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Helm Charts

The HelmChart API defines a Source to produce an Artifact for a Helm chart archive with a set of specific configurations.

Example

The following is an example of a HelmChart. It fetches and/or packages a Helm chart and exposes it as a tarball (.tgz) Artifact for the specified configuration:

---
apiVersion: source.toolkit.fluxcd.io/v1beta2
kind: HelmChart
metadata:
  name: podinfo
  namespace: default
spec:
  interval: 5m0s
  chart: podinfo
  reconcileStrategy: ChartVersion
  sourceRef:
    kind: HelmRepository
    name: podinfo
  version: '5.*'

In the above example:

  • A HelmChart named podinfo is created, indicated by the .metadata.name field.
  • The source-controller fetches the Helm chart every five minutes from the podinfo HelmRepository source reference, indicated by the .spec.sourceRef.kind and .spec.sourceRef.name fields.
  • The fetched Helm chart version is the latest available chart version in the range specified in spec.version. This version is also used as Artifact revision, reported in-cluster in the .status.artifact.revision field.
  • When the current Helm Chart version differs from the latest available chart in the version range, it is fetched and/or packaged as a new Artifact.
  • The new Artifact is reported in the .status.artifact field.

You can run this example by saving the manifest into helmchart.yaml.

NOTE: HelmChart is usually used by the helm-controller. Based on the HelmRelease configuration, an associated HelmChart is created by the helm-controller.

  1. Apply the resource on the cluster:

    kubectl apply -f helmchart.yaml

  2. Run kubectl get helmchart to see the HelmChart:

    NAME      CHART     VERSION   SOURCE KIND      SOURCE NAME   AGE   READY   STATUS                                     
podinfo   podinfo   5.*       HelmRepository   podinfo       53s   True    pulled 'podinfo' chart with version '5.2.1'

  3. Run kubectl describe helmchart podinfo to see the Artifact and Conditions in the HelmChart's Status:

    Status:
  Observed Source Artifact Revision:  83a3c595163a6ff0333e0154c790383b5be441b9db632cb36da11db1c4ece111
  Artifact:
    Checksum:          6c3cc3b955bce1686036ae6822ee2ca0ef6ecb994e3f2d19eaf3ec03dcba84b3
    Last Update Time:  2022-02-13T11:24:10Z
    Path:              helmchart/default/podinfo/podinfo-5.2.1.tgz
    Revision:          5.2.1
    URL:               http://source-controller.flux-system.svc.cluster.local./helmchart/default/podinfo/podinfo-5.2.1.tgz
  Conditions:
    Last Transition Time:  2022-02-13T11:24:10Z
    Message:               pulled 'podinfo' chart with version '5.2.1'
    Observed Generation:   1
    Reason:                ChartPullSucceeded
    Status:                True
    Type:                  Ready
  Observed Chart Name:     podinfo
  Observed Generation:     1
  URL:                     http://source-controller.flux-system.svc.cluster.local./helmchart/default/podinfo/latest.tar.gz
Events:
  Type    Reason              Age    From               Message
  ----    ------              ----   ----               -------
  Normal  ChartPullSucceeded  2m51s  source-controller  pulled 'podinfo' chart with version '5.2.1'

Writing a HelmChart spec

As with all other Kubernetes config, a HelmChart needs apiVersion, kind, and metadata fields. The name of a HelmChart object must be a valid DNS subdomain name.

A HelmChart also needs a .spec section.

Source reference

.spec.sourceRef is a required field that specifies a reference to the Source the chart is available at.

Supported references are:

Although there are three kinds of source references, there are only two underlying implementations. The artifact building process for GitRepository and Bucket are the same as they are already built source artifacts. In case of HelmRepository, a chart is fetched and/or packaged based on the configuration of the Helm chart.

For a HelmChart to be reconciled, the associated artifact in the source reference must be ready. If the source artifact is not ready, the HelmChart reconciliation is retried.

