Helm is the Kubernetes (application) package manager and Helm Charts the packages containing Kubernetes YAML manifest documents that define, install, and upgrade your application.

It is assumed that you have already created your Host Group running Kubernetes and have a Docker account.

Save Docker Credentials to Kubernetes Cluster

Open an SSH terminal on the Kubernetes Master host and run:

kubectl create secret docker-registry regcred --docker-username=<your-name> --docker-password=<your-password> --docker-email=<your-email> -n <your-namespace>

where <namespace> = the namespace into which you wish to deploy your application

Install Helm Client

Open an SSH terminal on the Kubernetes Master host.

Run the Helm installer script:

$ curl -LO https://git.io/get_helm.sh
$ chmod 700 get_helm.sh
$ ./get_helm.sh

Setup Tiller Service Account

Configure

Create rbac-config.yaml using the editor of your choice. In this example we are using the Vim Editor:

vim rbac-config.yaml

Press <i> to begin editing and enter (or copy/paste):

apiVersion: v1
kind: ServiceAccount
metadata:
     name: tiller
     namespace: kube-system
---
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: ClusterRoleBinding
metadata:
     name: tiller
roleRef:
     apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io
     kind: ClusterRole
     name: cluster-admin
subjects:
     - kind: ServiceAccount
     name: tiller
     namespace: kube-system

Press <Esc> to exit edit.
Type :wq to save and exit Vim.

Deploy

Deploy the new service account onto the Kubernetes cluster:

kubectl create -f rbac-config.yaml

Install the Tiller Service

Run the command:

helm init --service-account tiller

Note - as of Helm 2.2.0 the Tiller service can be upgraded using the following command:

helm init --upgrade

For more information on options, for example --history-max that is a recommended to limit the Helm history, refer directly to the Helm documentation.

Securing Helm

It is also important to note that this is an example of an unsecured installation of Helm and NOT recommended in a production setting. Again you are referred directly to the Helm documentation.

Verify Helm

To verify that you have the correct version of Helm and that it was installed correctly run command:

helm version

Installing a Helm chart

You can install charts from the official Helm repository or other repositories, including your own.

For this example of installing the MySQL database we will use the official Helm repository.

helm repo update (to get the latest list of charts)

helm install --name my-release stable/mysql

Verify that chart was installed correctly by running the following command:

kubectl get pods

Next Steps

You are now ready to install your own application(s)...