README.md

Zulip

Zulip is an open source threaded team chat that helps teams stay productive and focused.

Helm chart based on https://github.com/zulip/docker-zulip

Installation

Copy values-local.yaml.example, modify it as instructed in the comments, then install with the following commands:

helm dependency update                      # Get helm dependency charts
helm install -f ./values-local.yaml zulip . # Install Zulip

This will show a message on how to reach your Zulip installation and how to create your first realm. Wait for all your pods to be ready before you continue. You can run kubectl get pods to their current state. Once all pods are ready, you can run the commands to create a Realm, and you can reach Zulip following the instructions as well.

Installing on Minikube

You need to do a few things to make minikube serve Zulip with a TLS certificate. Without it, Zulip will not work.

If you haven't already, you need to set up cert-manager inside your minikube.

First, enable the "ingress" minikube addon (more info available here)

minikube addons enable ingress

Second, install cert-manager into your minikube cluster:

kubectl apply -f https://github.com/cert-manager/cert-manager/releases/download/v1.8.0/cert-manager.yaml

Now you'll need to add an issuer that issues self-signed certificates. Copy this into a file, self-signed-issuer.yaml

apiVersion: cert-manager.io/v1
kind: ClusterIssuer
metadata:
  name: selfsigned
  namespace: cert-manager
spec:
  selfSigned: {}

Now apply the issuer: kubectl apply -f self-signed-issuer.yaml

We'll host Zulip on zulip.local. Add that to your /etc/hosts file and point it to the IP address you get with the command minikube ip.

Now you're ready to follow the installation instructions above.

