helm-value-store

A helm plugin for working with helm deployment values.

When working with multiple Kubernetes clusters, but using the same helm charts, you might have slightly different values files that need to be stored somewhere.

This project is an attempt to manage working with multiple values.yaml files for nearly identitcal deployments.

Currently supported backing stores are AWS DynamoDB and GCP Datastore, but other backends such as etcd, consul, or Vault could easily be implemented.

Example

List values from your backend

$ helm value-store list
UniqueId                              Name                  Namespace    Chart                       Version  Labels                                     Values
6fad4903-58ec-446f-bda4-bd39c4ff96aa  alertmanager          default      skuid/alertmanager          0.1.0    map[region:us-west-2 environment:prod]     1.1K
8795d237-adac-4b91-b55b-bb0f1e258a32  exporter              default      skuid/prom-node-exporter    0.1.0    map[region:us-west-2 environment:prod]     279B
22c8f1e8-82fc-4eb0-b1f9-2c8d50b2df3b  prom1                 default      skuid/prometheus            0.1.2    map[region:us-west-2 environment:prod]     1.1K
ad01e6d4-05ec-4f18-ba6a-87cd49e6be25  alertmanager          default      skuid/alertmanager          0.1.0    map[environment:test region:us-west-2]     0
84c28f16-0bc2-4384-9e21-8077e3320aad  exporter              default      skuid/prom-node-exporter    0.1.0    map[environment:test region:us-west-2]     274B
fa718433-d76e-4edd-b263-9c50246c2f80  prom1                 default      skuid/prometheus            0.1.2    map[environment:test region:us-west-2]     0
080f9a8a-10dd-4c2f-8588-8c3c4980553f  alertmanager          default      skuid/alertmanager          0.1.0    map[region:eu-central-1 environment:prod]  1.3K
49582465-85fd-49ce-9778-4bf9d1162a2e  exporter              default      skuid/prom-node-exporter    0.1.0    map[environment:prod region:eu-central-1]  272B
34754bde-3114-43ca-bb23-1d4e16f12f95  prom1                 default      skuid/prometheus            0.1.2    map[environment:prod region:eu-central-1]  0

$ helm value-store list -s environment=test
UniqueId                              Name                  Namespace    Chart                       Version  Labels
ad01e6d4-05ec-4f18-ba6a-87cd49e6be25  alertmanager          default      skuid/alertmanager          0.1.0    map[environment:test region:us-west-2]     0
84c28f16-0bc2-4384-9e21-8077e3320aad  exporter              default      skuid/prom-node-exporter    0.1.0    map[environment:test region:us-west-2]     274B
fa718433-d76e-4edd-b263-9c50246c2f80  prom1                 default      skuid/prometheus            0.1.2    map[environment:test region:us-west-2]     0

Install a release, automatically fetching values from the value store:

$ helm value-store install --name alertmanager --selector region=us-west-2 --selector environment=prod
Fetched chart skuid/alertmanager to /var/folders/pr/79r611f576jczk_79lfndzgc0000gn/T/370122778/alertmanager-0.1.0.tgz
Installing Release 6fad4903-58ec-446f-bda4-bd39c4ff96aa alertmanager skuid/alertmanager   0.1.0
Successfully installed release alertmanager!

Get values out of the value store

$ helm value-store get-values --uuid 6fad4903-58ec-446f-bda4-bd39c4ff96aa
aws_region: us-west-2
configMap:
  pagerduty_key: somekey
  name: alertmanager.config
  slack_api_url: https://hooks.slack.com/services/
image:
  repository: prom/alertmanager
  tag: v0.4.2
mounts:
  configPath: /etc/alertmanager
replicaCount: 1
resources:
  limits:
    cpu: 100.0m
    memory: 128Mi
  requests:
    cpu: 50.0m
    memory: 64Mi
service:
  name: alertmanager
  port: 9098
  servicePort: 80

Update a release definition:

$ helm value-store update --uuid 6fad4903-58ec-446f-bda4-bd39c4ff96aa -f alertmanager-values.yaml
Update release in release store!

Installation

Prerequisite

You must have go installed

brew install go
mkdir -p ~/go/{src,bin,pkg}
export GOPATH=~/go
export PATH="$PATH:~/go/bin"

# Append GOPATH to profile
echo 'export GOPATH=~/go' | tee -a ~/.profile
echo 'export PATH="$PATH:~/go/bin"' | tee -a ~/.profile

Install helm-value-store

go get github.com/skuid/helm-value-store

Add the plugin to helm

HELM_HOME=$(helm home)
mkdir -p "$HELM_HOME/plugins/value-store"
cat <<EOF > "$HELM_HOME/plugins/value-store/plugin.yaml"
name: "value-store"
version: "v0.2.0"
usage: "Store values in a database"
ignoreFlags: false
useTunnel: true
command: "helm-value-store"
EOF

GCP Setup (backend: datastore)

Go to the GCP dashboard and create a new project
Go to the credentials page and create a new Service Account
Give the service account a name, and add it to the role: Datastore > Cloud Datastore Owner
- Be sure to select the "JSON" Key type, and click "Create"
Set the following environment variables

export HELM_VALUE_STORE_BACKEND=datastore
export HELM_VALUE_STORE_SERVICE_ACCOUNT="/path/to/sa.json"

AWS Prerequisite (backend: dynamodb)

You must have the ability to create, read, and write to a DynamoDB table.

Set the proper access key environment variables, or use the $HOME/.aws/{config/credentials} and set the appropriate AWS_DEFAULT_PROFILE environment variable.

Create DynamoDB table (backend: dynamodb)

If this is your first time using helm-value-store, you will need to create a DynamoDB table for storing values:

helm-value-store load --setup --file <(echo "[]")

Server

Helm value store ships with a server subcommand that runs an HTTP server for applying charts into a cluster.

The server only has one endpoint, /apply that accepts the following input:

HTTP1.1 POST /apply
{
    "uuid": "6fad4903-58ec-446f-bda4-bd39c4ff96aa"
}

The response structure is:

{
  "status": "success",
  "message": "Successfully installed alertmanager"
}

By default, the server accepts a Google Oauth2 ID token in the Authorization header for verifying a user against Google and ensuring their email is in a given domain.

The server also listens on an alternate port (default 3001) for the following endpoints.

/metrics - Prometheus metrics
/live - for liveness checks
/ready - for readiness checks

Usage

A helm plugin for working with Helm Release data

Usage:
  helm-value-store [command]

Available Commands:
  completion  print the shell completion
  create      create a release in the release store
  delete      delete a release in the release store
  dump        dump the JSON representation of releases
  get-values  get the values of a release
  help        Help about any command
  install     install or upgrade a release
  list        list the releases
  load        load a json file of releases
  update      update a release in the release store
  version     print the version number

Flags:
      --backend string           The backend for the value store. Must be one of [dynamodb datastore] (default "dynamodb")
      --dynamodb-table string    Name of the dynamodb table (default "helm-charts")
  -h, --help                     help for helm-value-store
      --service-account string   The Google Service Account JSON file (default "sa.json")
      --timeout duration         The timeout for a given command (default 30s)

Use "helm-value-store [command] --help" for more information about a command.

License

MIT License (see LICENSE)

tlm/helm-value-store