partner-charts

This repository is reserved for partner charts in the Rancher's v2.5+ catalog. As part of this catalog, all charts will benefit of a cloud native packaging system that directly references an upstream chart from a Helm repository and automates applying Rancher specific modifications and adding overlay files on top of it.

Requirements

• Chart must be Helm 3 compatible.

  Helm 2 installed CRDs via an helm.sh/hook: crd-install annotation that installed CRDs via a special hook. In Helm 3, this annotation was removed in favor of a crds/ directory where your CRDs should now reside. Templating and upgrading CRDs is also no longer supported by default. Users who need to support templating / upgrading CRDs should use a separate CRD chart that installs the CRDs via the templates/ directory instead. Leaving this hook in your chart will not cause it to break, but will cause the Helm logs to emit the warning manifest_sorter.go:175: info: skipping unknown hook: "crd-install" on an install or upgrade.

  In addition, starting Helm 3.5.2, Helm is stricter about parsing semver strings. Therefore, to ensure that your chart is deployable via Helm 3.5.2, your chart must have a semver-compliant version.

  More information:

  • Supported Hooks: https://helm.sh/docs/topics/charts_hooks/
  • Helm 2 to 3 migration: https://helm.sh/docs/topics/v2_v3_migration/
  • Managing CRDs and best practices: https://helm.sh/docs/chart_best_practices/custom_resource_definitions/
  • Semver Rules: https://semver.org/

• Chart must be in a hosted Helm repository that we can reference.

• Chart must have the following Rancher specific add-ons (More details on this below).

  • Rancher Labels & Annotations for Partners
  • kubeVersion set in the chart's metadata
  • app-readme.md
  • questions.yaml (Optional)

Workflow

1. Fork the repository

Fork the repository, checkout the main-source branch and pull the latest changes. Then create a new branch off of main-source (e.g. git checkout -b <name-of-new-branch>) and execute make commands from next steps at the repository's root level.

2. Set up your package to track an upstream chart (SKIP if upgrading existing package)

Create a directory for your package in the packages directory and a package.yaml file inside (Replace {PACKAGE_NAME} for your chart's name).

partner-charts                     # Repo root level
└── packages
    └── {PACKAGE_NAME}
        └── package.yaml           # Metadata manifest containing upstream location version

Set up the following in your package.yaml to track your upstream chart:

• url - the URL that references your upstream chart's tarball hosted in a Helm repository.

• packageVersion - The version of the package. This is used along with your upstream chart's name and version to generate a filename with the format {PACKAGE_NAME}-{VERSION}{packageVersion}.tgz for the package's tarball that gets generated.

  For example, an upstream chart chart-0.1.2.tgz and the package.yaml from below would generate an asset with the name chart-0.1.201.tgz.

  url: https://example.com/helm-repo/chart-0.1.2.tgz
  packageVersion: 01

More information of what can be specified can be found in packages/README.md.

3. Prepare for changes

Run to pull in the upstream chart tracked by the package.yaml. If any generated-changes are defined, it will be applied onto the upstream chart after it is pulled in as part of the prepare step.

export PACKAGE={PACKAGE_NAME} # Only need to run once
make prepare

4. Make changes

Any modifications to your upstream chart like adding the partner label will be done in the auto-generated charts directory. If you are adding a new package, you will need to set a kubeVersion, add the required annotations, an icon, and a app-readme.md file. Optionally, you may add a questions.yaml file as well (more details below).

Set the kubeVersion and annotations (For new packages only)

Set the kubeVersion and annotations in packages/{PACKAGE_NAME}/charts/Chart.yaml. A closed range (E.g kubeVersion: "1.18 - 1.21") is preferred, but an open-ended range is also acceptable if you need it (E.g kubeVersion: ">= 1.19").

Please be aware Kubernetes may introduce breaking changes that may suddenly make your chart incompatible; therefore, it is important that you test the compatibility of your chart with every new Kubernetes release and update it accordingly if you are using an open-ended range.

kubeVersion: # A SemVer range of compatible Kubernetes versions. E.g "1.18 - 1.21", ">= 1.19", etc
annotations:
  catalog.cattle.io/certified: partner # Enables the "partner" badge in the UI for easier identification
  catalog.cattle.io/release-name: chart-name-here # Your chart's name in kebab-case, this is used for deployment
  catalog.cattle.io/display-name: Fancy Chart Name Here # The chart's name you want displayed in the UI

Add an icon (For new packages only)

Add a reference to an icon in packages/{PACKAGE_NAME}/charts/Chart.yaml. Alternatively, if you don't have an hosted icon that you can use, you may add one to the repository's assets in assets/logos/{PACKAGE_NAME}.png and reference it as https://partner-charts.rancher.io/assets/logos/{PACKAGE_NAME}.png.

Add the overlay files (For new packages only)

Add the app-readme.md file, and optional questions.yaml in packages/{PACKAGE_NAME}/charts/.

• app-readme.md - Write a brief description of the app and how to use it. It's recommended to keep it short as the longer README.md in your chart will be displayed in the UI as detailed description.

• questions.yaml - Defines a set of questions to display in the chart's installation page in order for users to answer them and configure the chart using the UI instead of modifying the chart's values file directly.

