radar-helm-charts

The helm charts of the RADAR-base platform. Installation of these charts is best managed via RADAR-Kubernetes. Use the releases in this repository by referencing helm repository radar with URL https://radar-base.github.com/radar-helm-charts.

• About
• Prerequisites
• Usage
• Contributions
  • Adding a new chart
  • Charts for external dependencies
    • Adding external charts
    • Updating external charts
      • kube-prometheus-stack
• Feedback

About

RADAR-base is an open-source platform designed to support remote clinical trials by collecting continuous data from wearables and mobile applications. RADAR-Kubernetes enables installing the RADAR-base platform onto Kubernetes clusters. RADAR-base platform can be used for wide range of use-cases. Depending on the use-case, the selection of applications need to be installed can vary. Please read the component overview and breakdown to understand the role of each component and how components work together.

The radar-helm-charts setup uses Helm charts to package necessary Kubernetes resources for each component.

This documentation assumes familiarity with all referenced Kubernetes concepts, utilities, and procedures and familiarity with Helm charts.

Prerequisites

The following tools should be installed in your local machine to install the RADAR-Kubernetes on your Kubernetes cluster.

Component	Description
helm 3	Helm Charts are used to package Kubernetes resources for each component
Kubernetes	The charts support Kubernetes versions older than 1.30.
kubectl	Command line interface to interact with Kubernetes

Installation of these charts is best managed via RADAR-Kubernetes.

Usage

The radar-helm-charts Github project publishes a Helm repository radar with URL https://radar-base.github.com/radar-helm-charts. Any time a commit to the main branch is made that modified one of the helm charts, a new Github release is created for that chart. It is also published to the Helm repository. For that reason, ensure that the Chart.yaml file of the respective Helm chart is up to date for any commit made to main. In general, the main branch should only be updated via Github pull requests.

Contributions

The dependencies and linting tools are managed via Devbox, you need to install it before proceeding. Once that is done you can run:

devbox shell

This download all of the dependencies and install to Git hooks to lint the configuration before it is committed. To check if the commit hooks succeed before making a comment you can run this command:

devbox run check

This project also uses Conventional Commits to have a standardized commit message. Please have a look and make sure your commit message follows that.

Adding a new chart

In each chart directory use the following files to define what the README contents should be.

1. In README.md.gotmpl define which sections should be printed to README, with syntax

   {{ template "chart.header" . }}
   {{ template "chart.deprecationWarning" . }}
   
   {{ template "chart.badgesSection" . }}
   
   {{ template "chart.description" . }}
   
   {{ template "chart.homepageLine" . }}
   
   {{ template "chart.maintainersSection" . }}
   
   {{ template "chart.sourcesSection" . }}
   
   {{ template "common.prerequisites" . }}
   
   {{ template "chart.requirementsSection" . }}
   
   {{ template "chart.valuesSection" . }}
   

2. In DOCS.md.gotmpl, define any sections not part of helm-docs:

   {{ define "mychart.usageSection" -}}
   {{- end }}
   

3. In Chart.yaml define as many metadata fields as possible, including at least the description, homepage, maintainer, sources, and requirements.

4. In the values.yaml file, put a comment line before each variable with two dashes --. Any text after the two dashes will be used as documentation for that variable.

Charts for external dependencies

The charts for external dependencies are located in the external directory. These charts are used to install components that are not part of the RADAR-base platform but are required for the platform to function correctly. The external charts are maintained separately and should be updated as needed. It is current practice to have a copy of any external chart in the external directory to ensure that the RADAR-base platform can be installed without the parent chart being available in the Helm repository.

Adding external charts

1. Clone the external chart into the external directory. This can be done by running the following command:

   helm pull <chart-name> --untar -d external

   This will create a new directory in the external directory with the name of the chart. See Makefile for examples.

2. Add helm chart as a new update-<chart-name> section in the Makefile.

3. Register the new chart in the .github/workflows/scheduled-snyk-docker.yaml for vulnerability scanning by adding the chart name to the INCLUDE_CHARTS environmental variable in the set-matrix step.

Updating external charts

External charts can be updated by running make update-<chart-name>. At the moment there are a few manual steps are needed which should be automated. The external charts that have a dependency need manual steps:

• The external dependency should be mirrored in the this repository with helm pull commands that are in the Makefile, make sure the mirrored version is same as the one specified in the Chart.yaml.
• The external dependency should be released on the main branch first so there will be a valid release of it in our chart repository.
• In the Chart.yaml the repository should be changed to https://radar-base.github.io/radar-helm-charts.
• The Chart.lock file should be removed and then run helm dependency build to recreate the file with new repository URL and remove any .tgz files that gets created.

kube-prometheus-stack

For this chart, Chart.yaml needs to be updated to the latest version, remove Chart.lock and run helm dependency build. Make sure to copy the CRDs from https://github.com/prometheus-community/helm-charts/tree/main/charts/kube-prometheus-stack/charts/crds/crds to https://github.com/RADAR-base/RADAR-Kubernetes/blob/main/etc/kube-prometheus-stack/files/crds.yaml

Feedback

Enabling RADAR-base community to use RADAR-Kubernetes is important for us. If you have troubles setting up the platform using provided instructions, you can create an issue with exact details to reproduce and the expected behaviour. You can also reach out to the RADAR-base community via RADAR-base Slack on * *radar-kubernetes channel**. The RADAR-base developers support the community on a voluntary basis and will pick up your requests as time permits.