helm-version-checker

README

helm-version-checker

Helm version monitoring utility for watching updated and deprecated helm releases and reporting the result as metrics.

This tool is heavily inspired by the awesome tools:

• version-checker by jetstack.
• cert-checker by mogensen.

Heavy lifting supplied by helm-whatup

The actual Helm version checking is done by helm-whatup, originally developed by bacongobbler and now maintained by fabmation-gmbh

Table of contents

• helm-version-checker
  • Table of contents
  • Features
    • Looking for Deprecated Helm Releases
  • Installation
    • In Kubernetes as static manifests
    • Helm
    • Kustomize
  • Web dashboard
  • Metrics
    • Grafana Dashboard
• Build a docker image, load it into kind and deploy helm-version-checker and promeheus/grafana stuff

Table of contents generated with markdown-toc

Features

Looking for Deprecated Helm Releases

---

Installation

helm-version-checker can be installed as a standalone static binary from the release page

latest release

./helm-version-checker

...
# Now open browser at:
#   -  http://localhost:8081/
#   -  http://localhost:8080/metrics

In Kubernetes as static manifests

helm-version-checker can be installed as static manifests:

$ kubectl create namespace helm-version-checker

# Deploy helm-version-checker, with kubernetes services and demo configuration
$ kubectl apply -n helm-version-checker -f deploy/yaml/deploy.yaml

# If you are using the Grafana sidecar for loading dashboards
$ kubectl apply -n helm-version-checker -f deploy/yaml/grafana-dashboard-cm.yaml

# If you are using the Prometheus CRDs for setting up scrape targets
$ kubectl apply -n helm-version-checker -f deploy/yaml/servicemonitor.yaml

Helm

helm-version-checker can be installed as as helm release:

$ kubectl create namespace helm-version-checker
$ helm install helm-version-checker deploy/charts/helm-version-checker --namespace helm-version-checker

Depending on your setup, you may need to modify the ServiceMonitor to get Prometheus to scrape it in a particular namespace. See this.

You may also need to add additional labels to the ServiceMonitor. If you have installed the prometheus-community/kube-prometheus-stack with the name of prometheus the following should work:

$ helm upgrade helm-version-checker deploy/charts/helm-version-checker \
    --namespace helm-version-checker    \
    --set=grafanaDashboard.enabled=true \
    --set=serviceMonitor.enabled=true   \
    --set=serviceMonitor.additionalLabels.release=prometheus

Kustomize

helm-version-checker can be installed using kustomize:

Create a kustomization.yaml file:

apiVersion: kustomize.config.k8s.io/v1beta1
kind: Kustomization
namespace: helm-version-checker
resources:
- github.com/mogensen/helm-version-checker/deploy/yaml
# optionally pin to a specific git tag
# - github.com/mogensen/helm-version-checker/deploy/yaml?ref=helm-version-checker-0.0.1

Use the kustomization.yaml file to preview and deploy helm-version-checker:

$ kustomize build kustomization.yaml | less # preview yaml manifests
$ kustomize build kustomization.yaml | kubectl apply --dry-run=client -f - # dry-run apply manifests
$ kustomize build kustomization.yaml | kubectl apply -f - # deploy manifests

Web dashboard

By default, helm-version-checker will expose a web ui on http://0.0.0.0:8081/.

Web dashboard

Metrics

By default, helm-version-checker will expose the version information as Prometheus metrics on http://0.0.0.0:8080/metrics.

Grafana Dashboard

A Grafana dashboard is also included in this repository. It is located in the deployment folder: deploy/yaml/grafana-dashboard-cm.yaml

Grafana Dashboard

Local development

Build a docker image, load it into kind and deploy helm-version-checker and promeheus/grafana stuff:

make dev-kind-create
make image dev-kind-install

Access the local infrastructure here:

System	URL
Prometheus:	http://prometheus.localtest.me/graph?g0.expr=helm_version_checker_is_latest%7B%7D&g0.tab=1&g0.stacked=0&g0.range_input=1h&g1.expr=helm_version_checker_is_deprecated%7B%7D&g1.tab=1&g1.stacked=0&g1.range_input=1h
Grafana:	http://grafana.localtest.me/d/helm-version-checker/helm-version-checker
Dashboard:	http://helm-version-checker.localtest.me/