helm-test

This is a demo of pushing a Helm Chart to the GitHub Container Registry https://ghcr.io/.

Login

Currently the GHCR requires a PAT with read:packages and write:packages scopes for authentication.

# After creating a PAT it will be in your clipboard, use pbpaste to set it.
export PAT=`pbpaste`

# ensure the required environment variable is set (only required once)
export HELM_EXPERIMENTAL_OCI=1

echo "$PAT" | helm registry login -u $USER https://ghcr.io --password-stdin 

Add Stable

Regular helm commands to add a stable repo.

helm repo add stable https://kubernetes-charts.storage.googleapis.com/
helm search repo stable

Add Staging

Add GHCR as your staging repo

helm repo add staging https://ghcr.io

Create Chart

Create a test Helm Chart! https://helm.sh/docs/helm/helm_create/

helm create helm-test

Package Chart

Package up the Chart https://helm.sh/docs/helm/helm_package/

helm package ./helm-test 

Save Chart

Similar to docker tag https://helm.sh/docs/topics/registries/#save

# ensure the required environment variable is set (only required once)
export HELM_EXPERIMENTAL_OCI=1

helm chart save helm-test/ ghcr.io/president-business-corp/helm-test:latest

Push Chart

Similar to docker push https://helm.sh/docs/topics/registries/#push

# ensure the required environment variable is set (only required once)
export HELM_EXPERIMENTAL_OCI=1

helm chart push ghcr.io/president-business-corp/helm-test:latest

List Charts

Similar to docker images https://helm.sh/docs/topics/registries/#list

# ensure the required environment variable is set (only required once)
export HELM_EXPERIMENTAL_OCI=1

helm chart list

REF                                             	NAME   	VERSION	DIGEST 	SIZE   	CREATED  
ghcr.io/president-business-corp/helm-test:latest	mychart	0.1.0  	308d229	3.5 KiB	8 minutes

Remove Chart

Similar to docker rmi https://helm.sh/docs/topics/registries/#remove

# ensure the required environment variable is set (only required once)
export HELM_EXPERIMENTAL_OCI=1

helm chart remove ghcr.io/president-business-corp/helm-test:latest

Pull

Similar to docker pull https://helm.sh/docs/topics/registries/#pull

# ensure the required environment variable is set (only required once)
export HELM_EXPERIMENTAL_OCI=1

helm chart pull containers.pkg.github.com/president-business-corp/helm-test:latest  

Setup

Here are some quick setup steps

Install

You'll need a recent version of the helm command installed.

MacOS

brew install helm

Environment Variable

You'll receive the following error using helm charts and an OCI registry if you don't set this environment variable. You only need to set this once per shell session but I've listed it with every instruction to ensure fewer mistakes.

Error: this feature has been marked as experimental and is not enabled by default. Please set HELM_EXPERIMENTAL_OCI=1 in your environment to use this feature

export HELM_EXPERIMENTAL_OCI=1 

Migrating?

https://helm.sh/docs/topics/registries/#migrating-from-chart-repos

# (Helm 2 CLI) brew install helm@2
helm fetch CHART

# ensure the required environment variable is set (only required once)
export HELM_EXPERIMENTAL_OCI=1

helm chart save CHART ghcr.io/president-business-corp/CHART:latest
helm chart push ghcr.io/president-business-corp/CHART:latest