How to Use a GitHub Private Repository as a Helm Chart Repository

In this article, I'll show you how to create your own private Helm Chart repository using a GitHub private repository. This approach is perfect for personal or team use.

Why Use GitHub as a Helm Chart Repository?

While this setup might not be ideal for production environments, it's excellent for development and testing purposes because:

• You can securely manage private Kubernetes manifests
• It's easy to share Helm Charts within your team
• No additional infrastructure management is required

Prerequisites

You'll need:

• A GitHub private repository
• A GitHub Personal Access Token
  • For Classic Token: requires repo scope
  • For Fine-grained Token: needs read access to "Contents"
• Helm CLI installed
• git command line tool

Sample Chart Overview

For this tutorial, we'll use a minimal hello-world chart. Here's what it looks like:

# Chart.yaml
apiVersion: v2
name: hello-world
description: A simple Helm chart that creates hello-world namespace
type: application
version: 0.1.0
appVersion: "1.0.0"

# templates/namespace.yaml
apiVersion: v1
kind: Namespace
metadata:
  name: hello-world

This chart is intentionally simple:

• It creates a namespace called hello-world
• It has no configurable values
• When deployed, it creates a new namespace in your Kubernetes cluster

While real-world charts are typically more complex, we're keeping it minimal to focus on the repository setup process.

Step-by-Step Guide

1. Package Your Chart

First, let's package our hello-world chart:

cd private-repo
helm package hello-world/

This creates hello-world-0.1.0.tgz, containing our Chart.yaml and templates/namespace.yaml.

2. Generate the Index File

Create an index file to tell Helm about available charts:

helm repo index .

This generates index.yaml with content like:

apiVersion: v1
entries:
  hello-world:
    - apiVersion: v2
      appVersion: 1.0.0
      created: "2024-11-21T10:00:00.000000000Z"
      description: A simple Helm chart that creates hello-world namespace
      digest: 1234567890abcdef... # actual hash will vary
      name: hello-world
      type: application
      urls:
        - hello-world-0.1.0.tgz
      version: 0.1.0

3. Push to GitHub

Upload everything to GitHub:

git init
git add .
git commit -s -m "Initial commit"
git branch -M main
git remote add origin git@github.com:your-username/repo-name.git
git push -u origin main

4. Configure Helm

Add the repository to your local Helm configuration:

helm repo add --username your-github-username --password your-github-token private-repo 'https://raw.githubusercontent.com/your-username/repo-name/main'

Update the repository information:

helm repo update

5. Verify Setup

Check if your chart is discoverable:

helm search repo private-repo/hello-world

You should see something like:

NAME                        CHART VERSION   APP VERSION   DESCRIPTION
private-repo/hello-world    0.1.0          1.0.0        A simple Helm chart that creates hello-world namespace

Using Your Chart

Before installing, it's good practice to do a dry-run:

helm install test-hello private-repo/hello-world --dry-run

Output:

# Source: hello-world/templates/namespace.yaml
apiVersion: v1
kind: Namespace
metadata:
  name: hello-world

If everything looks good, proceed with the installation:

helm install hello-world private-repo/hello-world

Successful installation output:

NAME: hello-world
LAST DEPLOYED: Thu Nov 21 14:45:40 2024
NAMESPACE: default
STATUS: deployed
REVISION: 1
TEST SUITE: None

Verify:

kubectl get namespace hello-world

Repository Structure

Your final repository structure should look like this:

.
├── README.md
├── index.yaml              # Helm repository index
├── hello-world-0.1.0.tgz   # Packaged chart
└── hello-world/           # Chart source
    ├── Chart.yaml         # Chart metadata
    └── templates/         # Kubernetes manifest templates
        └── namespace.yaml # Namespace manifest

That's it! You now have your own private Helm Chart repository. This setup is perfect for sharing charts within your team and managing versions effectively.

Feel free to reach out in the comments if you have any questions or run into issues!