DEV Community

Cover image for Useful commands for Helm
Raul Naupari
Raul Naupari

Posted on • Originally published at blog.raulnq.com

Useful commands for Helm

#kubernetes #helm

Helm is an open source package manager for Kubernetes. It provides the ability to provide, share, and use software built for Kubernetes.

In this post, we will cover the most common Helm commands (and their most common parameters) from our daily work and provide a brief review of the core concepts. You can review the official documentation here.

Helm core concepts

  • The Chart is a Helm package that contains information sufficient for installing a set of Kubernetes resources into a Kubernetes cluster.

  • The Repository is a simple HTTP server to store collection of charts. You can search, download and install charts from a repository.

  • The Release is an instance or a deployment of a chart. When you perform a helm install command, you are creating a new release of that chart on your Kubernetes cluster.

Helm commands

Repository management

List chart repositories:

helm repo list
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode 
helm repo list
NAME            URL
bitnami         https://charts.bitnami.com/bitnami
ingress-nginx   https://kubernetes.github.io/ingress-nginx
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Search for charts in the local repositories:

helm search repo [keyword]
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode 
helm search repo rabbitmq
NAME                                    CHART VERSION   APP VERSION     DESCRIPTION
bitnami/rabbitmq                        9.0.0           3.9.16          RabbitMQ is an open source general-purpose mess...
bitnami/rabbitmq-cluster-operator       2.6.0           1.12.1          The RabbitMQ Cluster Kubernetes Operator automa...
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Search for charts in the Artifact Hub:

helm search hub [keyword] -o yaml
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode 
helm search hub jaeger -o yaml
- app_version: 1.17.1
  description: A Jaeger Helm chart for Kubernetes
  repository:
    name: hkube
    url: https://hkube.io/helm/
  url: https://artifacthub.io/packages/helm/hkube/jaeger
  version: 0.27.2006
- app_version: 1.30.0
  description: A Jaeger Helm chart for Kubernetes
  repository:
    name: jaegertracing
    url: https://jaegertracing.github.io/helm-charts
  url: https://artifacthub.io/packages/helm/jaegertracing/jaeger
  version: 0.56.1
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Add a repository:

helm repo add [repository] [repository-url]
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode 
helm repo add jaegertracing https://jaegertracing.github.io/helm-charts
"jaegertracing" has been added to your repositories
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Update information of charts in local repositories:

helm repo update
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode 
helm repo update
Hang tight while we grab the latest from your chart repositories...
...Successfully got an update from the "ingress-nginx" chart repository
...Successfully got an update from the "jaegertracing" chart repository
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Chart management

Using packages created by us

Create a directory containing the common chart files and directories:

helm create [chart]
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode 
helm create demo-app
Creating demo-app
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Examine a chart for possible issues:

helm lint [chart]
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode 
helm lint demo-app
==> Linting demo-app
[INFO] Chart.yaml: icon is recommended
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Upgrade a release:

helm upgrade [release] [chart]
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode 
--namespace           namespace scope for this request
--install             if a release by this name doesn't already exist, run an install
--dry-run             simulate an upgrade
--debug               enable verbose output
--values              specify values in a YAML file or a URL (can specify multiple)
--set                 set values on the command line (can specify multiple or separate values with commas: key1=val1,key2=val2)
--create-namespace    if --install is set, create the release namespace if not present
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode 
helm upgrade release-demo demo-app --debug --install --values values.local.yaml --set image.tag=1.0.0
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Package a chart directory into a chart archive:

helm package [chart] --app-version
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode 
helm package demo-app --app-version 1.0.0
Successfully packaged chart and saved it to: C:\demo-app-1.0.0.tgz
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Push a chart to a remote repository (depending on the server):

Using packages from a remote repository

Show the chart's definition:

helm show chart [chart]
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode 
helm show chart ingress-nginx/ingress-nginx
apiVersion: v2
appVersion: 1.2.0
description: Ingress controller for Kubernetes using NGINX as a reverse proxy and
  load balancer
home: https://github.com/kubernetes/ingress-nginx
icon: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c5/Nginx_logo.svg/500px-Nginx_logo.svg.png
keywords:
- ingress
- nginx
kubeVersion: '>=1.19.0-0'
maintainers:
- name: rikatz
- name: strongjz
- name: tao12345666333
name: ingress-nginx
sources:
- https://github.com/kubernetes/ingress-nginx
type: application
version: 4.1.0
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Show the chart's values:

helm show values [chart]
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Download a chart from a repository:

helm pull [chart]
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode 
helm pull ingress-nginx/ingress-nginx
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Install a chart:

helm install [release] [chart]
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode 
helm install ingress-nginx/ingress-nginx
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Release management

List releases:

helm list --namespace [namespace]
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode 
helm list --namespace default
NAME            NAMESPACE       REVISION        UPDATED                                 STATUS  CHART                   APP VERSION
release-demo    default         3               2022-04-27 14:09:35.2202953 -0500 -05   failed  demo-app-1.0.0          1.16.0
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Fetch release history:

helm history [release]
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode 
helm history release-demo
REVISION        UPDATED                         STATUS          CHART                   APP VERSION     DESCRIPTION
1               Wed Apr 27 08:52:02 2022        superseded      demo-app-0.1.0          1.16.0          Upgrade complete
2               Wed Apr 27 12:53:03 2022        deployed        demo-app-0.1.0          1.16.0          Upgrade complete
3               Wed Apr 27 14:09:35 2022        failed          demo-app-1.0.0          1.16.0          Upgrade "demo-app" failed: pre-upgrade hooks failed: timed out waiting for the condition
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Rollback a release to a previous revision:

helm rollback [release] [revision]
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode 
helm rollback demo-app 2
Rollback was a success! Happy Helming!
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Uninstall a release:

helm uninstall [release]
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode 
helm uninstall demo-app
release "demo-app" uninstalled
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Top comments (0)

Read next

notharshhaa profile image

DevOps Project: CI/CD Pipeline for a Microservices-Based Application on Kubernetes

H A R S H H A A -

vinod827 profile image

Harnessing Apache Kafka on Kubernetes with Strimzi

Vinod Kumar -

hkhelil profile image

🚀 Building a Kubernetes Operator with an NGINX CRD

Hamdi KHELIL -

swapi123 profile image

DevOps Shack: Multi-Cluster CI/CD DevOps Project 🌟

Swapnil Suresh Mohite -