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Helm based deployment to Kubernetes namespace

Helm Chart is a packaging tool for Kubernetes. It packages all of your disparate manifests as a singular object to advertise to your cluster.

To deploy a helm chart, follow the steps below:

  1. Go to Application Dashboard: When you log in to ISD you would start at the application dashboard. Users will see a list of applications or create a new application entirely. Click on the application where you want to build this pipeline. For the purposes of this tutorial, we are using the application “testdoc”.

    Helmbased_deployment1

  2. Pipeline Builder: Once you click on an application, it will redirect you to the "Pipeline Status" page. Click "Pipeline Builder" navigate to the pipelines screen and then click "+New Pipeline" button to create a new pipeline as shown in the image below. Users can also view the existing pipelines on the left side of the screen.

    Helmbased_deployment2

  3. Click on “add stage”: The add stage button is just under the diagrammatic representation of your pipeline. When you click this button, you can select many different types of stages that ISD supports.

    Helmbased_deployment3

  4. Add a Bake stage: Select “Bake(Manifest)” stage from the drop down menu. Baking an artifact allows you to use this artifact later in your spinnaker pipeline, without having to define its parameters.

    Helmbased_deployment4

  5. Configure Bake(Manifest): Select the Render engine from the drop down and provide the required details and then click "Save Changes" as shown in the image below.

    Helmbased_deployment5

    • Render Engine: This is the engine used for rendering your manifest.

    • Helm name and namespace: Defining the name and namespace specifies where in your cluster this artifact will deploy.

    • Expected Artifact: Select the template you want to render.

    • Raw Overrides: Use --set instead of --set-string when injecting override values. Values injected using --set will be converted to primitive types by Helm.

    • Expression Evaluation: Explicitly evaluate SpEL expressions in overrides just prior to manifest baking. Can be paired with the "Skip SpEL evaluation" option in the Deploy Manifest stage when baking a third-party manifest artifact with expressions not meant for Spinnaker to evaluate as SpEL.

  6. Add your deployment stage: Now that you have baked an object, you don’t have to define its parameters. Much like our steps to create a Kubernetes deployment guide, you can either add it as a text or as an artifact.

    Helmbased_deployment6

  7. Run your pipeline: Verify to make sure that it works.