When the metadata.generation of the HelmChart don't match with the status.observedGeneration, the chart is fetched from source and/or packaged. If there's no .spec.valuesFiles specified, the chart is only fetched from the source, and not packaged. If .spec.valuesFiles are specified, the chart is fetched and packaged with the values files. When the metadata.generation matches the status.observedGeneration, the chart is only fetched from source or from the cache if available, and not packaged.

When using a HelmRepository source reference, the secret reference defined in the Helm repository is used to fetch the chart.

The HelmChart reconciliation behavior varies depending on the source reference kind, see reconcile strategy.

The attributes of the generated artifact also varies depending on the source reference kind, see artifact.

Chart

.spec.chart is a required field that specifies the name or path the Helm chart is available at in the Source reference.

For HelmRepository Source reference, it'll be just the name of the chart.

spec:
  chart: podinfo
  sourceRef:
    name: podinfo
    kind: HelmRepository

For GitRepository and Bucket Source reference, it'll be the path to the Helm chart directory.

spec:
  chart: ./charts/podinfo
  sourceRef:
    name: podinfo
    kind: <GitRepository|Bucket>

Version

.spec.version is an optional field to specify the version of the chart in semver. It is applicable only when the Source reference is a HelmRepository. It is ignored for GitRepository and Bucket Source reference. It defaults to the latest version of the chart with value *.

Version can be a fixed semver, minor or patch semver range of a specific version (i.e. 4.0.x) or any semver range (i.e. >=4.0.0 <5.0.0).

Values files

.spec.valuesFiles is an optional field to specify an alternative list of values files to use as the chart values (values.yaml). The file paths are expected to be relative to the Source reference. Values files are merged in the order of the list with the last file overriding the first. It is ignored when omitted. When values files are specified, the chart is fetched and packaged with the provided values.

spec:
  chart:
    spec:
      chart: podinfo
      ...
      valuesFiles:
        - values.yaml
        - values-production.yaml

Values files also affect the generated artifact revision, see artifact.

Reconcile strategy

.spec.reconcileStrategy is an optional field to specify what enables the creation of a new Artifact. Valid values are ChartVersion and Revision. ChartVersion is used for creating a new artifact when the chart version changes in a HelmRepository. Revision is used for creating a new artifact when the source revision changes in a GitRepository or a Bucket Source. It defaults to ChartVersion.

NOTE: If the reconcile strategy is ChartVersion and the source reference is a GitRepository or a Bucket, no new chart artifact is produced on updates to the source unless the version in Chart.yaml is incremented. To produce new chart artifact on change in source revision, set the reconcile strategy to Revision.

Reconcile strategy also affects the artifact version, see artifact for more details.

Interval

.spec.interval is a required field that specifies the interval at which the Helm Chart source must be checked for updates.

After successfully reconciling a HelmChart object, the source-controller requeues the object for inspection after the specified interval. The value must be in a Go recognized duration string format, e.g. 10m0s to look at the source for updates every 10 minutes.

If the .metadata.generation of a resource changes (due to e.g. applying a change to the spec), this is handled instantly outside the interval window.

Suspend

.spec.suspend is an optional field to suspend the reconciliation of a HelmChart. When set to true, the controller will stop reconciling the HelmChart, and changes to the resource or the Helm chart Source will not result in a new Artifact. When the field is set to false or removed, it will resume.

For practical information, see suspending and resuming.

Working with HelmCharts

Triggering a reconcile

To manually tell the source-controller to reconcile a HelmChart outside the specified interval window, a HelmCHart can be annotated with reconcile.fluxcd.io/requestedAt: <arbitrary value>. Annotating the resource queues the object for reconciliation if the <arbitrary-value> differs from the last value the controller acted on, as reported in .status.lastHandledReconcileAt.

