Summary

In this chapter, we took a look at Helm, the Kubernetes package manager. Helm gives Kubernetes the ability to manage complicated software composed of many Kubernetes resources with inter-dependencies. It serves the same purpose as an OS package manager. It organizes packages and lets you search charts, install and upgrade charts, and share charts with collaborators. You can develop your own charts and store them in repositories. Helm 3 is a client-side-only solution that uses CRDs to manage the status of releases, instead of the Tiller server-side component of Helm 2, which poses a lot of security issues with its default configuration.

At this point, you should be able to understand the important role that Helm serves in the Kubernetes ecosystem and community. You should be able to use it productively and even develop and share your own charts.

In the next chapter, we will look at how Kubernetes does networking at a pretty low level.