Deploy Helm charts to AWS EKS cluster

bitovi/github-actions-deploy-eks-helm deploys helm charts to an EKS Cluster.

Action Summary

This action deploys Helm charts to an EKS cluster, allowing ECR/OCI as sources, and handling plugin installation, using this awesome Docker image as base.

Note: If your EKS cluster administrative access is in a private network, you will need to use a self hosted runner in that network to use this action.

If you would like to deploy a backend app/service, check out our other actions:

Action	Purpose
Deploy Docker to EC2	Deploys a repo with a Dockerized application to a virtual machine (EC2) on AWS
Deploy React to GitHub Pages	Builds and deploys a React application to GitHub Pages.
Deploy static site to AWS (S3/CDN/R53)	Hosts a static site in AWS S3 with CloudFront

And more! Check our list of actions in the GitHub marketplace.

Need help or have questions?

This project is supported by Bitovi, A DevOps consultancy.

You can get help or ask questions on our Discord Community.

Customizing

Note: Although Helm repositories are different than OCI registries, the chart-repository variable supports both options.

See example below for reference, but the process should be similar to using a repo.

Note on charts list command

You can use the name as a way to filter results, or just leave it blank to get all the charts available.

Inputs

The following inputs are available as step.with keys:

Name	Type	Description
aws-secret-access-key	String	AWS secret access key part of the aws credentials. This is used to login to EKS.
aws-access-key-id	String	AWS access key id part of the aws credentials. This is used to login to EKS.
aws-region	String	AWS region to use. This must match the region your desired cluster is in.
cluster-name	String	The name of the desired cluster.
cluster-role-arn	String	If you wish to assume an admin role, provide the role arn here to log in as.
action	String	Determines if we install/uninstall the chart, or list. (Optional, Defaults to install)
dry-run	Boolean	Toggles dry-run option for install/uninstall action. (Defaults to false)
config-files	String	Comma separated list of helm values files.
namespace	String	Kubernetes namespace to use. To create the namespace if it doesn't exist, also set create-namespace to true.
create-namespace	Boolean	Adds --create-namespace when set to true. Requires cluster API permissions. (Default: true)
values	String	Comma separated list of value set for helms. e.x: key1=value1, key2=value2
name	String	The name of the helm release.
chart-path	String	The path to the chart. (defaults to helm/)
chart-repository	String	The URL of the chart-repository (Optional) Note: If oci based registry, set url to oci://
version	String	The version of the chart (Optional)
plugins	String	Comma separated list of plugins to install. e.x: https://github.com/hypnoglow/helm-s3.git, https://github.com/someuser/helm-plugin.git (defaults to none)
timeout	String	The value of the timeout for the helm release.
update-deps	Boolean	Update chart dependencies
helm-wait	String	Add the helm --wait flag to the helm Release (Optional)
atomic	String	Add the helm --atomic flag if set (Optional)
ca-file	String	Verify certificates of HTTPS-enabled servers using this CA bundle.
cert-file	String	Identify HTTPS client using this SSL certificate file.
key-file	String	Identify HTTPS client using this SSL key file.
insecure-skip-tls-verify	String	Skip tls certificate checks for the chart download.
pass-credentials	String	Pass credentials to all domains. set (Optional)
username	String	Chart repository username where to locate the requested chart.
password	String	Chart repository password where to locate the requested chart.
use-secrets-vals	Boolean	Use secrets plugin using vals to evaluate the secrets
helm-extra-args	String	Append any string containing any extra option that might escape the ones present in this action.

Example 1 - local repo chart

    - name: Deploy Helm
      uses: bitovi/[email protected]
      with:
        aws-access-key-id: ${{ secrets.AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID }}
        aws-secret-access-key: ${{ secrets.AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY }}
        aws-region: us-west-2
        cluster-name: mycluster
        config-files: .github/values/dev.yaml
        chart-path: chart/
        namespace: dev
        values: key1=value1,key2=value2
        name: release_name

Example 2 - Custom Chart Repo

    - name: Deploy Helm
      uses: bitovi/[email protected]
      with:
        aws-access-key-id: ${{ secrets.AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID }}
        aws-secret-access-key: ${{ secrets.AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY }}
        aws-region: us-west-2
        cluster-name: mycluster
        cluster-role-arn: ${{ secrets.AWS_ROLE_ARN }}
        config-files: fluent-bit/prod/values.yaml
        chart-path: fluent/fluent-bit
        namespace: logging
        create-namespace: true
        name: fluent-bit
        chart-repository: https://fluent.github.io/helm-charts
        version: 0.20.6
        atomic: true

Example 3 - OCI Chart Repo

    - name: Deploy Helm
      uses: bitovi/[email protected]
      with:
        aws-access-key-id: ${{ secrets.AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID }}
        aws-secret-access-key: ${{ secrets.AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY }}
        aws-region: us-west-2
        cluster-name: mycluster
        cluster-role-arn: ${{ secrets.AWS_ROLE_ARN }}
        chart-repository: oci://registry.io/
        chart-path: organization/chart
        namespace: org
        name: some-name
        version: 0.1.0

