Helm is a cluster administration tool that manages charts on Kubernetes.

Helm relies on a packaging format called charts. Charts define a composition of related Kubernetes resources and values that make up a deployment solution. Charts are source code that can be packaged, versioned, and maintained in version control. Inside the chart are Kubernetes YAML files along with a templating language to allow contextual values to be injected into the YAMLs.

Helm also helps you manage the complexities of dependency management. Charts can include dependencies to other charts. Charts compliment your infrastructure as code processes. Use Helm effectively with a mature container versioning pipeline.

The Helm CLI tool deploys charts to Kubernetes. A server side component can accept the chart and submit the YAML declarations to Kubernetes. The chart is a deployable unit that can be inspected, listed, updated and removed.

This scenario covers version 3.x of Helm. If you are using version 2.x, it's highly advisable to move to the recent version.

Helm can be installed very easily as follows:

master $ curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/helm/helm/master/scripts/get-helm-3 | bash
  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
100  6827  100  6827    0     0  26231      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:-- 26157
Error: could not find tiller
Helm v3.2.1 is available. Changing from version .
Downloading https://get.helm.sh/helm-v3.2.1-linux-amd64.tar.gz
Preparing to install helm into /usr/local/bin
helm installed into /usr/local/bin/helm

After Helm is installed, we can check for its version:

master $ helm version --short
v3.2.1+gfe51cd1
master $