What you will learn
- Use Helm charts
- Template with values
- Manage releases
New to this? Start here
The basics, in plain English
Deploying a real app to Kubernetes can take many YAML files. Helm is a package manager that bundles them into a reusable “chart”, so installing complex software becomes one command with a few settings.
- Helm
- A package manager for Kubernetes, like an app installer.
- Chart
- A reusable package of Kubernetes files for one app, with adjustable settings.
- Values
- The settings you tweak to customize a chart for your environment.
- Release
- One installed instance of a chart running in your cluster.
- Templating
- Filling in blanks in the YAML so the same chart works in dev and prod.
01
Charts
Helm packages manifests into charts with templated values, so the same chart deploys to dev and prod with different settings.
Try it yourself
bash
$helm repo add bitnami https://charts.bitnami.com/bitnami↳Register a chart repository to install packages from.$helm install pg bitnami/postgresql↳Install Postgres into the cluster as a release named “pg”.$helm upgrade pg bitnami/postgresql -f prod.yaml↳Apply new settings from prod.yaml to the existing release.↳ lines explain what each command does — only the commands get copied
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