Helm: Package manager for Kubernetes

This article explains how to use helm utility, a Kubernetes package manager. The article provides basic usage of its core commands.

It does not cover how to install any particular package. Package installation steps are different based on which package is being installed.

Let’s start our journey for helm.

0. Requirement

A working kubernetes cluster and access to it are required for helm. We are using the Kubernetes cluster described in Kubernetes Deployment using Kubespray.

1. Installation

Check the Helm release page. To see the compatibility between Helm and Kubernetes, see the Helm Version Support Policy page.

The Kubernetes version that we use here is 1.26.11. In this article, we will use helm v3.14.4.

wget https://get.helm.sh/helm-v3.14.4-linux-amd64.tar.gz
tar xzf helm-v3.14.4-linux-amd64.tar.gz
mv linux-amd64/helm bin/ ; chmod u+x bin/helm ; rm -r linux-amd64/

We download the tarball and extract the helm executables.

2. Repo & Chart Management

These are commands for basic repo management: listing, adding, updating and removing.

helm repo list
helm repo add [repo name] [repo URL]
helm repo update [repo name]
helm repo remove [repo name]