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Organizing deployments to many k8s environments using helmfile

Helmfile - a wrapper for helm , which allows you to describe many helm releases in one place, parameterize their charts for several environments, and also set the order of their deployment.


You can read about helmfile itself and examples of its use in the readme and best practices guide .


We will get acquainted with non-obvious ways to describe releases in helmfile


Suppose we have a bunch of helm charts (for example, let there be postgres and some kind of backend application) and several environments (several kubernetes clusters, several namespace'ov or several of both). We take helmfile, read the documentation and begin to describe our environments and releases:


    .
    ├── envs
    │   ├── devel
    │   │   └── values
    │   │       ├── backend.yaml
    │   │       └── postgres.yaml
    │   └── production
    │       └── values
    │           ├── backend.yaml
    │           └── postgres.yaml
    └── helmfile.yaml

helmfile.yaml


environments:
  devel:
  production:

releases:
  - name: postgres
    labels:
      app: postgres
    wait: true
    chart: stable/postgresql
    version: 8.4.0
    values:
      - envs/{{ .Environment.Name }}/values/postgres.yaml
  - name: backend
    labels:
      app: backend
    wait: true
    chart: private-helm-repo/backend
    version: 1.0.5
    needs:
      - postgres
    values:
      - envs/{{ .Environment.Name }}/values/backend.yaml

We got 2 environments: devel , production - each has its own values ​​for helm release charts. We will deploy to them like this:


helmfile -n <namespace> -e <env> apply

Different versions of helm charts in different environments


What if we need to roll out different versions of the backend in different environments? How to parameterize the release version? Ambient values ​​available through{{ .Values }}


helmfile.yaml


environments:
  devel:
+   values:
+   - charts:
+       versions:
+         backend: 1.1.0
  production:
+   values:
+   - charts:
+       versions:
+         backend: 1.0.5
...
  - name: backend
    labels:
      app: backend
    wait: true
    chart: private-helm-repo/backend
-   version: 1.0.5
+   version: {{ .Values.charts.versions.backend }}
...

A different set of applications in different environments


, production postgres, , k8s postgres? (labels)


helmfile -n <namespace> -e devel apply
helmfile -n <namespace> -e production -l app=backend apply

, , , . ? , "" ,


    .
    ├── envs
    │   ├── devel
    │   │   └── values
    │   │       ├── backend.yaml
    │   │       └── postgres.yaml
    │   └── production
    │       └── values
    │           ├── backend.yaml
    │           └── postgres.yaml
+   ├── releases
+   │   ├── backend.yaml
+   │   └── postgres.yaml
    └── helmfile.yaml

helmfile.yaml



  environments:
    devel:
      values:
      - charts:
          versions:
            backend: 1.1.0
      - apps:
        - postgres
        - backend

    production:
      values:
      - charts:
          versions:
            backend: 1.0.5
      - apps:
        - backend

- releases:
-    - name: postgres
-      labels:
-        app: postgres
-      wait: true
-      chart: stable/postgresql
-      version: 8.4.0
-      values:
-        - envs/{{ .Environment.Name }}/values/postgres.yaml
-    - name: backend
-      labels:
-        app: backend
-      wait: true
-      chart: private-helm-repo/backend
-     version: {{ .Values.charts.versions.backend }}
-     needs:
-       - postgres
-     values:
-       - envs/{{ .Environment.Name }}/values/backend.yaml
+ ---
+ bases:
+ {{- range .Values.apps }}
+   - releases/{{ . }}.yaml
+ {{- end }}

releases/postgres.yaml


releases:
  - name: postgres
    labels:
      app: postgres
    wait: true
    chart: stable/postgresql
    version: 8.4.0
    values:
      - envs/{{ .Environment.Name }}/values/postgres.yaml

releases/backend.yaml


releases:
  - name: backend
    labels:
      app: backend
    wait: true
    chart: private-helm-repo/backend
    version: {{ .Values.charts.versions.backend }}
    needs:
      - postgres
    values:
      - envs/{{ .Environment.Name }}/values/backend.yaml



bases: yaml ---, releases ( , helmDefaults) environments



postgres production. !



, , helm , , , , affinity, - , .


2 values: , , , .


    .
    ├── envs
+   │   ├── default
+   │   │   └── values
+   │   │       ├── backend.yaml
+   │   │       └── postgres.yaml
    │   ├── devel
    │   │   └── values
    │   │       ├── backend.yaml
    │   │       └── postgres.yaml
    │   └── production
    │       └── values
    │           ├── backend.yaml
    │           └── postgres.yaml
    ├── releases
    │   ├── backend.yaml
    │   └── postgres.yaml
    └── helmfile.yaml

releases/backend.yaml


releases:
  - name: backend
    labels:
      app: backend
    wait: true
    chart: private-helm-repo/backend
    version: {{ .Values.charts.versions.backend }}
    needs:
      - postgres
    values:
+     - envs/default/values/backend.yaml
      - envs/{{ .Environment.Name }}/values/backend.yaml

envs/default/values/backend.yaml


affinity:
  podAntiAffinity:
    preferredDuringSchedulingIgnoredDuringExecution:
    - weight: 1
      podAffinityTerm:
        labelSelector:
          matchExpressions:
          - key: app.kubernetes.io/name
            operator: In
            values:
            - backend
        topologyKey: "kubernetes.io/hostname"

helm


, ingress — hosts:, , ? values, , .gotmpl, helmfile , .


