🔄 Flux Integration

Helm and Flux Integration #

GitOps with Helm Charts #

While Helm provides excellent package management for Kubernetes applications, manually running helm install and helm upgrade commands doesn’t align with GitOps principles. This is where Flux’s Helm Controller comes in - it allows you to manage Helm releases declaratively through Git, combining the power of Helm’s templating with GitOps automation.

How Flux Manages Helm Charts #

Flux uses several Custom Resource Definitions (CRDs) to manage Helm charts:

HelmRepository #

Defines a Helm repository as a source for charts:

apiVersion: source.toolkit.fluxcd.io/v1beta1
kind: HelmRepository
metadata:
  name: ingress-nginx
  namespace: flux-system
spec:
  interval: 1h
  url: https://kubernetes.github.io/ingress-nginx

HelmRelease #

Defines a Helm release to be installed and managed:

apiVersion: helm.toolkit.fluxcd.io/v2beta1
kind: HelmRelease
metadata:
  name: ingress-nginx
  namespace: ingress-nginx
spec:
  interval: 5m
  chart:
    spec:
      chart: ingress-nginx
      version: "4.8.3"
      sourceRef:
        kind: HelmRepository
        name: ingress-nginx
        namespace: flux-system
  values:
    controller:
      replicaCount: 2
      service:
        type: NodePort

Benefits of Flux + Helm Integration #

Declarative Management: Helm releases are defined as Kubernetes resources in Git, making them auditable and version-controlled.

Automatic Updates: Flux continuously monitors for changes and automatically applies updates when configurations change in Git.

Drift Detection: Flux detects when the actual state differs from the desired state and automatically reconciles differences.

Multi-Environment Support: Different environments can have different values files while using the same base chart configuration.

Exercise: Migrating from Manual Helm to Flux #

Let’s migrate the ingress-nginx installation from the previous chapter to be managed by Flux instead.

Prerequisites #

Ensure you have:

  • A working Flux installation (from the GitOps chapter)
  • The ingress-nginx chart currently installed via manual Helm

Step 1: Uninstall Manual Helm Release #

First, let’s remove the manually installed ingress-nginx:

# List current Helm releases
helm list --all-namespaces

# Uninstall the ingress-nginx release
helm uninstall ingress-nginx -n ingress-nginx

# Verify removal
kubectl get pods -n ingress-nginx

Step 2: Create Helm Repository Resource #

In your GitOps repository, create a directory structure for Helm configurations:

# In your GitOps repository
mkdir -p infrastructure/helm-repositories
mkdir -p infrastructure/helm-releases

Create the HelmRepository resource:

cat <<EOF > infrastructure/helm-repositories/ingress-nginx.yaml
apiVersion: source.toolkit.fluxcd.io/v1beta1
kind: HelmRepository
metadata:
  name: ingress-nginx
  namespace: flux-system
spec:
  interval: 1h
  url: https://kubernetes.github.io/ingress-nginx
EOF

Step 3: Create HelmRelease Resource #

Create the HelmRelease for ingress-nginx:

cat <<EOF > infrastructure/helm-releases/ingress-nginx.yaml
apiVersion: helm.toolkit.fluxcd.io/v2beta1
kind: HelmRelease
metadata:
  name: ingress-nginx
  namespace: ingress-nginx
spec:
  interval: 5m
  releaseName: ingress-nginx
  chart:
    spec:
      chart: ingress-nginx
      version: "4.8.3"
      sourceRef:
        kind: HelmRepository
        name: ingress-nginx
        namespace: flux-system
  install:
    createNamespace: true
  values:
    controller:
      replicaCount: 1
EOF

Step 4: Configure Flux to Monitor These Resources #

Create or update your Kustomization to include the new Helm resources:

cat <<EOF > infrastructure/kustomization.yaml
apiVersion: kustomize.config.k8s.io/v1beta1
kind: Kustomization
resources:
  - helm-repositories/
  - helm-releases/
EOF

If you don’t already have a Kustomization pointing to the infrastructure directory, create one in your flux-system namespace:

cat <<EOF > clusters/c0x/infrastructure.yaml
apiVersion: kustomize.toolkit.fluxcd.io/v1
kind: Kustomization
metadata:
  name: infrastructure
  namespace: flux-system
spec:
  interval: 10m
  sourceRef:
    kind: GitRepository
    name: flux-system
  path: "./infrastructure"
  prune: true
  wait: true
EOF

Step 5: Commit and Push Changes # 

# Add and commit the changes
git add .
git commit -m "Add ingress-nginx Helm release managed by Flux"
git push origin main

Step 6: Monitor the Deployment #

Watch Flux deploy the Helm release:

# Monitor Flux components
flux get all

# Watch the HelmRepository
flux get sources helm

# Watch the HelmRelease
flux get helmreleases

# Monitor the actual deployment
kubectl get pods -n ingress-nginx -w

Step 7: Verify the Installation # 

# Check Helm releases managed by Flux
helm list --all-namespaces

# Verify the pods are running
kubectl get pods -n ingress-nginx

# Check the service
kubectl get svc -n ingress-nginx

Expected Result: The ingress-nginx controller should be running, now managed by Flux instead of manual Helm commands.

Troubleshooting Flux Helm Integration #

Common troubleshooting commands:

# Check HelmRepository status
kubectl describe helmrepository ingress-nginx -n flux-system

# Check HelmRelease status
kubectl describe helmrelease ingress-nginx -n ingress-nginx

# View Flux Helm Controller logs
kubectl logs -n flux-system deployment/helm-controller

# Force reconciliation
flux reconcile helmrelease ingress-nginx -n ingress-nginx

# Suspend and resume releases
flux suspend helmrelease ingress-nginx -n ingress-nginx
flux resume helmrelease ingress-nginx -n ingress-nginx

Exercise: Use cert-manager to provide SSL certificates for your ingress #

cert-manager is a very popular tool for managing certificates within your Kubernetes cluster. It handles the whole certificate life cycle, and makes certificates a thing that you don’t really need to worry about.

  1. Install cert-manager using the same approach as we did in the last exercise with ingress-nginx.
  2. Get DNS setup for your LoadBalancer service (Ask for help).
  3. Add and Ingress with TLS to an application in your cluster.

Key Takeaways #

  • Flux HelmController enables GitOps management of Helm charts
  • HelmRepository and HelmRelease resources declaratively define chart sources and deployments
  • All Helm operations are auditable through Git history

By combining Helm’s powerful templating with Flux’s GitOps capabilities, you get the best of both worlds: flexible, reusable application packages with declarative, auditable deployment management.

August 17, 2025