Working with the Lab

Start the Lab by switched K8S context to our lab cluster

aws eks --region us-west-2 update-kubeconfig --name tf-helm-spot

Let verify that we can see our pods

kubectl get pods -A

should look something like this

    NAMESPACE     NAME                                                              READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
kube-system   aws-node-rk5lp                                                    2/2     Running   0          151m
kube-system   coredns-558f647b89-9dbsh                                          1/1     Running   0          117m
kube-system   coredns-558f647b89-sld2s                                          1/1     Running   0          117m
kube-system   kube-proxy-qpfpm                                                  1/1     Running   0          151m

Managing Helm charts with Terraform streamlines the process of deploying applications to your Kubernetes cluster on AWS EKS. It brings infrastructure-as-code principles to Kubernetes application management, making it easier to maintain and version-control your deployments.

For updates or removal of Helm releases, you can modify your Terraform configuration and reapply. This approach ensures consistency and repeatability in your Kubernetes deployments.

Now you have the power of Terraform and Helm combined, making Kubernetes application management a breeze.

Lets give it a go. Add this to our main.tf file.

## Using Helm provider moduel helm_release to launch Spot controller
resource "helm_release" "helm-spotinst-kubernetes-cluster-controller" {

    name       = "helm-spotinst-kubernetes-cluster-controller"
    depends_on   = [module.eks]
    repository = "https://spotinst.github.io/spotinst-kubernetes-helm-charts"
    chart      = "spotinst-kubernetes-cluster-controller"
    version    = "1.0.116"

    set {
        name  = "spotinst.token"
        value = var.spotinst_token
    }

    set {
        name  = "spotinst.account"
        value = var.spotinst_account
    }
        
    set {
        name  = "spotinst.clusterIdentifier"
        value = var.cluster_identifier
    }
}

Save the main.tf file and run this command again.

terraform apply 


hint:    terraform apply -auto-approve

Verify Spot controller installation

NAMESPACE     NAME                                                              READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
kube-system   aws-node-rk5lp                                                    2/2     Running   0          151m
kube-system   coredns-558f647b89-9dbsh                                          1/1     Running   0          117m
kube-system   kube-proxy-qpfpm                                                  1/1     Running   0          151m
kube-system   spotinst-kubernetes-cluster-controller-555d68849d-stdc8           1/1     Running   0          152m

Congratulations you’ve installed a spot controller by using Terraform and Helm. Lets try another example

add the next code block to your main.tf file.  We will lauch a cool k8s tool called kubeview.

# Installing Kubeview, found at https://artifacthub.io/packages/helm/kubeview/kubeview
resource "helm_release" "kubeview" {
name       = "kubeview-art"
repository = "https://benc-uk.github.io/kubeview/charts"
chart      = "kubeview"
version    = "0.1.31"

set {
    name  = "ingress.enabled"
    value = "true"
  }
}

Save the file and run this again,

terraform apply

Verify the installation by running

kubectl get pods -A

NAMESPACE     NAME                                                              READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
default       kubeview-art-86876846f5-9tjfr                                     1/1     Running   0          152m
kube-system   aws-node-rk5lp                                                    2/2     Running   0          151m
kube-system   coredns-558f647b89-9dbsh                                          1/1     Running   0          117m
kube-system   coredns-558f647b89-sld2s                                          1/1     Running   0          117m
kube-system   kube-proxy-qpfpm                                                  1/1     Running   0          151m
kube-system   spotinst-kubernetes-cluster-controller-555d68849d-stdc8           1/1     Running   0          152m

Now lets access it and see what it is.

Please open a new terminal session and keep it running separetly, run this that new session.

kubectl port-forward service/kubeview-art 8080:80

you should see this output

Forwarding from 127.0.0.1:8080 -> 8080
Forwarding from [::1]:8080 -> 8080

Lets access it and see, its pretty cool. Open you browser and go to localhost:8080 or 127.0.0.1:8080

Click on top to change the namespace to see different views.

here is a short demo Kubeview demo