How to Install Helm Kubernetes Package Manager on Ubuntu 20.04

Kubernetes supports Helm package manager. Helm is used for find, share & use application which is built for Kubernetes. It provides help to manage Kubernetes application.

Now we will discuss about a helm’s few terminologies:

• Helm Chart: It is used for contain Information of an application which are deployed/released/installed on a Kubernetes cluster.
• Helm Release: Helm Release gets created when using Helm Chart, an application is deployed on the Kubernetes cluster.
• Helm Repository: It is used for store all Helm Chart.
• Chart.yaml: It contains information about the Helm chart.
• values.yaml: It stores the values & used for override default values to the application.

Install Helm on Ubuntu

Step 1. Update the System.

apt-get update

Step 2. Check the operating system version.

cat /etc/issue 

Here is the command output.

Ubuntu 20.04.2 LTS \n \l

Step 3. Download Helm.

curl -fsSL -o get_helm.sh https://raw.githubusercontent.com/helm/helm/master/
scripts/get-helm-3

Provide the following permission.

chmod 700 get_helm.sh 

Step 4. Install the Helm.

./get_helm.sh 

Here is the command output.

Downloading https://get.helm.sh/helm-v3.6.3-linux-amd64.tar.gz
Verifying checksum... Done.
Preparing to install helm into /usr/local/bin
[sudo] password for admin: 
helm installed into /usr/local/bin/helm

Now Run Helm command.

helm

Here is the command output.

The Kubernetes package manager

Common actions for Helm:

- helm search:    search for charts
- helm pull:      download a chart to your local directory to view
- helm install:   upload the chart to Kubernetes
- helm list:      list releases of charts

Environment variables:

| Name                               | Description                                                                       |
|-----------------------|----------------------------------------------------|
| $HELM_CACHE_HOME      | set an alternative location for storing cached files.                             

| $HELM_CONFIG_HOME     | set an alternative location for storing Helm configuration.                       

| $HELM_DATA_HOME       | set an alternative location for storing Helm data.                                

| $HELM_DEBUG           | indicate whether or not Helm is running in Debug mode                            

| $HELM_MAX_HISTORY     | set the maximum number of helm release history.                                  

| $HELM_NAMESPACE       | set the namespace used for the helm operations.                                   

| $HELM_NO_PLUGINS      | disable plugins. Set HELM_NO_PLUGINS=1 to disable plugins.                        

| $HELM_PLUGINS         | set the path to the plugins directory      
                                      
| $HELM_REGISTRY_CONFIG | set the path to the registry config file.                                         

How to Use Helm Package Manager

Step 5. Search Apache for a Helm Chart.

helm search hub apache 

Here is the command output.

Search stable repository for Helm chart .

helm search repo apache 

Here is the command output.There are no repository added.

Error: no repositories configured

Step 6. Now Install Repository for Helm Chart.

helm repo add stable https://charts.helm.sh/stable 

Again Search repository.

helm search repo apache 

Here is the command output.

List all added Repository.

helm  repo list 

Here is the command output.

NAME  	URL                          
stable	https://charts.helm.sh/stable

Step 7. Search Repo for Jenkins

helm search repo jenkins 

Here is the command output.

NAME         CHART VERSION  APP VERSION  DESCRIPTION                           
stable/jenkins 2.5.4        lts         DEPRECATED-Open source continuous integration.

We can install Jenkins using Helm command.

helm  install jenkins stable/jenkins 

Here is the command output.

• We gets connection refused error because do not have a Kubernetes cluster to deploy Jenkins.

WARNING: This chart is deprecated
Error: Kubernetes cluster unreachable: Get
 "http://localhost:8080/version?timeout=32s": dial tcp 127.0.0.1:8080: 
connect: connection refused

Now Search Repo for Jenkins.

helm search hub jenkins 

Here is the command output.

• We gets multiple URL.
• Select one url & open the url.

• Select the url  https://artifacthub.io/packages/helm/jenkinsci/jenkins.
• Add the repo for the chart using helm repo add bitnami https://charts.bitnami.com/bitnami command.

List the repo.

helm  repo list

Here is the command output.

NAME   	URL                               
stable 	https://charts.helm.sh/stable     
bitnami	https://charts.bitnami.com/bitnami

Step 8. Install Jenkins using Helm.

helm install my-jenkins bitnami/jenkins 

Here is the command output.

• Now we get Kubernetes cluster unreachable error so first we needs to setup kubernetes cluster click on link https://www.hackerxone.com/blog/how-manage-single-multiple-kubernetes-clusters-using-kubectl-kubectx-linux

Error: Kubernetes cluster unreachable: Get 
"http://localhost:8080/version?timeout=32s": dial tcp 127.0.0.1:8080: 
connect: connection refused

Step 9. Check the Helm environment

helm env 

Here is the command output.

HELM_BIN="helm"
HELM_CACHE_HOME="/home/rohitsingh/.cache/helm"
HELM_CONFIG_HOME="/home/rohitsingh/.config/helm"
HELM_DATA_HOME="/home/rohitsingh/.local/share/helm"
HELM_DEBUG="false"
HELM_KUBEAPISERVER=""
HELM_KUBEASGROUPS=""
HELM_KUBEASUSER=""
HELM_KUBECAFILE=""
HELM_KUBECONTEXT=""
HELM_KUBETOKEN=""
HELM_MAX_HISTORY="10"
HELM_NAMESPACE="default"