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title description services author ms.topic ms.date ms.author
Install existing applications with Helm in AKS
Learn how to use the Helm packaging tool to deploy containers in an Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) cluster
container-service
zr-msft
article
12/07/2020
zarhoads

Install existing applications with Helm in Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)

Helm is an open-source packaging tool that helps you install and manage the lifecycle of Kubernetes applications. Similar to Linux package managers such as APT and Yum, Helm is used to manage Kubernetes charts, which are packages of preconfigured Kubernetes resources.

This article shows you how to configure and use Helm in a Kubernetes cluster on AKS.

Before you begin

This article assumes that you have an existing AKS cluster. If you need an AKS cluster, see the AKS quickstart using the Azure CLI, using Azure PowerShell, or using the Azure portal.

In addition, this article assumes you have an existing AKS cluster with an integrated ACR. For more details on creating an AKS cluster with an integrated ACR, see Authenticate with Azure Container Registry from Azure Kubernetes Service.

You also need the Helm CLI installed, which is the client that runs on your development system. It allows you to start, stop, and manage applications with Helm. If you use the Azure Cloud Shell, the Helm CLI is already installed. For installation instructions on your local platform, see Installing Helm.

Important

Helm is intended to run on Linux nodes. If you have Windows Server nodes in your cluster, you must ensure that Helm pods are only scheduled to run on Linux nodes. You also need to ensure that any Helm charts you install are also scheduled to run on the correct nodes. The commands in this article use [node-selectors][k8s-node-selector] to make sure pods are scheduled to the correct nodes, but not all Helm charts may expose a node selector. You can also consider using other options on your cluster, such as taints.

Verify your version of Helm

Use the helm version command to verify you have Helm 3 installed:

helm version

The following example shows Helm version 3.0.0 installed:

$ helm version

version.BuildInfo{Version:"v3.0.0", GitCommit:"e29ce2a54e96cd02ccfce88bee4f58bb6e2a28b6", GitTreeState:"clean", GoVersion:"go1.13.4"}

Install an application with Helm v3

Add Helm repositories

Use the helm repo command to add the ingress-nginx repository.

helm repo add ingress-nginx https://kubernetes.github.io/ingress-nginx

Find Helm charts

Helm charts are used to deploy applications into a Kubernetes cluster. To search for pre-created Helm charts, use the helm search command:

helm search repo ingress-nginx

The following condensed example output shows some of the Helm charts available for use:

$ helm search repo ingress-nginx

NAME                            CHART VERSION   APP VERSION     DESCRIPTION                                       
ingress-nginx/ingress-nginx     2.12.0          0.34.1          Ingress controller for Kubernetes using NGINX a...

To update the list of charts, use the helm repo update command.

helm repo update

The following example shows a successful repo update:

$ helm repo update

Hang tight while we grab the latest from your chart repositories...
...Successfully got an update from the "ingress-nginx" chart repository
Update Complete. ⎈ Happy Helming!⎈

Import the images used by the Helm chart into your ACR

This article uses the NGINX ingress controller Helm chart, which relies on three container images. Use az acr import to import those images into your ACR.

REGISTRY_NAME=<REGISTRY_NAME>
CONTROLLER_REGISTRY=k8s.gcr.io
CONTROLLER_IMAGE=ingress-nginx/controller
CONTROLLER_TAG=v0.48.1
PATCH_REGISTRY=docker.io
PATCH_IMAGE=jettech/kube-webhook-certgen
PATCH_TAG=v1.5.1
DEFAULTBACKEND_REGISTRY=k8s.gcr.io
DEFAULTBACKEND_IMAGE=defaultbackend-amd64
DEFAULTBACKEND_TAG=1.5

az acr import --name $REGISTRY_NAME --source $CONTROLLER_REGISTRY/$CONTROLLER_IMAGE:$CONTROLLER_TAG --image $CONTROLLER_IMAGE:$CONTROLLER_TAG
az acr import --name $REGISTRY_NAME --source $PATCH_REGISTRY/$PATCH_IMAGE:$PATCH_TAG --image $PATCH_IMAGE:$PATCH_TAG
az acr import --name $REGISTRY_NAME --source $DEFAULTBACKEND_REGISTRY/$DEFAULTBACKEND_IMAGE:$DEFAULTBACKEND_TAG --image $DEFAULTBACKEND_IMAGE:$DEFAULTBACKEND_TAG

Note

In addition to importing container images into your ACR, you can also import Helm charts into your ACR. For more information, see Push and pull Helm charts to an Azure container registry.

