Installing Helm

From the Binary Releases

Every release of Helm provides binary releases for a variety of OSes. These binary versions can be manually downloaded and installed.

1. Download your desired version
2. Unpack it (tar -zxvf helm-v4.0.0-linux-amd64.tar.gz)
3. Find the helm binary in the unpacked directory, and move it to its desired destination (mv linux-amd64/helm /usr/local/bin/helm)

From Script

Helm now has an installer script that will automatically grab the latest version of Helm and install it locally.

You can fetch that script, and then execute it locally. It's well documented so that you can read through it and understand what it is doing before you run it.

curl -fsSL -o get_helm.sh https://raw.githubusercontent.com/helm/helm/main/scripts/get-helm-4
chmod 700 get_helm.sh
./get_helm.sh

Yes, you can curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/helm/helm/main/scripts/get-helm-4 | bash if you want to live on the edge.

Commands

1. Render templates (no install)

helm template .

It shows pure Kubernetes YAML

helm template . \
  --set ingress.host=example.com \
  --set image.tag=123

You can overwrite default values.

1. Lint chart (static checks)

Finds syntax and logic errors

helm lint .

1. Install chart (first time)

helm install friend-backend .

• friend-backend → release name
• . → chart path

helm install friend-backend . \
    --set image.tag=3 \
    --set ingress.host=api.dev.local

With changes values.

1. Upgrade chart (most used)

Helm:

• compares current release
• applies only diffs

helm upgrade friend-backend .

Upgrade + install (CI-safe):

helm upgrade friend-backend . \
    --install \
    --set ingress.host=api.staging.local \
    --set image.tag=$CI_PIPELINE_IID

1. See installed releases

helm list

Namespace-specific:

helm list -n default

1. Inspect release values

helm get values friend-backend

Source