# Installing Helm There are two parts to Helm: The Helm client (`helm`) and the Helm server (Tiller). This guide shows how to install the client, and then proceeds to show two ways to install the server. ## Installing the Helm Client The Helm client can be installed either from source, or from pre-built binary releases. ### From the Binary Releases Every [release](https://github.com/kubernetes/helm/releases) of Helm provides binary releases for a variety of OSes. These binary versions can be manually downloaded and installed. 1. Download your [desired version](https://github.com/kubernetes/helm/releases) 2. Unpack it (`tar -zxvf helm-v2.0.0-linux-amd64.tgz`) 3. Find the `helm` binary in the unpacked directory, and move it to its desired destination (`mv linux-amd64/helm /usr/local/bin/helm`) From there, you should be able to run the client: `helm help`. ### From Homebrew (Mac OSX) Members of the Kubernetes community have contributed a Helm cask built to Homebrew. This formula is generally up to date. ``` brew cask install helm ``` (Note: There is also a formula for emacs-helm, which is a different project.) ## From Script Helm now has an installer script that will automatically grab the latest version of the Helm client and [install it locally](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kubernetes/helm/master/scripts/get). You can fetch that script, and then execute it locally. It's well documented so that you can read through it and understand what it is doing before you run it. ``` $ curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kubernetes/helm/master/scripts/get > get_helm.sh $ chmod 700 get_helm.sh $ ./get_helm.sh ``` Yes, you can `curl ...| bash` that if you want to live on the edge. ### From Canary Builds "Canary" builds are versions of the Helm software that are built from the latest master branch. They are not official releases, and may not be stable. However, they offer the opportunity to test the cutting edge features. Canary Helm binaries are stored in the [Kubernetes Helm GCS bucket](http://storage.googleapis.com/kubernetes-helm). Here are links to the common builds: - [Linux AMD64](http://storage.googleapis.com/kubernetes-helm/helm-canary-linux-amd64.tar.gz) - [OSX AMD64](http://storage.googleapis.com/kubernetes-helm/helm-canary-darwin-amd64.tar.gz) - [Experimental Windows AMD64](http://storage.googleapis.com/kubernetes-helm/helm-canary-windows-amd64.zip) ### From Source (Linux, Mac OSX) Building Helm from source is slightly more work, but is the best way to go if you want to test the latest (pre-release) Helm version. You must have a working Go environment with [glide](https://github.com/Masterminds/glide) and Mercurial installed. ```console $ cd $GOPATH $ mkdir -p src/k8s.io $ cd src/k8s.io $ git clone https://github.com/kubernetes/helm.git $ cd helm $ make bootstrap build ``` The `bootstrap` target will attempt to install dependencies, rebuild the `vendor/` tree, and validate configuration. The `build` target will compile `helm` and place it in `bin/helm`. Tiller is also compiled, and is placed in `bin/tiller`. ## Installing Tiller Tiller, the server portion of Helm, typically runs inside of your Kubernetes cluster. But for development, it can also be run locally, and configured to talk to a remote Kubernetes cluster. ### Easy In-Cluster Installation The easiest way to install `tiller` into the cluster is simply to run `helm init`. This will validate that `helm`'s local environment is set up correctly (and set it up if necessary). Then it will connect to whatever cluster `kubectl` connects to by default (`kubectl config view`). Once it connects, it will install `tiller` into the `kube-system` namespace. After `helm init`, you should be able to run `kubectl get po --namespace kube-system` and see Tiller running. You can explicitly tell `helm init` to... - Install the canary build with the `--canary-image` flag - Install a particular image (version) with `--tiller-image` - Install to a particular cluster with `--kube-context` Once Tiller is installed, running `helm version` should show you both the client and server version. (If it shows only the client version, `helm` cannot yet connect to the server. Use `kubectl` to see if any `tiller` pods are running.) ### Installing Tiller Canary Builds Canary images are built from the `master` branch. They may not be stable, but they offer you the chance to test out the latest features. The easiest way to install a canary image is to use `helm init` with the `--canary-image` flag: ```console $ helm init --canary-image ``` This will use the most recently built container image. You can always uninstall Tiller by deleting the Tiller deployment from the `kube-system` namespace using `kubectl`. ### Running Tiller Locally For development, it is sometimes easier to work on Tiller locally, and configure it to connect to a remote Kubernetes cluster. The process of building Tiller is explained above. Once `tiller` has been built, simply start it: ```console $ bin/tiller Tiller running on :44134 ``` When Tiller is running locally, it will attempt to connect to the Kubernetes cluster that is configured by `kubectl`. (Run `kubectl config view` to see which cluster that is.) You must tell `helm` to connect to this new local Tiller host instead of connecting to the one in-cluster. There are two ways to do this. The first is to specify the `--host` option on the command line. The second is to set the `$HELM_HOST` environment variable. ```console $ export HELM_HOST=localhost:44134 $ helm version # Should connect to localhost. Client: &version.Version{SemVer:"v2.0.0-alpha.4", GitCommit:"db...", GitTreeState:"dirty"} Server: &version.Version{SemVer:"v2.0.0-alpha.4", GitCommit:"a5...", GitTreeState:"dirty"} ``` Importantly, even when running locally, Tiller will store release configuration in ConfigMaps inside of Kubernetes. ## Deleting or Reinstalling Tiller Because Tiller stores its data in Kubernetes ConfigMaps, you can safely delete and re-install Tiller without worrying about losing any data. The recommended way of deleting Tiller is with `kubectl delete deployment tiller-deploy --namespace kube-system` To simply update Tiller to run the latest image, you can run this command: ```console $ export TILLER_TAG=v2.0.0-beta.1 # Or whatever version you want $ kubectl --namespace=kube-system set image deployments/tiller-deploy tiller=gcr.io/kubernetes-helm/tiller:$TILLER_TAG deployment "tiller-deploy" image updated ``` Setting `TILLER_TAG=canary` will get the latest snapshot of master. ## Conclusion In most cases, installation is as simple as getting a pre-built `helm` binary and running `helm init`. This document covers additional cases for those who want to do more sophisticated things with Helm. Once you have the Helm Client and Tiller successfully installed, you can move on to using Helm to manage charts.