How to Ignore Some Templates in Helm Chart?

Helm is a package manager for Kubernetes that simplifies the deployment of applications and services in a Kubernetes cluster. It uses charts, which are packages of pre-configured Kubernetes resources, to automate the installation and configuration of applications.

Helm charts contain templates that are used to generate Kubernetes manifests. However, there may be cases when you want to ignore certain templates in a chart. In this article, we will discuss how to ignore some templates in a Helm chart.

Introduction

Helm charts contain templates that are used to generate Kubernetes manifests. These templates are written in the Go template language and can be customized using values passed in a values.yaml file. However, sometimes you may not want to use all the templates in a chart.

For example, you may want to ignore a template that deploys a database, as you already have a separate database instance running in your Kubernetes cluster. In such cases, you can use Helm's --set flag to ignore the template and prevent it from being rendered.

Table of Contents

1. Ignoring Templates in a Helm Chart
2. Using --set Flag to Ignore Templates
3. Examples

Ignoring Templates in a Helm Chart

To ignore a template in a Helm chart, you need to specify its name in the values.yaml file and set its value to false. This will prevent Helm from rendering the template during the installation or upgrade of the chart. The name of the template is usually the same as the name of the file, but without the extension. For example, if you have a template file named deployment.yaml, its name in the values.yaml file would be deployment.

Using --set Flag to Ignore Templates

Another way to ignore templates in a Helm chart is to use the --set flag when installing or upgrading the chart. The --set flag allows you to override values in the values.yaml file on the command line. To ignore a template, you need to set its value to false. For example, to ignore the deployment template in a chart named mychart, you would use the following command:

helm install mychart --set deployment=false

This will prevent Helm from rendering the deployment.yaml file during the installation of the mychart chart.

Examples

Let's say you have a Helm chart that deploys a web application and a database. However, you already have a separate database instance running in your Kubernetes cluster, and you want to ignore the database template in the chart. Here's how you can do it:

1. Edit the values.yaml file and add the following line:

database: false

2. Save the file and run the following command to install the chart:

helm install mychart ./mychart --set database=false

This will install the web application template in the chart but ignore the database template.

In this article, we discussed how to ignore some templates in a Helm chart. We showed two methods: editing the values.yaml file and using the --set flag. By ignoring templates, you can customize the installation and configuration of a chart to better fit your specific requirements. We hope this article has been helpful to you.

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