Set proxy as an environment variable in Helm 3

Question

ı would like to set proxy as an env variable in deployment.yaml which I created via Helm v3.What should be the correct format to add env in helm template and meanwhile is there any way to pass this value in values.yaml?

  - env:
  - name: "HTTP_PROXY"
    value: "http://<user>:<password>@<ip_addr>:<port>"




    containers:
            - name: {{ .Chart.Name }}
              securityContext:
                {{- toYaml .Values.securityContext | nindent 12 }}
              image: "{{ .Values.image.repository }}:{{ .Values.image.tag }}"
              imagePullPolicy: {{ .Values.image.pullPolicy }}
              ports:
                - name: http
                  containerPort: 8080
                  protocol: TCP
              resources:
                {{- toYaml .Values.resources | nindent 12 }}

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/49928819/how-to-pull-environment-variables-with-helm-charts is that the info you've been looking for? — Nick, Feb 11 '20 at 15:36

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 12 '20 at 11:39

Taking into consideration that Helm's syntax has been discussed a few times on Stack, I'm going just to sum it up in order to have less orphaned questions and post it as a community wiki, because I didn't do much here.

As it was discussed here, there are a few possible ways to add env's.

Way 1. Proper way of doing that (with secret).

As you don't want to expose the data, so it's better to have it saved as secret in kubernetes.

First of all, add all the needed lines in your Values file, so that these values can be set from outside.

Example:

username: root
password: password

Then, add a secret.yaml file inside your template folder and copy needed data into that file.

Example:

apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
  name: {{ .Release.Name }}-auth
data:
  password: {{ .Values.password | b64enc }}
  username: {{ .Values.username | b64enc }}

Now tweak your deployment yaml template and make changes in env section, like this (of course you can combine envs in a way you need):

spec:
  restartPolicy: Always
   containers:
     - name: sample-app
       image: "sample-app:latest"
       imagePullPolicy: Always
         env:          
           - name: "USERNAME"
             valueFrom:
             secretKeyRef:
               key:  username
               name: {{ .Release.Name }}-auth
           - name: "PASSWORD"
             valueFrom:
               secretKeyRef:
                 key:  password
                 name: {{ .Release.Name }}-auth

Way 2. export the variable and use it while running helm install.

Before that, you have to modify your chart so that the value can be set while installation.

If you have modified your template correctly for --set flag, you can set this using environment variable.

$ export USERNAME=root-user

Now use this variable while running helm install,

$ helm install --set username=$USERNAME ./mychart

If you run this helm install in dry-run mode, you can verify the changes,

$ helm install --dry-run --set username=$USERNAME --debug ./mychart
[debug] Created tunnel using local port: '44937'

[debug] SERVER: "127.0.0.1:44937"

[debug] Original chart version: ""
[debug] CHART PATH: /home/maruf/go/src/github.com/the-redback/kubernetes-yaml-drafts/helm-charts/mychart

NAME:   irreverant-meerkat
REVISION: 1
RELEASED: Fri Apr 20 03:29:11 2018
CHART: mychart-0.1.0
USER-SUPPLIED VALUES:
username: root-user

COMPUTED VALUES:
password: password
username: root-user

HOOKS:
MANIFEST:

---
# Source: mychart/templates/secret.yaml
apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
  name: irreverant-meerkat-auth
data:
  password: password
  username: root-user
---
# Source: mychart/templates/deployment.yaml
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: irreverant-meerkat
  labels:
    app: irreverant-meerkat
spec:
  replicas: 1
  template:
    metadata:
      name: irreverant-meerkat
      labels:
        app: irreverant-meerkat
    spec:
      containers:
      - name: irreverant-meerkat
        image: alpine
        env:
        - name: "USERNAME"
          valueFrom:
            secretKeyRef:
              key:  username
              name: irreverant-meerkat-auth
        - name: "PASSWORD"
          valueFrom:
            secretKeyRef:
              key:  password
              name: irreverant-meerkat-auth

        imagePullPolicy: IfNotPresent
      restartPolicy: Always
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: irreverant-meerkat

You can see that the data of username in secret has changed to root-user.

this example has been added into github repo.

There is also some discussion in kubernetes/helm repo regarding this. You can see this issue to know about all other ways to use environment variables.

Way 3. Hardcode values directly in Yaml (quicker but not that secure/easy to maintain).

   spec:
      restartPolicy: Always
      containers:
            - name: {{ .Chart.Name }}
              securityContext:
                {{- toYaml .Values.securityContext | nindent 12 }}
              image: "{{ .Values.image.repository }}:{{ .Values.image.tag }}"
              imagePullPolicy: {{ .Values.image.pullPolicy }}
              ports:
                - name: http
                  containerPort: 8080
                  protocol: TCP
              resources:
                {{- toYaml .Values.resources | nindent 12 }}
              env:
                - name: "HTTP_PROXY"
                  value: "http://<user>:<password>@<ip_addr>:<port>"

for way 3, is there any way to use go template? Such as name: {{ .Values.proxyname }} ? — semural, Feb 12 '20 at 17:15

Set proxy as an environment variable in Helm 3

1 Answers1