Example 4 - Separate AWS login

    - name: Configure AWS credentials
      uses: aws-actions/configure-aws-credentials@v2
      with:
        role-to-assume: arn:aws:iam::${{ env.aws-account-id }}:role/${{ env.aws-assume-role }}
        aws-region: ${{ env.aws-region }}

    - name: Install Helm Chart
      uses: bitovi/[email protected]
      with:
        aws-region: ${{ env.aws-region }}
        cluster-name: eks-cluster-${{ env.environment }}
        ... (put your other arguments here)

Example 5 - Use secrets with vals backend

    - name: Deploy Helm
      uses: bitovi/[email protected]
      with:
        aws-access-key-id: ${{ secrets.AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID }}
        aws-secret-access-key: ${{ secrets.AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY }}
        aws-region: us-west-2
        cluster-name: mycluster
        config-files: .github/values/dev.yaml
        chart-path: chart/
        namespace: dev
        values: key1=value1,key2=value2
        name: release_name
        use-secrets-vals: true
        plugins: https://github.com/jkroepke/helm-secrets

Example 6 - Define multiple values

    - name: Install Karpenter
      uses: bitovi/[email protected]
      with:
        aws-access-key-id: ${{ secrets.AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID }}
        aws-secret-access-key: ${{ secrets.AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY }}
        aws-region: ${{ vars.AWS_REGION }}
        cluster-name: ${{ vars.CLUSTER_NAME }}
        cluster-role-arn: ${{ secrets.AWS_ROLE_ARN }}
        chart-repository: oci://public.ecr.aws
        chart-path: karpenter/karpenter
        helm-wait: true
        namespace: karpenter
        name: karpenter
        values: |
          settings.clusterName=${{ vars.CLUSTER_NAME }},
          settings.interruptionQueue=${{ vars.CLUSTER_NAME }}-karpenter,
          controller.resources.requests.cpu=1,
          controller.resources.requests.memory=1Gi,
          controller.resources.limits.cpu=1,
          controller.resources.limits.memory=1Gi
        version: 1.0.6

Example 7 - Use with S3 as repo

    - name: Deploy S3 Helm chart
      uses: bitovi/[email protected]
      with:
        aws-access-key-id: ${{ secrets.AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID }}
        aws-secret-access-key: ${{ secrets.AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY }}
        aws-region: us-west-2
        chart-repository: s3://my-s3-bucket/
        chart-path: my-service/my-service
        version: 0.1.0
        cluster-name: mycluster
        namespace: dev
        name: my_service_name
        plugins: https://github.com/hypnoglow/helm-s3.git

• See the official AWS Guide on how to set this up.

Example 8 - Use a different role in the Action than the role the cluster was built with

action.yaml

    - name: Configure AWS credentials
      uses: aws-actions/configure-aws-credentials@v2
      with:
        role-to-assume: arn:aws:iam::${{ env.aws-account-id }}:role/${{ env.aws-assume-role }}
        aws-region: ${{ env.aws-region }}
    - name: Install Helm Chart
      uses: bitovi/[email protected]
      with:
        aws-region: ${{ env.aws-region }}
        cluster-name: eks-cluster-${{ env.environment }}
        ... (put your other arguments here)

terraform.tf

    ... (surrounding code)

    module "eks" {
      source  = "terraform-aws-modules/eks/aws"
      version = "~> 20.11.1"

    ... (surrounding code)

        access_entries = {
            kubernetes_groups = []
            principal_arn     = var.aws-assume-role.role_arn
        
            policy_associations = {
              access_entry_policy = {
                policy_arn = var.aws-assume-role.aws_policy_arn
                access_scope = {
                  type       = "cluster"
                }
              }
            }
        }
    }

    ... (surrounding code)

NOTE: If you see an error like Not Authorized or Kubernetes cluster unreachable: the server has asked for the client to provide credentials, it could be due to this Action using a different role than the EKS cluster was built with. The previous fix was to add an entry to the aws-auth ConfigMap in the kube-system namespace; however, AWS is now using Access Entries which might need to be adjusted to give the Action Role access to the EKS cluster.
You may be able to use to an AssumedRole method where you chain the roles together in the AWS authentication instead.

Example Uninstall

    - name: Deploy Helm
      uses: bitovi/[email protected]
      with:
        aws-access-key-id: ${{ secrets.AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID }}
        aws-secret-access-key: ${{ secrets.AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY }}
        aws-region: us-west-2
        action: uninstall
        cluster-name: mycluster
        namespace: dev
        name: release_name

Example List

    - name: Deploy Helm
      uses: bitovi/[email protected]
      with:
        aws-access-key-id: ${{ secrets.AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID }}
        aws-secret-access-key: ${{ secrets.AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY }}
        aws-region: us-west-2
        action: list
        namespace: dev
        name: release_name

Contributing

We would love for you to contribute to bitovi/github-actions-deploy-eks-helm. Issues and Pull Requests are welcome!

License

The scripts and documentation in this project are released under the MIT License.

Provided by Bitovi

Bitovi is a proud supporter of Open Source software.

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