Using kubectl:

kubectl annotate --field-manager=flux-client-side-apply --overwrite helmchart/<chart-name> reconcile.fluxcd.io/requestedAt="$(date +%s)"

Waiting for Ready

When a change is applied, it is possible to wait for the HelmChart to reach a ready state using kubectl:

kubectl wait helmchart/<chart-name> --for=condition=ready --timeout=1m

Suspending and resuming

When you find yourself in a situation where you temporarily want to pause the reconciliation of a HelmChart, you can suspend it using the .spec.suspend field.

Suspend a HelmChart

In your YAML declaration:

---
apiVersion: source.toolkit.fluxcd.io/v1beta2
kind: HelmChart
metadata:
  name: <chart-name>
spec:
  suspend: true

Using kubectl:

kubectl patch helmchart <chart-name> --field-manager=flux-client-side-apply -p '{\"spec\": {\"suspend\" : true }}'

Note: When a HelmChart has an Artifact and is suspended, and this Artifact later disappears from the storage due to e.g. the source-controller Pod being evicted from a Node, this will not be reflected in the HelmChart's Status until it is resumed.

Resume a HelmChart

In your YAML declaration, comment out (or remove) the field:

---
apiVersion: source.toolkit.fluxcd.io/v1beta2
kind: HelmChart
metadata:
  name: <chart-name>
spec:
  # suspend: true

Note: Setting the field value to false has the same effect as removing it, but does not allow for "hot patching" using e.g. kubectl while practicing GitOps; as the manually applied patch would be overwritten by the declared state in Git.

Using kubectl:

kubectl patch helmchart <chart-name> --field-manager=flux-client-side-apply -p '{\"spec\" : {\"suspend\" : false }}'

Debugging a HelmChart

There are several ways to gather information about a HelmChart for debugging purposes.

Describe the HelmChart

Describing a HelmChart using kubectl describe helmchart <chart-name> displays the latest recorded information for the resource in the Status and Events sections:

...
Status:
...
  Conditions:
    Last Transition Time:     2022-02-13T14:06:27Z
    Message:                  invalid chart reference: failed to get chart version for remote reference: no 'podinfo' chart with version matching '9.*' found
    Observed Generation:      3
    Reason:                   InvalidChartReference
    Status:                   True
    Type:                     Stalled
    Last Transition Time:     2022-02-13T14:06:27Z
    Message:                  invalid chart reference: failed to get chart version for remote reference: no 'podinfo' chart with version matching '9.*' found
    Observed Generation:      3
    Reason:                   InvalidChartReference
    Status:                   False
    Type:                     Ready
    Last Transition Time:     2022-02-13T14:06:27Z
    Message:                  invalid chart reference: failed to get chart version for remote reference: no 'podinfo' chart with version matching '9.*' found
    Observed Generation:      3
    Reason:                   InvalidChartReference
    Status:                   True
    Type:                     FetchFailed
  Last Handled Reconcile At:  1644759954
  Observed Chart Name:        podinfo
  Observed Generation:        3
  URL:                        http://source-controller.flux-system.svc.cluster.local./helmchart/default/podinfo/latest.tar.gz
Events:
  Type     Reason                      Age                  From               Message
  ----     ------                      ----                 ----               -------
  Warning  InvalidChartReference       11s                  source-controller  invalid chart reference: failed to get chart version for remote reference: no 'podinfo' chart with ver
sion matching '9.*' found

Trace emitted Events

To view events for specific HelmChart(s), kubectl get events can be used in combination with --field-selector to list the Events for specific objects. For example, running

kubectl get events --field-selector involvedObject.kind=HelmChart,involvedObject.name=<chart-name>

lists

LAST SEEN   TYPE      REASON                       OBJECT                   MESSAGE
22s         Warning   InvalidChartReference        helmchart/<chart-name>   invalid chart reference: failed to get chart version for remote reference: no 'podinfo' chart with version matching '9.*' found
2s          Normal    ChartPullSucceeded           helmchart/<chart-name>   pulled 'podinfo' chart with version '6.0.3'

Besides being reported in Events, the reconciliation errors are also logged by the controller. The Flux CLI offer commands for filtering the logs for a specific HelmChart, e.g. flux logs --level=error --kind=HelmChart --name=<chart-name>.

