Kubernetes: kustomize and helm

Jan 28, 2022

The problem

Deploy quickly without never-ending yaml configurations.

The solution

Combine kustomize and helm for best results. From helm, use the prebuild manifests and default values, and from kustomize, use the pulling mechanism for helm charts and overlays for further configuration.

Let’s first start with configuring the base by specifying the chart, version, repo, namespace, and default set of values:

helmCharts:
  - name: vault-secrets-operator
    repo: https://ricoberger.github.io/helm-charts
    version: 1.16.5
    releaseName: vault-secrets-operator
    namespace: vault
    valuesFile: ./values.yaml
    includeCRDs: true

Next, let’s go ahead and provide further customization by specifying overrides with overlays:

- op: replace
  path: /spec/template/spec/containers/0/env/18
  value:
    name: VAULT_NAMESPACE
    value: my-secrets

The result

We gained a lot by using this combination:

sane defaults in the helm values.yaml file
no need to add helm repo to the pipeline
build and deploy natively: kubectl apply -k dir/
simple overrides with overlays

Related tags:

kubernetes

Site menu