.

Applying Kubernetes manifests individually is problematic because files can get overlooked. Packaging your applications as Helm charts lets you version your manifests and easily repeat deployments into different environments. Helm tracks the state of each deployment as a "release" in your cluster.

helm

Explanation here: https://github.com/helm/helm/issues/12681#issuecomment-19593...

Looks like it's a bug in Helm, but actually isn't Helm's fault, the issue was introduced by Fedora Linux.

Helm (Get from here https://helm.sh/)

It’s also well understood that having a k8s cluster is not enough to make developers able to host their services - you need a devops team to work with them, using tools like delivery pipelines, Helm, kustomize, infra as code, service mesh, ingress, secrets management, key management - the list goes on! Developer Portals like Backstage, Port and Cortex have started to emerge to help manage some of this complexity.

Kubernetes orchestrates deployments and manages resources through yaml configuration files. While Kubernetes supports a wide array of resources and configurations, our aim in this tutorial is to maintain simplicity. For the sake of clarity and ease of understanding, we will use yaml configurations with hardcoded values. This method simplifies the learning process but isn’t ideal for production environments due to the need for manual updates with each new deployment. Although there are methods to streamline and automate this process, such as using Helm charts or bash scripts, we’ll not delve into those techniques to keep the tutorial manageable and avoid fatigue — you might be quite tired by that point!

Helm is a package manager that automates Kubernetes applications' creation, packaging, configuration, and deployment by combining your configuration files into a single reusable package. This eliminates the requirement to create the mentioned Kubernetes resources by ourselves since they have been implemented within the Helm chart. All we need to do is configure it as needed to match our requirements. From the public Helm chart repository, we can get the charts for common software packages like Consul, Jenkins SonarQube, etc. We can also create our own Helm charts for our custom applications so that we don’t need to repeat ourselves and simplify deployments.

We can search for charts https://helm.sh/ . Charts can be pulled(downloaded) and optionally unpacked(untar).

Generally I felt as if I was diving in the deepest of waters without the correct equipement and that was horrifying. Unfortunately to me, I had to dive even deeper before getting equiped with tools like ArgoCD, and k8slens. I had to start working with... HELM.

Within the architecture of Cyclops, a central component is the Helm engine. Helm is very popular within the Kubernetes community; chances are you have already run into it. The popularity of Helm plays to Cyclops's strength because of its straightforward integration.