HelmChart Status

Artifact

The HelmChart reports the last built chart as an Artifact object in the .status.artifact of the resource.

The Artifact file is a gzip compressed TAR archive (<chart-name>-<chart-version>.tgz), and can be retrieved in-cluster from the .status.artifact.url HTTP address.

Artifact example

---
apiVersion: source.toolkit.fluxcd.io/v1beta2
kind: HelmChart
metadata:
  name: <chart-name>
status:
  artifact:
    checksum: e30b95a08787de69ffdad3c232d65cfb131b5b50c6fd44295f48a078fceaa44e
    lastUpdateTime: "2022-02-10T18:53:47Z"
    path: helmchart/<source-namespace>/<chart-name>/<chart-name>-<chart-version>.tgz
    revision: 6.0.3
    url: http://source-controller.flux-system.svc.cluster.local./helmchart/<source-namespace>/<chart-name>/<chart-name>-<chart-version>.tgz

When using a HelmRepository as the source reference and values files are provided, the value of status.artifact.revision is the chart version combined with the HelmChart object generation. For example, if the chart version is 6.0.3 and the HelmChart object generation is 1, the status.artifact.revision value will be 6.0.3+1.

---
apiVersion: source.toolkit.fluxcd.io/v1beta2
kind: HelmChart
metadata:
  name: <chart-name>
status:
  artifact:
    checksum: ee68224ded207ebb18a8e9730cf3313fa6bc1f31e6d8d3943ab541113559bb52
    lastUpdateTime: "2022-02-28T08:07:12Z"
    path: helmchart/<source-namespace>/<chart-name>/<chart-name>-6.0.3+1.tgz
    revision: 6.0.3+1
    url: http://source-controller.flux-system.svc.cluster.local./helmchart/<source-namespace>/<chart-name>/<chart-name>-6.0.3+1.tgz
  observedGeneration: 1
  ...

When using a GitRepository or a Bucket as the source reference and Revision as the reconcile strategy, the value of status.artifact.revision is the chart version combined with the first 12 characters of the revision of the GitRepository or Bucket. For example if the chart version is 6.0.3 and the revision of the Bucket is 4e5cbb7b97d00a8039b8810b90b922f4256fd3bd8f78b934b4892dae13f7ca87, the status.artifact.revision value will be 6.0.3+4e5cbb7b97d0.

---
apiVersion: source.toolkit.fluxcd.io/v1beta2
kind: HelmChart
metadata:
  name: <chart-name>
status:
  artifact:
    checksum: 8d1f0ac3f4b0e8759a32180086f17ac87ca04e5d46c356e67f97e97616ef4718
    lastUpdateTime: "2022-02-28T08:07:12Z"
    path: helmchart/<source-namespace>/<chart-name>/<chart-name>-6.0.3+4e5cbb7b97d0.tgz
    revision: 6.0.3+4e5cbb7b97d0
    url: http://source-controller.flux-system.svc.cluster.local./helmchart/<source-namespace>/<chart-name>/<chart-name>-6.0.3+4e5cbb7b97d0.tgz

Conditions

A HelmChart enters various states during its lifecycle, reflected as Kubernetes Conditions. It can be reconciling while fetching or building the chart, it can be ready, it can fail during reconciliation, or it can stall.

The HelmChart API is compatible with the kstatus specification, and reports Reconciling and Stalled conditions where applicable to provide better (timeout) support to solutions polling the HelmChart to become Ready.

