bitnamicharts/appsmith repository overview

⁠Bitnami Secure Images Helm chart for Appsmith

Appsmith is an open source platform for building and maintaining internal tools, such as custom dashboards, admin panels or CRUD apps.

Overview of Appsmith⁠

Trademarks: This software listing is packaged by Bitnami. The respective trademarks mentioned in the offering are owned by the respective companies, and use of them does not imply any affiliation or endorsement.

⁠ TL;DR

helm install my-release oci://REGISTRY_NAME/REPOSITORY_NAME/appsmith

⁠ Introduction

Bitnami charts for Helm are carefully engineered, actively maintained and are the quickest and easiest way to deploy containers on a Kubernetes cluster that are ready to handle production workloads.

This chart bootstraps an Appsmith⁠ Deployment in a Kubernetes⁠ cluster using the Helm⁠ package manager.

⁠ Before you begin

• Kubernetes 1.23+
• Helm 3.8.0+
• PV provisioner support in the underlying infrastructure
• ReadWriteMany volumes for deployment scaling

⁠ Installing the Chart

To install the chart with the release name my-release:

helm install my-release oci://REGISTRY_NAME/REPOSITORY_NAME/appsmith

The command deploys Appsmith on the Kubernetes cluster in the default configuration. The Parameters⁠ section lists the parameters that can be configured during installation.

⁠ Configuration and installation details

This section describes credentials, configuration, and other installation options.

⁠ Resource requests and limits

Bitnami charts allow setting resource requests and limits for all containers inside the chart deployment. These are inside the resources value (check parameter table). Setting requests is essential for production workloads and these should be adapted to your specific use case.

To make this process easier, the chart contains the resourcesPreset values, which automatically sets the resources section according to different presets. Check these presets in the bitnami/common chart⁠. However, in production workloads using resourcesPreset is discouraged as it may not fully adapt to your specific needs. Find more information on container resource management in the official Kubernetes documentation⁠.

⁠ Rolling VS Immutable tags⁠

It is strongly recommended to use immutable tags in a production environment. This ensures your deployment does not change automatically if the same tag is updated with a different image.

Bitnami will release a new chart updating its containers if a new version of the main container, significant changes, or critical vulnerabilities exist.

⁠ Update credentials

Bitnami charts configure credentials at first boot. Any further change in the secrets or credentials require manual intervention. Follow these instructions:

• Update the user password following the upstream documentation⁠
• Update the password secret with the new values (replace the SECRET_NAME, PASSWORD, ENCRYPTION_SALT and ENCRYPTION_PASSWORD placeholders)

kubectl create secret generic SECRET_NAME --from-literal=admin-password=PASSWORD --from-literal=encryption-salt=ENCRYPTION_SALT --from-literal=encryption-password=ENCRYPTION_PASSWORD --dry-run -o yaml | kubectl apply -f -

⁠ External database support

You may want to have appsmith connect to an external database rather than installing one inside your cluster. Typical reasons for this are to use a managed database service, or to share a common database server for all your applications. To achieve this, the chart allows you to specify credentials for an external database with the externalDatabase parameter⁠. You should also disable the MongoDB installation with the mongodb.enabled option. Here is an example:

mongodb.enabled=false
externalDatabase.hosts=[]
externalDatabase.user=myuser
externalDatabase.password=mypassword
externalDatabase.database=mydatabase
externalDatabase.port=27017

⁠ External redis support

You may want to have Appsmith connect to an external redis rather than installing one inside your cluster. Typical reasons for this are to use a managed redis service, or to share a common redis server for all your applications. To achieve this, the chart allows you to specify credentials for an external redis with the externalDatabase parameter⁠. You should also disable the Redis installation with the redis.enabled option. Here is an example:

redis.enabled=false
externalRedis.host=myexternalhost
externalRedis.password=mypassword
externalRedis.port=6379

⁠ Gateway API

This chart provides support for exposing Appsmith using the Gateway API⁠ and its HTTPRoute resource. If you have a Gateway controller installed on your cluster, such as APISIX, Contour, Envoy Gateway, NGINX Gateway Fabric or Kong Ingress Controller you can utilize the Gateway controller to serve your application. To enable Gateway API integration, set client.httpRoute.enabled to true. The Gateway to be used can be customized by setting the client.httpRoute.parentRefs parameter. By default, it will reference a Gateway named gateway in the same namespace as the release.

You can specify the list of hostnames to be mapped to the deployment using the client.httpRoute.hostnames parameter. Additionally, you can customize the rules used to route the traffic to the service by modifying the client.httpRoute.matches and client.httpRoute.filters parameters or adding new rules using the client.httpRoute.extraRules parameter.

⁠ Ingress

This chart provides support for Ingress resources. If you have an ingress controller installed on your cluster, such as nginx-ingress-controller⁠ or contour⁠ you can utilize the ingress controller to serve your application. To enable Ingress integration, set client.ingress.enabled to true.

The most common scenario is to have one host name mapped to the deployment. In this case, the client.ingress.hostname property can be used to set the host name. The client.ingress.tls parameter can be used to add the TLS configuration for this host.

