Now that we\u2019ve deployed our application, lets reduce some of the manual steps and make our deployments more reproducible with the intent of eventually making them automated for CI\/CD.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Normally, we would need to create a helm chart repository, however, codefresh has given us one by default. We just need to make it available to our pipeline and add some steps to push a chart up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Go to our pipeline workflow for medium-customer. On the right side you should see some tabs as well as a gear. Click on the gear. Click on Back on the workflow we need to add some new steps:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Again, this is yaml so be very careful about formatting. What we\u2019re doing here is opening up the values.yaml for the chart, updating the tag version to the tag that we just used for the docker image and then using codefresh\u2019s custom step to package up the chart, update the chart index and publish the updated index.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n What we\u2019re doing with a chart and chart repository is essentially creating a \u2018package\u2019 of our application which helm can use to install the app. This is very similar to the package managers that we used to install kubectl. However, in this case we\u2019re going to use helm to tell kubernetes to install and start up our application.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Make sure that you run this pipeline now<\/strong>. We need to publish the chart with the new pipeline steps to make it available in the next section.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lets try it out with minikube. First destroy our running application<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now lets configure helm to be able to talk to codefresh\u2019s helm chart repository. First we need access, so we\u2019ll create an API token. Go to User Accounts in the lower left of the console screen. Click on At this point I had to switch over my command line to Git Bash (since I\u2019m on windows) if you\u2019re on windows, you may want to do the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n First install the chartmuseum plugin that will let us talk to codefresh\u2019s chart repository.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Next add your access token to the environment<\/p>\n\n\n\n now link the codefresh chart repo to your helm<\/p>\n\n\n\n update your view<\/p>\n\n\n\n now use helm to install the chart<\/p>\n\n\n\n As you can see here we\u2019re using the chart repository to reference the chart instead of the local path.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n The advantage of a chart is that now I don\u2019t need to know any thing about the source code in order to deploy my application. As long as I can access this chart repository (and the container image registry) I can deploy this service to ANY <\/strong>kubernetes cluster I can spin up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Import from Shared Configuration<\/code> and choose CF_HELM_DEFAULT<\/code> (which is the default helm repository codefresh gives us). We don\u2019t need to do anything else here so close up the environment variables window.<\/p>\n\n\n\n UpdateChartImageVersion:\n title: Update Helm Chart Version\n stage: helmpublish\n image: gksoftware\/yq\n working_directory: '\/codefresh\/volume\/medium-customer'\n environment:\n - CHART=src\/main\/helm\/medium-customer\n commands: \n - yq w -i ${CHART}\/values.yaml image.tag '\"${{CF_SHORT_REVISION}}\"'\n HelmChartPush:\n title: Push Helm Chart to Chart Repository\n stage: helmpublish\n image: codefresh\/cfstep-helm\n working_directory: '\/codefresh\/volume\/medium-customer'\n environment:\n - CHART_REF=src\/main\/helm\/medium-customer\/\n - ACTION=push<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\nTesting it Out<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
helm delete medium<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\ngenerate <\/code>in the API Keys section. Create a key called helmaccess<\/code> click the SCOPES <\/code>checkbox to give all access. Click CREATE <\/code>and then use the eyeball in the API KEY<\/code> section to view the generated token. Save this somewhere locally, since we\u2019ll never be able to view it again.<\/p>\n\n\n\nhelm plugin install https:\/\/github.com\/chartmuseum\/helm-push.git<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\nexport HELM_REPO_ACCES_TOKEN=\"<your access token>\"<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\nhelm repo add codefresh cm:\/\/h.cfcr.io\/<your account name>\/default<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\nhelm repo update<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\nhelm install medium codefresh\/medium-customer<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n