Values

Key	Type	Default	Description
affinity	object	{}	Affinity for pod assignment. Ref: https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/configuration/assign-pod-node/#affinity-and-anti-affinity
fullnameOverride	string	""	Fully override common.names.fullname template.
image.pullPolicy	string	"IfNotPresent"	Pull policy for Zulip docker image. Ref: https://kubernetes.io/docs/user-guide/images/#pre-pulling-images
image.repository	string	"zulip/docker-zulip"	Defaults to hub.docker.com/zulip/docker-zulip, but can be overwritten with a full HTTPS address.
image.tag	string	"8.3-0"	Zulip image tag (immutable tags are recommended)
imagePullSecrets	list	[]	Global Docker registry secret names as an array.
ingress.annotations	object	{}	Can be used to add custom Ingress annotations.
ingress.enabled	bool	false	Enable this to use an Ingress to reach the Zulip service.
ingress.hosts[0]	object	{"host":"zulip.example.com","paths":[{"path":"/"}]}	Host for the Ingress. Should be the same as zulip.environment.SETTING_EXTERNAL_HOST.
ingress.hosts[0].paths	list	[{"path":"/"}]	Serves Zulip root of the chosen host domain.
ingress.tls	list	[]	Set a specific secret to read the TLS certificate from. If you use cert-manager, it will save the TLS secret here. If you do not, you need to manually create a secret with your TLS certificate.
livenessProbe	object	{"enabled":true,"failureThreshold":3,"initialDelaySeconds":10,"periodSeconds":10,"successThreshold":1,"timeoutSeconds":5}	Liveness probe values. Ref: https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/workloads/pods/pod-lifecycle/#container-probes
memcached	object	{"memcachedUsername":"zulip@localhost"}	Memcached settings, see Requirements.
nameOverride	string	""	Partially override common.names.fullname template (will maintain the release name).
nodeSelector	object	{}	Optionally add a nodeSelector to the Zulip pod, so it runs on a specific node. Ref: https://kubernetes.io/docs/user-guide/node-selection/
podAnnotations	object	{}	Custom annotations to add to the Zulip Pod.
podLabels	object	{}	Custom labels to add to the Zulip Pod.
podSecurityContext	object	{}	Can be used to override the default PodSecurityContext (fsGroup, runAsUser and runAsGroup) of the Zulip Pod.
postSetup.scripts	object	{}	The Docker entrypoint script runs commands from /data/post-setup.d after the Zulip application's Setup phase has completed. Scripts can be added here as script_filename: <script contents> and they will be mounted in /data/post-setup.d/script_filename.
postgresql	object	{"auth":{"database":"zulip","username":"zulip"},"image":{"repository":"zulip/zulip-postgresql","tag":14},"primary":{"containerSecurityContext":{"runAsUser":0}}}	PostgreSQL settings, see Requirements.
rabbitmq	object	{"auth":{"username":"zulip"},"persistence":{"enabled":false}}	Rabbitmq settings, see Requirements.
redis	object	{"architecture":"standalone","master":{"persistence":{"enabled":false}}}	Redis settings, see Requirements.
resources	object	{}
securityContext	object	{}	Can be used to override the default SecurityContext of the Zulip container.
service	object	{"port":80,"type":"ClusterIP"}	Service type and port for the Kubernetes service that connects to Zulip. Default: ClusterIP, needs an Ingress to be used.
serviceAccount.annotations	object	{}	Annotations to add to the service account.
serviceAccount.create	bool	true	Specifies whether a service account should be created.
serviceAccount.name	string	""	The name of the service account to use. If not set and create is true, a name is generated using the fullname template
startupProbe	object	{"enabled":true,"failureThreshold":30,"initialDelaySeconds":10,"periodSeconds":10,"successThreshold":1,"timeoutSeconds":5}	Startup probe values. Ref: https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/workloads/pods/pod-lifecycle/#container-probes
statefulSetAnnotations	object	{}	Custom annotations to add to the Zulip StatefulSet.
statefulSetLabels	object	{}	Custom labels to add to the Zulip StatefulSet.
tolerations	list	[]	Tolerations for pod assignment. Ref: https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/configuration/taint-and-toleration/
zulip.environment.DISABLE_HTTPS	bool	true	Disables HTTPS if set to "true". HTTPS and certificates are managed by the Kubernetes cluster, so by default it's disabled inside the container
zulip.environment.SECRETS_email_password	string	"123456789"	SMTP email password.
zulip.environment.SETTING_EMAIL_HOST	string	""
zulip.environment.SETTING_EMAIL_HOST_USER	string	"noreply@example.com"
zulip.environment.SETTING_EMAIL_PORT	string	"587"
zulip.environment.SETTING_EMAIL_USE_SSL	string	"False"
zulip.environment.SETTING_EMAIL_USE_TLS	string	"True"
zulip.environment.SETTING_EXTERNAL_HOST	string	"zulip.example.com"	Domain Zulip is hosted on.
zulip.environment.SETTING_ZULIP_ADMINISTRATOR	string	"admin@example.com"
zulip.environment.SSL_CERTIFICATE_GENERATION	string	"self-signed"	Set SSL certificate generation to self-signed because Kubernetes manages the client-facing SSL certs.
zulip.environment.ZULIP_AUTH_BACKENDS	string	"EmailAuthBackend"
zulip.persistence	object	{"accessMode":"ReadWriteOnce","enabled":true,"size":"10Gi"}	If persistence.existingClaim is not set, a PVC is generated with these specifications.

About this helm chart

This helm chart sets up a StatefulSet that runs a Zulip pod, that in turn runs the docker-zulip Dockerized Zulip version. Configuration of Zulip happens through environment variables that are defined in the values.yaml under zulip.environment. These environment variables are forwarded to the Docker container, you can read more about configuring Zulip through environment variables here.

Dependencies

The chart uses Memcached, RabbitMQ and Redis helm charts defined in the Bitnami Helm repository. Most of these are configured following their default settings, but you can check https://github.com/bitnami/charts/tree/master/bitnami/ for more configuration options of the subcharts.

For PostgreSQL the chart also uses the Bitnami chart to install it on the Kubernetes cluster. However, in this case we use Zulip's zulip-postgresql docker image, because it contains the Postgresql plugins that are needed to run Zulip.

Requirements

Repository	Name	Version
https://charts.bitnami.com/bitnami	memcached	6.0.16
https://charts.bitnami.com/bitnami	postgresql	11.1.22
https://charts.bitnami.com/bitnami	rabbitmq	8.32.0
https://charts.bitnami.com/bitnami	redis	16.8.7