    .
    ├── envs
    │   ├── default
    │   │   └── values
-   │   │       ├── backend.yaml
-   │   │       ├── postgres.yaml
+   │   │       ├── backend.yaml.gotmpl
+   │   │       └── postgres.yaml.gotmpl
    │   ├── devel
    │   │   └── values
    │   │       ├── backend.yaml
    │   │       └── postgres.yaml
    │   └── production
    │       └── values
    │           ├── backend.yaml
    │           └── postgres.yaml
    ├── releases
    │   ├── backend.yaml
    │   └── postgres.yaml
    └── helmfile.yaml

helmfile.yaml


  environments:
    devel:
      values:
      - charts:
          versions:
            backend: 1.1.0
      - apps:
        - postgres
        - backend
+     - global:
+         ingressDomain: k8s.devel.domain

    production:
      values:
      - charts:
          versions:
            backend: 1.0.5
      - apps:
        - backend
+     - global:
+         ingressDomain: production.domain
  ---
  bases:
  {{- range .Values.apps }}
    - releases/{{ . }}.yaml
  {{- end }}

envs/default/values/backend.yaml.gotmpl


ingress:
  enabled: true
  paths:
    - /api
  hosts:
    - {{ .Values.global.ingressDomain }}

envs/default/values/postgres.yaml.gotmpl


ingress:
  enabled: true
  paths:
    - /
  hosts:
    - postgres.{{ .Values.global.ingressDomain }}



, ingress postgres — , , - ingress



(secrets)


helm secrets . , secrets, , default.yaml.gotmpl , , . , , .


    .
    ├── envs
    │   ├── default
    │   │   └── values
    │   │       ├── backend.yaml
    │   │       └── postgres.yaml
    │   ├── devel
    │   │   ├── values
    │   │   │   ├── backend.yaml
    │   │   │   └── postgres.yaml
+   │   │   └── secrets.yaml
    │   └── production
    │       ├── values
    │       │   ├── backend.yaml
    │       │   └── postgres.yaml
+   │       └── secrets.yaml
    ├── releases
    │   ├── backend.yaml
    │   └── postgres.yaml
    └── helmfile.yaml

helmfile.yaml


  environments:
    devel:
      values:
      - charts:
          versions:
            backend: 1.1.0
      - apps:
        - postgres
        - backend
      - global:
          ingressDomain: k8s.devel.domain
+     secrets:
+       - envs/devel/secrets.yaml

    production:
      values:
      - charts:
          versions:
            backend: 1.0.5
      - apps:
        - backend
      - global:
          ingressDomain: production.domain
+     secrets:
+       - envs/production/secrets.yaml
  ---
  bases:
  {{- range .Values.apps }}
    - releases/{{ . }}.yaml
  {{- end }}

envs/devel/secrets.yaml


secrets:
    elastic:
        password: ENC[AES256_GCM,data:hjCB,iv:Z1P6/6xBJgJoKLJ0UUVfqZ80o4L84jvZfM+uH9gBelc=,tag:dGqQlCZnLdRAGoJSj63rBQ==,type:int]
...

envs/production/secrets.yaml


secrets:
    elastic:
        password: ENC[AES256_GCM,data:ZB/VpTFk8f0=,iv:EA//oT1Cb5wNFigTDOz3nA80qD9UwTjK5cpUwLnEXjs=,tag:hMdIUaqLRA8zuFBd82bz6A==,type:str]
...

envs/default/values/backend.yaml.gotmpl


elasticsearch:
  host: elasticsearch
  port: 9200
  password: {{ .Values | getOrNil "secrets.elastic.password" | default "password" }}

envs/devel/values/backend.yaml


elasticsearch:
  host: elastic-0.devel.domain

envs/production/values/backend.yaml


elasticsearch:
  host: elastic-0.production.domain



, getOrNil — go helmfile, , .Values.secrets , , default -




The described things seem pretty obvious, but the information on a convenient deployment description in several environments using helmfile is very scarce, and I love IaC (Infrastructure-as-Code) and I want to have a clear description of the deployment state.


In conclusion, I want to add that the variables for the default environment can, in turn, be parameterized by the OS environment variables of a runner from which the deployment will be launched, and thus get dynamic environments


helmfile.yaml


environments:
  default:
    values:
    - global:
        clusterDomain: {{ env "CLUSTER_DOMAIN" | default "cluster.local" }}
        ingressDomain: {{ env "INGRESS_DOMAIN" }}

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