HELM MasterClass: Kubernetes Packaging Manager

Set up a cloud machine on digital ocean for kubernetes environment preparation, choosing ubuntu 20.04 lts, with ssh access and a kubernetes master node.

Set up the developer Kubernetes environment by installing Docker engine, Cube CTL, and Mini Cube on a fresh machine, then start the Mini Cube cluster and verify with Cube CTL.

Install Helm across platforms by following the official docs, download the binary release (version 3.10.2), move the binary to /usr/local/bin, and use package managers or curl for setup.

Use Helm to deploy Kubernetes services with charts, replacing many YAML files with a single helm install command, as shown in deploying a Redis cluster.

Learn to provide custom values to a Helm chart using a yaml values file or runtime set, with a MariaDB example in Kubernetes namespace.

Learn how Helm maintains release records by storing revision data as Kubernetes secrets, enabling rollbacks and controlling revision history with keep history.

Explore the five-step helm deployment flow for helm install: load the chart and dependencies, render values into templates to YAML, validate with Kubernetes, and deploy resources while reporting status.

Validate Helm charts before deployment by using dry-run to generate and validate yaml against Kubernetes, preview resources like service accounts, secrets, configmaps, services, and statefulsets with custom values.

Explore how to generate deployable Kubernetes yaml with helm template, bypassing dry runs, by producing yaml for services, secrets, and config maps without a live cluster.

Roll back a Helm deployment to a specific revision using Helm rollback, inspect revision history with Helm history, and view deployment values with Helm get values.

Create Helm charts from templates or scratch using Helm create; understand the chart structure, templates, and values, and manage changes with GitHub in a Kubernetes workflow.

Learn how chart yaml stores Helm chart metadata, including apiVersion, name, description, type, versioning, keywords, and maintainers, and how application and library charts differ.

Explore helm templates and deployment yaml resources, including services, deployments, and replica sets, and learn how values files drive conditional resources like HP and ingress, using Go language template syntax.

Learn how the helper template file defines Go template functions to generate kubernetes yaml, including deployment names and chart names, and how deployments call these functions to render final resources.

Learn how to package a Helm chart using helm package, define the chart name and version, manage dependencies with a hyphen flag, and package to a chosen path.

Explore how the pipe function in Helm templates chains functions, passing the left output as input to the right, enabling default values, uppercase transformation, and handling missing fields like address.

Explore type casting values to YAML in Helm templates using the width function to render arrays and annotations, with conditional blocks and inline formatting.

Learn to define and use variables in Helm templates with dollar syntax, apply if conditions, and read values from the values file to drive deployment decisions.

Master helm template loops in Kubernetes Packaging Manager by using range to iterate values and dictionaries, reading keys and values from values file, and printing with indentation and yaml casting.

Learn to manage chart dependencies in helm by declaring backend charts as dependencies, updating the charts directory, and installing releases so frontend and backend deploy together in a kubernetes cluster.

Override dependency values at runtime in Helm by editing the parent values.yaml and preserving the chart hierarchy to customize MySQL and RabbitMQ settings, ports, auth, and service types.

Explore reading data from a child chart into its parent in helm using the import-values annotation, selecting values like image and repository to pass to the parent deployment.