Run Helm charts

To install charts with Helm, use the helm install command and specify a release name and the name of the chart to install. To see installing a Helm chart in action, let's install a basic nginx deployment using a Helm chart.

Tip

The following example creates a Kubernetes namespace for the ingress resources named ingress-basic and is intended to work within that namespace. Specify a namespace for your own environment as needed.

ACR_URL=<REGISTRY_URL>

# Create a namespace for your ingress resources
kubectl create namespace ingress-basic

# Use Helm to deploy an NGINX ingress controller
helm install nginx-ingress ingress-nginx/ingress-nginx \
    --version 4.0.13 \
    --namespace ingress-basic \
    --set controller.replicaCount=2 \
    --set controller.nodeSelector."kubernetes\.io/os"=linux \
    --set controller.image.registry=$ACR_URL \
    --set controller.image.image=$CONTROLLER_IMAGE \
    --set controller.image.tag=$CONTROLLER_TAG \
    --set controller.image.digest="" \
    --set controller.admissionWebhooks.patch.nodeSelector."kubernetes\.io/os"=linux \
    --set controller.service.annotations."service\.beta\.kubernetes\.io/azure-load-balancer-health-probe-request-path"=/healthz \
    --set controller.admissionWebhooks.patch.image.registry=$ACR_URL \
    --set controller.admissionWebhooks.patch.image.image=$PATCH_IMAGE \
    --set controller.admissionWebhooks.patch.image.tag=$PATCH_TAG \
    --set defaultBackend.nodeSelector."kubernetes\.io/os"=linux \
    --set defaultBackend.image.registry=$ACR_URL \
    --set defaultBackend.image.image=$DEFAULTBACKEND_IMAGE \
    --set defaultBackend.image.tag=$DEFAULTBACKEND_TAG \
    --set defaultBackend.image.digest=""

The following condensed example output shows the deployment status of the Kubernetes resources created by the Helm chart:

NAME: nginx-ingress
LAST DEPLOYED: Wed Jul 28 11:35:29 2021
NAMESPACE: ingress-basic
STATUS: deployed
REVISION: 1
TEST SUITE: None
NOTES:
The ingress-nginx 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 ingress-basic get services -o wide -w nginx-ingress-ingress-nginx-controller'
...

Use the kubectl get services command to get the EXTERNAL-IP of your service.

kubectl --namespace ingress-basic get services -o wide -w nginx-ingress-ingress-nginx-controller

For example, the below command shows the EXTERNAL-IP for the nginx-ingress-ingress-nginx-controller service:

$ kubectl --namespace ingress-basic get services -o wide -w nginx-ingress-ingress-nginx-controller

NAME                                     TYPE           CLUSTER-IP    EXTERNAL-IP     PORT(S)                      AGE   SELECTOR
nginx-ingress-ingress-nginx-controller   LoadBalancer   10.0.254.93   <EXTERNAL_IP>   80:30004/TCP,443:30348/TCP   61s   app.kubernetes.io/component=controller,app.kubernetes.io/instance=nginx-ingress,app.kubernetes.io/name=ingress-nginx

List releases

To see a list of releases installed on your cluster, use the helm list command.

helm list --namespace ingress-basic

The following example shows the my-nginx-ingress release deployed in the previous step:

$ helm list --namespace ingress-basic
NAME            NAMESPACE       REVISION        UPDATED                                 STATUS          CHART                   APP VERSION
nginx-ingress   ingress-basic   1               2021-07-28 11:35:29.9623734 -0500 CDT   deployed        ingress-nginx-3.34.0    0.47.0

Clean up resources

When you deploy a Helm chart, a number of Kubernetes resources are created. These resources include pods, deployments, and services. To clean up these resources, use the helm uninstall command and specify your release name, as found in the previous helm list command.

helm uninstall --namespace ingress-basic nginx-ingress

The following example shows the release named my-nginx-ingress has been uninstalled:

$ helm uninstall --namespace ingress-basic nginx-ingress

release "nginx-ingress" uninstalled

To delete the entire sample namespace, use the kubectl delete command and specify your namespace name. All the resources in the namespace are deleted.

kubectl delete namespace ingress-basic

Next steps

For more information about managing Kubernetes application deployments with Helm, see the Helm documentation.

[!div class="nextstepaction"] Helm documentation