Reconciling HelmChart

The source-controller marks a HelmChart as reconciling when one of the following is true:

  • There is no current Artifact for the HelmChart, or the reported Artifact is determined to have disappeared from the storage.
  • The generation of the HelmChart is newer than the Observed Generation.
  • The newly fetched Artifact revision differs from the current Artifact.

When the HelmChart is "reconciling", the Ready Condition status becomes False, and the controller adds a Condition with the following attributes to the HelmChart's .status.conditions:

  • type: Reconciling
  • status: "True"
  • reason: NewGeneration | reason: NoArtifact

If the reconciling state is due to a new version, it adds an additional Condition with the following attributes:

  • type: ArtifactOutdated
  • status: "True"
  • reason: NewChart

Both Conditions have a "negative polarity", and are only present on the HelmChart while their status value is "True".

Ready HelmChart

The source-controller marks a HelmChart as ready when it has the following characteristics:

  • The HelmChart reports an Artifact.
  • The reported Artifact exists in the controller's Artifact storage.
  • The controller was able to fetch and build the Helm chart using the current spec.
  • The version/revision of the reported Artifact is up-to-date with the latest version/revision of the Helm chart.

When the HelmChart is "ready", the controller sets a Condition with the following attributes in the HelmChart's .status.conditions:

  • type: Ready
  • status: "True"
  • reason: Succeeded

This Ready Condition will retain a status value of "True" until the HelmChart is marked as reconciling, or e.g. a transient error occurs due to a temporary network issue.

Failed HelmChart

The source-controller may get stuck trying to produce an Artifact for a HelmChart without completing. This can occur due to some of the following factors:

  • The Helm chart Source is temporarily unavailable.
  • The credentials in the Source reference Secret are invalid.
  • The HelmChart spec contains a generic misconfiguration.
  • A storage related failure when storing the artifact.

When this happens, the controller sets the Ready Condition status to False, and adds a Condition with the following attributes to the HelmChart's .status.conditions:

  • type: FetchFailed | type: StorageOperationFailed
  • status: "True"
  • reason: AuthenticationFailed | reason: StorageOperationFailed | reason: URLInvalid | reason: IllegalPath | reason: Failed

This condition has a "negative polarity", and is only present on the HelmChart while the status value is "True". There may be more arbitrary values for the reason field to provide accurate reason for a condition.

While the HelmChart has this Condition, the controller will continue to attempt to produce an Artifact for the resource with an exponential backoff, until it succeeds and the HelmChart is marked as ready.

Note that a HelmChart can be reconciling while failing at the same time, for example due to a newly introduced configuration issue in the HelmChart spec.

Stalled HelmChart

The source-controller can mark a HelmChart as stalled when it determines that without changes to the spec, the reconciliation can not succeed. For example because a HelmChart Version is set to a non-existing version.

When this happens, the controller sets the same Conditions as when it fails, but adds another Condition with the following attributes to the HelmChart's .status.conditions:

  • type: Stalled
  • status: "True"
  • reason: InvalidChartReference

While the HelmChart has this Condition, the controller will not requeue the resource any further, and will stop reconciling the resource until a change to the spec is made.

Observed Source Artifact Revision

The source-controller reports the revision of the last Source reference's Artifact the current chart was fetched from in the HelmChart's .status.observedSourceArtifactRevision. It is used to keep track of the source artifact revision and detect when a new source artifact is available.

Observed Chart Name

The source-controller reports the last resolved chart name of the Artifact for the .spec.chart field in the HelmChart's .status.observedChartName. It is used to keep track of the chart and detect when a new chart is found.

Observed Generation

The source-controller reports an observed generation in the HelmChart's .status.observedGeneration. The observed generation is the latest .metadata.generation which resulted in either a ready state, or stalled due to error it can not recover from without human intervention.

Last Handled Reconcile At

The source-controller reports the last reconcile.fluxcd.io/requestedAt annotation value it acted on in the .status.lastHandledReconcileAt field.

For practical information about this field, see triggering a reconcile.