Helm is a package manager for Kubernetes, used to simplify and enhance the deployment experience for deploying resources into a Kubernetes cluster.
This training course explores Helm 3, which is the latest version of Helm building upon the successes of Helm 2. During this course, you'll learn the fundamentals of working with Helm3, its features, and the key differences between Helm 3 and Helm 2.
Several hands-on demonstrations are provided within this course, which will allow you to observe how to install and set up Helm, and also how to use Helm to perform various Chart cluster management related tasks. You'll also see how to create and host your very own Helm Chart. All of the coding assets which are used and demonstrated can be found within the CloudAcademy GitHub repositories for this course — they can be found in the links under the Resources section below. You’re encouraged to clone these repositories and perform the same helm commands against your own Kubernetes cluster.
If you have any feedback about this course, please contact us at support@cloudacademy.com.
Learning Objectives
By completing this course, you will learn:
- What Helm is and how to install it
- Helm charts, templates, releases, revisions, and repositories
- How to deploy, upgrade and rollback Helm charts
- How to create and host your own Helm charts
Intended Audience
The intended audience for this course includes:
- Anyone interested in learning about Helm and its fundamentals
- Software Engineers interested in learning how to configure and deploy Helm charts into a Kubernetes cluster
- DevOps and SRE practitioners interested in understanding how to install, manage and maintain Helm-deployed infrastructure
Prerequisites
To get the most out of this course, you should have:
- A basic understanding of Kubernetes
- Experience with deploying Kubernetes resources such as pods, deployments, services, etc.
- A basic understanding of software development and the software development lifecycle
If you’re completely new to Kubernetes, please consider taking our dedicated Introduction to Kubernetes learning path.
Resources
Welcome back! In this lesson, I'm going to review just how easy and quick it is to get up and running with Helm. Installing Helm 3 is simple, easy, and quick. Helm 3 only requires the client component installed on the developer's workstation. Helm 3 no longer requires anything to be installed into the cluster itself. Installation can be performed by simply downloading a pre-compiled binary release, and then either moving the binary into your configured path or by symlinking it.
Alternatively, you can install it by using one of the provided dedicated OS installers. Installers exist for MacOS, Windows, and Linux. And that's it! Helm is now installed and ready to go. When it comes to using Helm on the command line, consider setting up autocompletion. Autocompletion will help you to navigate the various sub commands and parameters. Installing autocompletion can be accomplished by running the following command. Or you can make it more permanent by injecting the previous command into the user's bash profile.
Okay, that completes this lesson. In this lesson, I showed you how simple it is to install Helm together with autocompletion. Go ahead and close this lesson and I'll see you shortly in the next one.
Jeremy is a Content Lead Architect and DevOps SME here at Cloud Academy where he specializes in developing DevOps technical training documentation.
He has a strong background in software engineering, and has been coding with various languages, frameworks, and systems for the past 25+ years. In recent times, Jeremy has been focused on DevOps, Cloud (AWS, Azure, GCP), Security, Kubernetes, and Machine Learning.
Jeremy holds professional certifications for AWS, Azure, GCP, Terraform, Kubernetes (CKA, CKAD, CKS).