how to deploy helm chart from gitlab to eks? - amazon-web-services

Question

I created a kubernetes cluster and linked it with eks.
I created also an helm chart and .gitla-ci.yml.
I want to add a new step to deploy my app using helm to the cluster, but I don't find a recent tutorial. All tutorials use gitlab-auto devops.
The image is hosted on gitlab.
How could I do to achieve this task ?
image: docker:latest
services:
- docker:dind
variables:
DOCKER_DRIVER: overlay
SPRING_PROFILES_ACTIVE: test
USER_GITLAB: kosted
APP_NAME: mebooks
REPO: gara-mebooks
MAVEN_CLI_OPTS: "-s .m2/settings.xml --batch-mode"
MAVEN_OPTS: "-Dmaven.repo.local=.m2/repository"
stages:
- deploy
k8s-deploy:
stage: deploy
image: dtzar/helm-kubectl:3.1.2
only:
- develop
script:
# Read certificate stored in $KUBE_CA_PEM variable and save it in a new file
- echo $KUBE_URL
- kubectl config set-cluster gara-eks-cluster --server="$KUBE_URL" --certificate-authority="$KUBE_CA_PEM"
- kubectl get pods
In the gitlab console I got
The connection to the server localhost:8080 was refused - did you
specify the right host or port? Running after_script 00:01 Uploading
artifacts for failed job 00:02 ERROR: Job failed: exit code 1

Answer 1

1 - Create arn role or user on IAM from your aws console
2 - connect to your bastion and add the arn role/user in the ConfigMap aws-auth
you can follow this to understand how it works (you are not the creator of the cluster paragraph) : https://aws.amazon.com/fr/premiumsupport/knowledge-center/eks-api-server-unauthorized-error/
3- In your gitlab ci you just have to add this if it is a user you have created :
k8s-deploy:
stage: deploy
image: you need an image with aws + kubectl + helm
only:
- develop
script:
- aws --version
- aws --profile default configure set aws_access_key_id "your access id"
- aws --profile default configure set aws_secret_access_key "your secret"
- helm version
- aws eks update-kubeconfig --name NAME-OF-YOUR-CLUSTER --region eu-west-3
- helm upgrade init
- helm upgrade --install my-chart ./my-chart-folder
If you created a role note a user, you have just to do:
k8s-deploy:
stage: deploy
image: you need an image with aws + kubectl + helm
only:
- develop
script:
- aws --version
- helm version
- aws eks update-kubeconfig --name NAME-OF-YOUR-CLUSTER --region eu-west-3 -arn
- helm upgrade init
- helm upgrade --install my-chart ./my-chart-folder

Answer 2

Here I am adding my method, which is generic and can be used in any K8S environment without AWS CLI.
First, you need to convert your Kube Config to a base64 string:
cat ~/.kube/config | base64
Add the result string as a variable to your CI/CD pipeline settings of the project/group. In my example I used kube_config. Read more on how to add variables here.
Here is my CI YAML file:
stages:
# - build
# - test
- deploy
variables:
KUBEFOLDER: /root/.kube
KUBECONFIG: $KUBEFOLDER/config
k8s-deploy-job:
stage: deploy
image: dtzar/helm-kubectl:3.5.0
before_script:
- mkdir ${KUBEFOLDER}
- echo ${kube_config} | base64 -d > ${KUBECONFIG}
- helm version
- helm repo update
script:
- echo "Deploying application..."
- kubectl get pods
#- helm upgrade --install my-chart ./my-chart-folder
- echo "Application successfully deployed."
Inspired by:
https://about.gitlab.com/blog/2017/09/21/how-to-create-ci-cd-pipeline-with-autodeploy-to-kubernetes-using-gitlab-and-helm/