Helm CLI

This section describes how to install the Helm CLI. Helm can be installed either from source or from pre-built binary releases. This topic focuses on installing the latest Helm binaries, which is known as Helm 3.

You may encounter some situations where you need to use an older version of Helm, known as Helm 2. If so, see the Helm documentation.

What Is Helm

Helm is a tool that streamlines installing and managing Kubernetes applications. It provides managed packages called charts, which is a collection of related Kubernetes resources. Helm allows for customization, installation, upgrades, and rollback of packages.

Key Features

Repository of managed packages
Custom repositories for personal packages
Mechanisms for upgrading packages
Templating

Before you begin

You need certain software configurations and settings before you start this procedure. This procedure requires the following items and configurations:

A running Kubernetes cluster

Install Helm from the binaries

Every Helm release provides binaries for a variety of operating systems. These binary versions can be manually downloaded and installed.

Download and unpack the latest release. Here is an example for the version 3.3.4.
```
wget -c https://get.helm.sh/helm-v3.3.4-linux-arm64.tar.gz -O - | tar -xz
```
Add the binary to your path:
```
mv linux-arm64/helm /usr/local/bin/
```
Check if everything is working as expected:
```
helm help
```

Install Helm from a Package Manager

The Helm community also contributes and maintains packages to several package managers. These are not officially supported, but are generally up-to-date. Here is how to install Helm using Homebrew (MacOS), Chocolatey (Windows), and Apt (Debian/Ubuntu).

Add a Helm Chart Repository

After installing a Helm binary, add a Helm chart repository. To add and access the official Helm chart repository, enter the following command:

helm repo add stable https://mesosphere.github.io/charts/stable/

Install a Helm Chart

After adding the repo, you can install your first Helm chart.

Update local information about the available charts. Enter the following command:
```
helm repo update
```
As an example, you can install a MySQL chart creating a Release. A Release is an instance of a chart running in a cluster. This release is named mydb. Enter the following command:
```
helm install mydb stable/mysql
```

List all installed charts and check their status. Enter the following command:

$ helm ls
NAME    NAMESPACE    REVISION    UPDATED                                 STATUS      CHART          APP VERSION
mydb    default      1           2020-10-06 18:06:24.41517 +0200 CEST    deployed    mysql-1.6.7    5.7.30

For information on Helm, refer to the following:

This Docker image includes code from the MinIO Project (“MinIO”), which is © 2015-2021 MinIO, Inc. MinIO is made available subject to the terms and conditions of the GNU Affero General Public License 3.0. The complete source code for the version of MinIO packaged with DKP/Konvoy 1.8 Kommander 1.4 is available at this URL: https://github.com/minio/minio/tree/RELEASE.2020-12-03T05-49-24Z

For a full list of attributed 3rd party software, see D2IQ Legal.

Helm CLI Usage