Consuming 3rd Party Helm Charts

Helm charts published by the community make it easy to deploy common infrastructure such as databases or monitoring tools. Let's explore how to discover, install, and manage a chart from the popular Bitnami repository.

Add and Search Repositories

helm repo add bitnami https://charts.bitnami.com/bitnami
helm search repo bitnami/postgresql --versions

Helm repositories host packaged charts. The search command lists available versions. Some projects also publish charts via an OCI registry (e.g. Docker Hub). Log in with helm registry login and use a tool like oras to list available tags.

Inspect a Chart Locally

helm pull bitnami/postgresql --version 15.4.1

Pulling a chart downloads a tarball containing Chart.yaml, a templates/ folder, and a default values.yaml. Reviewing these files reveals the resources the chart will create and the values you can override.

Installing and Upgrading

helm install postgres bitnami/postgresql \
  --version 15.4.1 \
  --namespace 05--postgresql --create-namespace \
  -f values.yaml

After installation you can upgrade in-place:

helm upgrade --install postgres bitnami/postgresql \
  --version 15.4.2 -f values.yaml -n 05--postgresql

Helm stores release history in Kubernetes secrets, allowing rollbacks if needed:

helm rollback postgres       # revert to previous version

Inspecting a Release

helm list -n 05--postgresql             # list releases
helm get values postgres -n 05--postgresql   # show configured values
helm get manifest postgres -n 05--postgresql # rendered manifests

These commands help verify what was deployed and with which values.

Cleaning Up

When you no longer need the application, simply uninstall the release:

helm uninstall postgres -n 05--postgresql

The associated resources and release history are removed from the cluster.