Helm in Practice

Kubernetes Authentication and Connection

By default, Helm uses your kubeconfig file to connect to and authenticate with the Kubernetes API server (~/.kube/config or the path specified by the KUBECONFIG environment variable). However, you can override this behavior using several Helm-specific environment variables.

For example, you can specify the following:

• HELM_KUBEAPISERVER: Lets you manually set the URL of the Kubernetes API server. When this is set, Helm uses this endpoint instead of the one defined in the kubeconfig.

• HELM_KUBECAFILE: Path to a custom CA certificate file for verifying the API server's TLS certificate.

• HELM_KUBETOKEN: A bearer token for authenticating directly with the Kubernetes API server. This bypasses the kubeconfig's user credentials but does not bypass the kubeconfig entirely.

• HELM_KUBECONTEXT: Specifies which kubeconfig context Helm should use. This determines both the target cluster and the user credentials. The context must exist in the kubeconfig file.