Helm Images

This Helm plugin helps identify all images that will be included in a Helm chart deployment.

Introduction

Identifying all images just before deploying a Helm chart can be quite challenging.

This Helm plugin was developed to simplify this process and can be installed as an add-on to Helm.

It assists in filtering images based on their Kubernetes type and also allows filtering by the registry they belong to.

helm images get prometheus-standalone ~/prometheus-setup/prometheus-standalone -f ~/prometheus-setup/prometheus-standalone/values-standalone-1.yaml
# executing above command would yield results something like below:
quay.io/prometheus/node-exporter:v1.1.2
k8s.gcr.io/kube-state-metrics/kube-state-metrics:v2.0.0
quay.io/prometheus/alertmanager:v0.21.0
prom/pushgateway:v1.3.1
jimmidyson/configmap-reload:v0.5.0
quay.io/prometheus/alertmanager:v0.21.0

# using the same plugin can list images which are part of specified release
helm images get prometheus-standalone --from-release --registry quay.io
# above command should fetch all the images from a helm release 'prometheus-standalone' by limiting to registry 'quay.io', which results as below:
quay.io/prometheus/alertmanager:v0.21.0
quay.io/prometheus/alertmanager:v0.21.0

Installation

helm plugin install https://github.com/nikhilsbhat/helm-images

Use the executable just like any other go-cli application.

Usage

helm images [command] [flags]

Make sure appropriate command is used for the actions, to check the available commands and flags use helm images --help

Lists all images that would be part of helm deployment.

Usage:
  images [command] [flags]

Available Commands:
  completion  Generate the autocompletion script for the specified shell
  get         Fetches all images those are part of specified chart/release
  help        Help about any command
  version     Command to fetch the version of helm-images installed

Flags:
  -h, --help                     help for images
      --set stringArray          set values on the command line (can specify multiple or separate values with commas: key1=val1,key2=val2)
      --set-file stringArray     set values from respective files specified via the command line (can specify multiple or separate values with commas: key1=path1,key2=path2)
      --set-string stringArray   set STRING values on the command line (can specify multiple or separate values with commas: key1=val1,key2=val2)
  -s, --show-only stringArray    only show manifests rendered from the given templates
      --skip-crds                setting this would set '--skip-crds' for helm template command while generating templates
      --skip-tests               setting this would set '--skip-tests' for helm template command while generating templates
      --validate                 setting this would set '--validate' for helm template command while generating templates
  -f, --values ValueFiles        specify values in a YAML file (can specify multiple) (default [])
      --version string           specify a version constraint for the chart version to use, the value passed here would be used to set --version for helm template command while generating templates


Use "images [command] --help" for more information about a command.

Commands

get

Lists all images those are part of specified chart/release and matches the pattern or part of specified registry.

Usage:
  images get [RELEASE] [CHART] [flags]

Examples:
  helm images get prometheus-standalone path/to/chart/prometheus-standalone -f ~/path/to/override-config.yaml
  helm images get prometheus-standalone --from-release --registry quay.io -o table
  helm images get prometheus-standalone --from-release --registry quay.io --unique
  helm images get prometheus-standalone --from-release --registry quay.io -o yaml
  helm images get oci://registry-1.docker.io/bitnamicharts/airflow -o yaml
  helm images get kong-2.35.0.tgz -o json

Flags:
      --from-release         enable the flag to fetch the images from release instead (disabled by default)
  -h, --help                 help for get
      --image-regex string   regex used to split helm template rendered (default "---\\n# Source:\\s.*.")
  -k, --kind strings         kubernetes app kind to fetch the images from (default [Deployment,StatefulSet,DaemonSet,CronJob,Job,ReplicaSet,Pod,Alertmanager,Prometheus,ThanosRuler,Grafana,Thanos,Receiver,ConfigMap])
  -l, --log-level string     log level for the plugin helm images (defaults to info) (default "info")
      --no-color             when enabled does not color encode the output
  -o, --output string        the format to which the output should be rendered to, it should be one of yaml|json|table|csv, if nothing specified it sets to default
  -r, --registry strings     registry name (docker images belonging to this registry)
      --skip strings         list of resources to skip from identifying images, ex: ConfigMap=sample-configmap | configmap=sample-configmap
  -u, --unique               enable the flag if duplicates to be removed from the retrieved list (disabled by default also overrides --kind)

Global Flags:
      --set stringArray          set values on the command line (can specify multiple or separate values with commas: key1=val1,key2=val2)
      --set-file stringArray     set values from respective files specified via the command line (can specify multiple or separate values with commas: key1=path1,key2=path2)
      --set-string stringArray   set STRING values on the command line (can specify multiple or separate values with commas: key1=val1,key2=val2)
  -s, --show-only stringArray    only show manifests rendered from the given templates
      --skip-crds                setting this would set '--skip-crds' for helm template command while generating templates
      --skip-tests               setting this would set '--skip-tests' for helm template command while generating templates
      --validate                 setting this would set '--validate' for helm template command while generating templates
  -f, --values ValueFiles        specify values in a YAML file (can specify multiple) (default [])
      --version string           specify a version constraint for the chart version to use, the value passed here would be used to set --version for helm template command while generating templates

Documentation

Updated documentation on all available commands and flags can be found here.

Caveats

If the plugin is not listing the expected images, then most likely the helm images plugin does not support fetching images from the workload that it is part of.
Invoking the plugin with log-level set to debug should give information if the plugin is not supporting the workload.

The plugin only supports the resources that are defined under flag --kind.

Available resources can be found here.