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Introduction
Preparing Your Raspberry Pi Cluster
Installing K3s
Using Your K3s Cluster
Real-World Deployments
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Final Project
Summary
Using Helm
Learn how to use Helm to deploy and manage applications on your K3s cluster with reusable charts and versioned releases.
By Kevin McAleer, 2 Minutes
Page last updated May 24, 2025
As your Kubernetes setup grows, writing and maintaining raw YAML files becomes harder to manage. That’s where Helm comes in.
Helm is a package manager for Kubernetes — like apt for Ubuntu or pip for Python. It allows you to deploy applications as charts, with versioning, values, and easy upgrades.
🎯 Why Use Helm?
| Feature | Benefit |
|---|---|
| Charts | Reusable templates for apps |
| Versioning | Rollbacks and upgrades |
values.yaml |
Customization made easy |
| Ecosystem | Thousands of prebuilt charts |
🛠 Step 1: Install Helm
On your development machine or master node:
curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/helm/helm/main/scripts/get-helm-3 | bash
Verify:
helm version
📦 Step 2: Add a Helm Repository
Helm charts are hosted in repositories like Docker images.
Add the Bitnami repo (for common apps):
helm repo add bitnami https://charts.bitnami.com/bitnami
helm repo update
🚀 Step 3: Install an App with Helm
Let’s install WordPress as an example:
helm install my-blog bitnami/wordpress
This will:
- Deploy WordPress + MariaDB
- Set up storage
- Create services
Check resources:
kubectl get all
⚙️ Step 4: Customize the Install
You can pass custom values inline:
helm install my-blog bitnami/wordpress \
--set wordpressUsername=admin \
--set wordpressPassword=secretpass
Or create a values.yaml file for reproducible installs.
🔄 Step 5: Upgrade and Rollback
Update your chart:
helm upgrade my-blog bitnami/wordpress --set wordpressBlogName="New Blog"
Roll back to the previous version:
helm rollback my-blog
List releases:
helm list
🧹 Uninstall a Release
helm uninstall my-blog
All resources created by the chart will be removed.
🧠 Common Use Cases for Helm
- Deploying Dashboards, Monitoring (e.g. Prometheus, Grafana)
- Managing Databases, Message Queues
- Packaging your own apps with custom charts
- Automating with CI/CD pipelines
✅ Summary
You now know how to:
- Install and configure Helm
- Use Helm charts to deploy apps
- Customize installs with
values.yaml - Upgrade, rollback, and uninstall releases
Helm makes managing Kubernetes apps much easier — especially for repeatable deployments and automation.
Next up: CI/CD on K3s
You can use the arrows ← → on your keyboard to navigate between lessons.
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