Helm Package Manager

StarlingX supports Helm v3 package manager for Kubernetes that can be used to securely manage the lifecycle of applications within the Kubernetes cluster.

About this task

Helm packages are defined by Helm charts with container information sufficient for managing a Kubernetes application. You can configure, install, and upgrade your Kubernetes applications using Helm charts. Helm charts are defined with a default set of values that describe the behavior of the service installed within the Kubernetes cluster.

A Helm v3 client is installed on controllers for local use by admins to manage end-users’ Kubernetes applications. StarlingX recommends to install a Helm v3 client on a remote workstation, so that non-admin (and admin) end-users can manage their Kubernetes applications remotely.

Upon system installation, local Helm repositories (containing StarlingX packages) are created and added to the Helm repo list.

Use the following command to list these local Helm repositories:

~(keystone_admin)]$ helm repo list
NAME            URL
starlingx       `http://127.0.0.1:8080/helm_charts/starlingx`
stx-platform    `http://127.0.0.1:8080/helm_charts/stx-platform`

Where the stx-platform repo holds Helm charts of StarlingX Applications (see next section) of the StarlingX platform itself, while the starlingx repo holds Helm charts of optional StarlingX applications, such as Openstack. The admin user can add charts to these local repos and regenerate the index to use these charts, and add new remote repositories to the list of known repos.

For more information on Helm v3, see the documentation at https://helm.sh/docs/.

For more information on how to configure and use Helm both locally and remotely, see Configure Local CLI Access, and Configure Remote CLI Access.