Customize Defaults

If you look in the newly created eksdemo directory, you’ll see several files and directories.

The table below outlines the purpose of each component in the Helm chart structure.

The following steps should be completed separately for frontend.yaml, crystal.yaml, and nodejs.yaml.

File or Directory Description
charts/ Sub-charts that the chart depends on
Chart.yaml Information about your chart
values.yaml The default values for your template
templates/ The template files
templates/deployment.yaml Basic manifest for creating Kubernetes Deployment objects
templates/_helpers.tpl Used to define Go template helpers
templates/hpa.yaml Basic manifest for creating Kubernetes Horizontal Pod Autoscaler objects
templates/ingress.yaml Basic manifest for creating Kubernetes Ingress objects
templates/NOTES.txt A plain text file to give users detailed information about how to use the newly installed chart
templates/templates/serviceaccount.yaml Basic manifest for creating Kubernetes ServiceAccount objects
templates/service.yaml Basic manifest for creating Kubernetes Service objects
tests/ Directory of Test files
tests/test-connections.yaml Tests that validate that your chart works as expected when it is installed 
rm -rf ~/environment/eksdemo/templates/
rm ~/environment/eksdemo/Chart.yaml
rm ~/environment/eksdemo/values.yaml

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Run the following code block to create a new Chart.yaml file which will describe the chart

cat <<EoF > ~/environment/eksdemo/Chart.yaml
apiVersion: v2
name: eksdemo
description: A Helm chart for EKS Workshop Microservices application
version: 0.1.0
appVersion: 1.0
EoF

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Next we’ll copy the manifest files for each of our microservices into the templates directory as servicename.yaml

#create subfolders for each template type
mkdir -p ~/environment/eksdemo/templates/deployment
mkdir -p ~/environment/eksdemo/templates/service

# Copy and rename frontend manifests
cp ~/environment/ecsdemo-frontend/kubernetes/deployment.yaml ~/environment/eksdemo/templates/deployment/frontend.yaml
cp ~/environment/ecsdemo-frontend/kubernetes/service.yaml ~/environment/eksdemo/templates/service/frontend.yaml

# Copy and rename crystal manifests
cp ~/environment/ecsdemo-crystal/kubernetes/deployment.yaml ~/environment/eksdemo/templates/deployment/crystal.yaml
cp ~/environment/ecsdemo-crystal/kubernetes/service.yaml ~/environment/eksdemo/templates/service/crystal.yaml

# Copy and rename nodejs manifests
cp ~/environment/ecsdemo-nodejs/kubernetes/deployment.yaml ~/environment/eksdemo/templates/deployment/nodejs.yaml
cp ~/environment/ecsdemo-nodejs/kubernetes/service.yaml ~/environment/eksdemo/templates/service/nodejs.yaml

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All files in the templates directory are sent through the template engine. These are currently plain YAML files that would be sent to Kubernetes as-is.

Replace hard-coded values with template directives Let’s replace some of the values with template directives to enable more customization by removing hard-coded values.

Open ~/environment/eksdemo/templates/deployment/frontend.yaml in your Cloud9 editor.

Under spec, find replicas: 1 and replace with the following:

replicas: {{ .Values.replicas }}

Create a values.yaml file with our template defaults

Run the following code block to populate our template directives with default values.

cat <<EoF > ~/environment/eksdemo/values.yaml
# Default values for eksdemo.
# This is a YAML-formatted file.
# Declare variables to be passed into your templates.

# Release-wide Values
replicas: 3
version: 'latest'

# Service Specific Values
nodejs:
  image: brentley/ecsdemo-nodejs
crystal:
  image: brentley/ecsdemo-crystal
frontend:
  image: brentley/ecsdemo-frontend
EoF

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