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You're reading from  Learn Helm

Product typeBook
Published inJun 2020
PublisherPackt
ISBN-139781839214295
Edition1st Edition
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Authors (2):
Andrew Block
Andrew Block
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Andrew Block

Andrew Block is a core maintainer on the Helm project and a Distinguished Architect at Red Hat. He specializes in the use of continuous integration and continuous delivery methodologies to streamline the delivery process and incorporate security at each stage. He works with organizations to adopt and implement these technologies and concepts within their organization. As an open source enthusiast, Andrew not only has authored several publications, but he is also a contributor to several open source communities and a lead within the sigstore project, which aims at simplifying how software is signed and verified.
Read more about Andrew Block

Austin Dewey
Austin Dewey
author image
Austin Dewey

Austin Dewey is a DevOps engineer focused on delivering a streamlined developer experience on cloud and container technologies. Austin started his career with Red Hat's consulting organization, where he helped drive success at Fortune 500 companies by automating deployments on Red Hat's Kubernetes-based PaaS, OpenShift Container Platform. Currently, Austin works at fintech start-up Prime Trust, where he builds automation to scale financial infrastructure and supports developers on Kubernetes and AWS.
Read more about Austin Dewey

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Preface

Presently, containerization is said to be the best way to implement DevOps. While Docker introduced containers and changed the DevOps era, Google developed an extensive container orchestration system, Kubernetes, which is now considered the frontrunner in container orchestration. The main goal of this book is to learn about the efficiency of managing applications running on Kubernetes using Helm. This book will start with a short introduction to Helm and how it can benefit the entire container environment. You will then dive into the architectural aspects, along with learning about Helm charts and its use cases. You’ll learn how to write Helm charts in order to automate application deployment on Kubernetes. Focused on providing enterprise-ready patterns around Helm and automation, the book covers best practices around application development, delivery, and life cycle management with Helm. By the end of this book, you will know how to leverage Helm to develop an enterprise pattern with a view to application delivery.

Who this book is for

This book targets Kubernetes developers or administrators interested in learning Helm to provide automation around application development on Kubernetes. Basic knowledge of Kubernetes application development would be useful, but prior knowledge of Helm is not required. Basic knowledge of business use cases that automation provides is recommended.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Understanding Kubernetes and Helm, provides an introduction to Kubernetes and Helm. You will be introduced to the challenges that users face when deploying applications to Kubernetes and how Helm can help simplify deployments and increase productivity.

Chapter 2, Preparing a Kubernetes and Helm Environment, covers the tools required to deploy applications with Helm on a local Kubernetes cluster. In addition, you will also learn about basic Helm configurations that occur post-installation.

Chapter 3, Installing Your First Helm Chart, explains how to deploy an application to Kubernetes by installing a Helm chart and covers the different life cycle phases of an application deployed with Helm.

Chapter 4, Understanding Helm Charts, dives deep into the building blocks of a Helm chart and prepares you with the knowledge required to build your own Helm chart.

Chapter 5, Building Your First Helm Chart, provides an end-to-end walkthrough of building a Helm chart. The chapter begins with the fundamental concepts of building a Helm chart that leverages basic Helm constructs and progresses to modifying the baseline configurations to incorporate more advanced Helm constructs. Finally, you will learn how to deploy a chart to a basic chart repository

Chapter 6, Testing Helm Charts, discusses different methodologies around linting and testing Helm charts.

Chapter 7, Automating Helm Processes Using CI/CD and GitOps, explores an advanced use case in terms of leveraging CI/CD and GitOps models to automate Helm tasks. Namely, developing a process around testing, packaging, and releasing Helm charts. In addition, the management of Helm chart installations across multiple different environments is also introduced.

Chapter 8, Using Helm with the Operator Framework, discusses the fundamental concepts of operators on Kubernetes with a view to building a Helm operator out of an existing Helm chart using the operator-sdk tool provided by the operator framework.

Chapter 9, Helm Security Considerations, dives into some of the security considerations and precautions around using Helm, from the moment the tool is installed to the second it is used to install a Helm chart on a Kubernetes cluster.

To get the most out of this book

While not mandatory, as basic concepts are explained throughout the book, some familiarity with Kubernetes and container technology is recommended.

For the tools used throughout this book, chapters 2-9 will focus on the following key technologies:

The installation of these tools is discussed in detail in Chapter 2, Preparing a Kubernetes and Helm Environment. Additional tools that are used throughout the book are chapter-specific, and their installations are described in the chapters in which they are used.

If you are using the digital version of this book, we advise you to type the code yourself or access the code via the GitHub repository (link available in the next section). Doing so will help you avoid any potential errors related to copy/pasting of code.

Download the example code files

You can download the example code files for this book from your account at www.packt.com. If you purchased this book elsewhere, you can visit www.packtpub.com/support and register to have the files emailed directly to you.

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The code bundle for the book is also hosted on GitHub at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/-Learn-Helm. In case there’s an update to the code, it will be updated on the existing GitHub repository.

We also have other code bundles from our rich catalog of books and videos available at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/. Check them out!

Code in action

Code in action videos for this book can be viewed at https://bit.ly/2AEAGvm.

Download the color images

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Conventions used

There are a number of text conventions used throughout this book.

Code in text: Indicates code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles. Here is an example: “Mount the downloaded WebStorm-10*.dmg disk image file as another disk in your system.”

A block of code is set as follows:

html, body, #map {
 height: 100%; 
 margin: 0;
 padding: 0
}

When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the relevant lines or items are set in bold:

[default]
exten => s,1,Dial(Zap/1|30)
exten => s,2,Voicemail(u100)
exten => s,102,Voicemail(b100)
exten => i,1,Voicemail(s0)

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

$ mkdir css
$ cd css

Bold: Indicates a new term, an important word, or words that you see on screen. For example, words in menus or dialog boxes appear in the text like this. Here is an example: “Select System info from the Administration panel.”

Tips or important notes

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Get in touch

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Authors (2)

author image
Andrew Block

Andrew Block is a core maintainer on the Helm project and a Distinguished Architect at Red Hat. He specializes in the use of continuous integration and continuous delivery methodologies to streamline the delivery process and incorporate security at each stage. He works with organizations to adopt and implement these technologies and concepts within their organization. As an open source enthusiast, Andrew not only has authored several publications, but he is also a contributor to several open source communities and a lead within the sigstore project, which aims at simplifying how software is signed and verified.
Read more about Andrew Block

author image
Austin Dewey

Austin Dewey is a DevOps engineer focused on delivering a streamlined developer experience on cloud and container technologies. Austin started his career with Red Hat's consulting organization, where he helped drive success at Fortune 500 companies by automating deployments on Red Hat's Kubernetes-based PaaS, OpenShift Container Platform. Currently, Austin works at fintech start-up Prime Trust, where he builds automation to scale financial infrastructure and supports developers on Kubernetes and AWS.
Read more about Austin Dewey