Questions example

questions:
- variable: password
  default: ""
  required: true
  type: password
  label: Admin Password
  group: "Global Settings"
- variable: service.type
  default: "ClusterIP"
  type: enum
  group: "Service Settings"
  options:
    - "ClusterIP"
    - "NodePort"
    - "LoadBalancer"
  required: true
  label: Service Type
  show_subquestion_if: "NodePort"
  subquestions:
  - variable: service.nodePort
    default: ""
    description: "NodePort port number (to set explicitly, choose port between 30000-32767)"
    type: int
    min: 30000
    max: 32767
    label: Service NodePort

Questions variable reference

Variable	Type	Required	Description
variable	string	true	define the variable name specified in the values.yamlfile, using foo.bar for nested object.
label	string	true	define the UI label.
description	string	false	specify the description of the variable.
type	string	false	default to string if not specified (current supported types are string, multiline, boolean, int, enum, password, storageclass, hostname, pvc, and secret).
required	bool	false	define if the variable is required or not (true | false)
default	string	false	specify the default value.
group	string	false	group questions by input value.
min_length	int	false	min character length.
max_length	int	false	max character length.
min	int	false	min integer length.
max	int	false	max integer length.
options	[]string	false	specify the options when the vriable type is enum, for example: options: - "ClusterIP" - "NodePort" - "LoadBalancer"
valid_chars	string	false	regular expression for input chars validation.
invalid_chars	string	false	regular expression for invalid input chars validation.
subquestions	[]subquestion	false	add an array of subquestions.
show_if	string	false	show current variable if conditional variable is true, for example show_if: "serviceType=Nodeport"
show_subquestion_if	string	false	show subquestions if is true or equal to one of the options. for example show_subquestion_if: "true"

subquestions: subquestions[] cannot contain subquestions or show_subquestions_if keys, but all other keys in the above table are supported.

5. Save your changes

Run to save the changes to a generated-changes directory once you are done making changes. This directory will automatically be created and populated if any changes are detected and will be used to set up the chart on a make prepare in a future change.

export PACKAGE={PACKAGE_NAME} # Only need to run once
make patch

6. Update package to track a new upstream (Maintenance)

There are two ways you can update a package, one is to track a new updated upstream chart and the other is to do small modifications/fixes.

Update package to track a new upstream chart

Update the url to reference the new upstream chart. If your chart uses packageVersion, reset it to 01 in package.yaml, in order for PACKAGE={PACKAGE_NAME} make prepare to pull in the new upstream chart and apply the patch if one exists. You might need to run PACKAGE={PACKAGE_NAME} make patch to ensure the patch can be applied on the new upstream. If applying the patch fails, there's currently no method for rebasing to a new upstream when the patch gets broken as a result.

For example, an existing package tracking an upstream chart url: https://example.com/helm-repo/chart-0.1.2.tgz can be updated to track the new url: https://example.com/helm-repo/chart-0.1.3.tgz, and a new package chart-0.1.301.tgz will be generated.

url: https://example.com/helm-repo/chart-0.1.3.tgz
packageVersion: 01

Dependencies are not automatically updated when rebasing a chart, therefore the url of each dependency will need to be manually updated as well. To update the dependencies go to your package's generated-changes directory and update the url to reference the new dependency's upstream chart in dependencies/{DEPENDENCY_CHART_NAME}/dependency.yaml.

Take for example, a chart example-chart with a postgresql 0.1.2 dependency that needs to be updated to 0.1.3. To update it you would need to update the url in example-chart/generated-changes/dependencies/postgresql/dependency.yaml from https://example.com/helm-repo/postgresql-0.1.2.tgz to https://example.com/helm-repo/postgresql-0.1.3.tgz.

Update existing package to introduce a small change

If your chart uses packageVersion, increase the packageVersion in package.yaml without updating the url. This will create a new version of a package tracking the same upstream chart.

For example, an existing package tracking an upstream chart url: https://example.com/helm-repo/chart-0.1.2.tgz generated a package chart-0.1.201.tgz. Increasing the packageVersion without changing the url will generate a new package chart-0.1.202.tgz based off of the same upstream chart.

7. Test your changes

Generate modified chart

Run to generate a chart and a tarball of your modified chart.

export PACKAGE={PACKAGE_NAME} # Only need to run once
make charts

This will create the following two directories, and several files (e.g. index.html, index.yaml, etc.) to set up a Helm repo in your current branch.

• charts/{PACKAGE_NAME}/{PACKAGE_NAME}/{VERSION} - Contains an unarchived version of your modified chart
• assets/{PACKAGE_NAME}/ - Contains an archived (tarball) version of your modified chart named {PACKAGE_NAME}-{VERSION}{packageVersion}.tgz

Test modified chart

To test your changes, just push the generated files to your fork as a separate commit and add your fork / branch as a Repository in the Dashboard UI. Your chart will then show up as an App in Apps & Marketplace under the Repository that you configured.Make sure that you revert the generated files commit before submitting a PR!

Alternatively, Python and Ngrok can be used if you rather avoid the push and revert commit approach. Use python -m SimpleHTTPServer to host the generated files locally, and expose them using Ngrok. Then add the Ngrok URL as a Repository in the Dashboard UI the same way you would add a fork / branch.

8. Pull Request

Run to clean up your working directory before staging your changes.

Note: Any changes added to packages/{PACKAGE_NAME}/charts will be lost when you run make clean, so always make sure to run make patch PACKAGE={PACKAGE_NAME} to save your changes before running make clean.

export PACKAGE={PACKAGE_NAME} # Only need to run once
make clean

Ensure that you've already saved your changes with PACKAGE={PACKAGE_NAME} make patch and cleaned up your working directory with PACKAGE={PACKAGE_NAME} make clean. Then, commit all the remaining changes to packages/{PACKAGE_NAME}.

Once you've committed all your changes in your package directory, run make charts and add everything that gets updated to a second commit (usually assets, charts and in some cases index.yaml as well) so that your Pull Request's contents are as following:

1st commit: Changes in package to add or update your chart
2nd commit: Result of running `make charts`

Lastly, run make validate to make sure everything is correct. If no problems arised, you are ready to submit a Pull Request to the main-source branch for review.