Book Image

Managing Kubernetes Resources Using Helm - Second Edition

By : Andrew Block, Austin Dewey
Book Image

Managing Kubernetes Resources Using Helm - Second Edition

By: Andrew Block, Austin Dewey

Overview of this book

Containerization is one of the best ways to implement DevOps, and learning how to execute it effectively is an essential part of a developer’s skillset. Kubernetes is the current industry standard for container orchestration. This book will help you discover the efficiency of managing applications running on Kubernetes with Helm. Starting with a brief introduction to Helm and its impact on users working with containers and Kubernetes, you’ll delve into the primitives of Helm charts and their architecture and use cases. From there, you’ll understand how to write Helm charts in order to automate application deployment on Kubernetes and work your way toward more advanced strategies. These enterprise-ready patterns are focused on concepts beyond the basics so that you can use Helm optimally, looking at topics related to automation, application development, delivery, lifecycle management, and security. By the end of this book, you’ll have learned how to leverage Helm to build, deploy, and manage applications on Kubernetes.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
1
Part 1: Introduction and Setup
5
Part 2: Helm Chart Development
12
Part 3: Advanced Deployment Patterns

Setting up kubectl

As we mentioned in Chapter 1, Understanding Kubernetes and Helm, Kubernetes is a system that exposes different API endpoints. These API endpoints are used to perform various actions on a cluster, such as creating, viewing, or deleting resources. To provide a simpler user experience, developers need a way of interacting with Kubernetes without having to manage the underlying API layer.

While you will predominantly use the Helm command-line tool throughout this book to install and manage applications, kubectl is an essential tool for common tasks.

Read on to learn how to install kubectl on a local workstation. Note that the kubectl version that was used at the time of writing was v1.21.2.

Installing kubectl

kubectl can be installed using minikube, or it can be obtained via a package manager or through direct download. First, let’s describe how to obtain kubectl using minikube.

Installing kubectl via minikube

Installing kubectl is straightforward...