However, it is also possible to have more than one host. To facilitate this, the client.ingress.extraHosts parameter (if available) can be set with the host names specified as an array. The client.ingress.extraTLS parameter (if available) can also be used to add the TLS configuration for extra hosts.

Adding the TLS parameter (where available) will cause the chart to generate HTTPS URLs, and the application will be available on port 443. The actual TLS secrets do not have to be generated by this chart. However, if TLS is enabled, the Ingress record will not work until the TLS secret exists.

Learn more about Ingress controllers⁠.

⁠ Securing traffic using TLS

This chart facilitates the creation of TLS secrets for use with the Ingress controller (although this is not mandatory). There are several common use cases:

• Generate certificate secrets based on chart parameters.
• Enable externally generated certificates.
• Manage application certificates via an external service (like cert-manager⁠).
• Create self-signed certificates within the chart (if supported).

In the first two cases, a certificate and a key are needed. Files are expected in .pem format.

Here is an example of a certificate file:

-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
MIID6TCCAtGgAwIBAgIJAIaCwivkeB5EMA0GCSqGSIb3DQEBCwUAMFYxCzAJBgNV
...
jScrvkiBO65F46KioCL9h5tDvomdU1aqpI/CBzhvZn1c0ZTf87tGQR8NK7v7
-----END CERTIFICATE-----

Here is an example of a certificate key:

-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----
MIIEogIBAAKCAQEAvLYcyu8f3skuRyUgeeNpeDvYBCDcgq+LsWap6zbX5f8oLqp4
...
wrj2wDbCDCFmfqnSJ+dKI3vFLlEz44sAV8jX/kd4Y6ZTQhlLbYc=
-----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----

• If using Helm to manage the certificates based on the parameters, copy these values into the certificate and key values for a given *.ingress.secrets entry.
• If managing TLS secrets separately, it is necessary to create a TLS secret with name INGRESS_HOSTNAME-tls (where INGRESS_HOSTNAME is a placeholder to be replaced with the hostname you set using the *.ingress.hostname parameter).
• If your cluster has a cert-manager⁠ add-on to automate the management and issuance of TLS certificates, add to *.ingress.annotations the corresponding ones⁠ for cert-manager.
• If using self-signed certificates created by Helm, set both *.ingress.tls and *.ingress.selfSigned to true.

⁠ Additional environment variables

In case you want to add extra environment variables (useful for advanced operations like custom init scripts), you can use the extraEnvVars property inside the client, backend and rts sections.

appsmith:
  backend:
    extraEnvVars:
      - name: LOG_LEVEL
        value: error

Alternatively, you can use a ConfigMap or a Secret with the environment variables. To do so, use the extraEnvVarsCM or the extraEnvVarsSecret values inside the client, backend and rts sections.

⁠ Sidecars

If additional containers are needed in the same pod as appsmith (such as additional metrics or logging exporters), they can be defined using the sidecars parameter inside the client, backend and rts sections.

sidecars:
- name: your-image-name
  image: your-image
  imagePullPolicy: Always
  ports:
  - name: portname
    containerPort: 1234

If these sidecars export extra ports, extra port definitions can be added using the service.extraPorts parameter (where available), as shown in the example below:

service:
  extraPorts:
  - name: extraPort
    port: 11311
    targetPort: 11311

If additional init containers are needed in the same pod, they can be defined using the initContainers parameter. Here is an example:

initContainers:
  - name: your-image-name
    image: your-image
    imagePullPolicy: Always
    ports:
      - name: portname
        containerPort: 1234

Learn more about sidecar containers⁠ and init containers⁠.

⁠ Pod affinity

This chart allows you to set your custom affinity using the affinity parameter. Find more information about Pod affinity in the kubernetes documentation⁠.

As an alternative, use one of the preset configurations for pod affinity, pod anti-affinity, and node affinity available at the bitnami/common⁠ chart. To do so, set the podAffinityPreset, podAntiAffinityPreset, or nodeAffinityPreset parameters inside the client, backend and rts sections.

⁠ Backup and restore

To back up and restore Helm chart deployments on Kubernetes, you need to back up the persistent volumes from the source deployment and attach them to a new deployment using Velero⁠, a Kubernetes backup/restore tool. Find the instructions for using Velero in this guide⁠.

⁠ FIPS parameters

The FIPS parameters only have effect if you are using images from the Bitnami Secure Images catalog⁠.

For more information on this new support, please refer to the FIPS Compliance section⁠.

⁠ Persistence

The Bitnami appsmith⁠ image stores the appsmith data and configurations at the /bitnami path of the container. Persistent Volume Claims are used to keep the data across deployments. This is known to work in GCE, AWS, and minikube.

⁠ Parameters

The following subsections list global, common, and component-specific parameters.

⁠ Global parameters

⁠ Common parameters

⁠ Appsmith Client Parameters

Note: the README for this chart is longer than the DockerHub length limit of 25000, so it has been trimmed. The full README can be found at https://techdocs.broadcom.com/us/en/vmware-tanzu/bitnami-secure-images/bitnami-secure-images/services/bsi-app-doc/apps-charts-appsmith-index.html⁠