How to access values from a custom value.yaml files in templates (HELM)

Question

I am trying to access the key - values from a custom value file secretvalues.yaml passed to helm with the -f parameter. The key - value in this file is being passed to the yaml file postgres.configmap.yml.

here is my folder structure (there are there are a few other charts but I have removed them for simplicity)

├── k8shelmcharts
│   ├── Chart.yaml
│   ├── charts
│   │   ├── postgres-service
│   │   │   ├── Chart.yaml
│   │   │   ├── templates
│   │   │   │   ├── postgres.configmap.yml
│   │   │   │   ├── postgres.deployment.yml
│   │   │   │   └── postgres.service.yml
│   │   │   └── values.yaml
│   └── secretvalues.yaml

The contents of the values.yaml file in the postgres-services/ folder is

config:
  postgres_admin_name: "postgres"

The contents of the secretvalues.yaml file in the k8shelmchars/ folder is

secrets:
  postgres_admin_password: "password"

and the contents of the postgres.configmap.yml file in the postgres-services/ folder is

apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
  name: postgres-config
data:
  # property-like keys; each key maps to a simple value
  POSTGRES_USER: {{ .Values.config.postgres_admin_name }}
  POSTGRES_PASSWORD: {{ .secretvalues.secrets.postgres_admin_password }}

I have tried several combinations here like .secretvalues.secrets.postgres_admin_password, .Secretvalues.secrets.postgres_admin_password and tried to remove the secrets key but no avail.

When I run the command to install the charts helm install -f k8shelmcharts/secretvalues.yaml testapp k8shelmcharts/ --dry-run --debug I get the error:

Error: template: flask-k8s-app/charts/postgresdb/templates/postgres.configmap.yml:8:37: executing "flask-k8s-app/charts/postgresdb/templates/postgres.configmap.yml" at <.secretvalues.parameters.postgres_admin_password>: nil pointer evaluating interface {}.parameters
helm.go:94: [debug] template: flask-k8s-app/charts/postgresdb/templates/postgres.configmap.yml:8:37: executing "flask-k8s-app/charts/postgresdb/templates/postgres.configmap.yml" at <.secretvalues.parameters.postgres_admin_password>: nil pointer evaluating interface {}.parameters

my question is how do I access the secret.postgres_admin_password ?

I am using helm3

Thanks!

---

Trying to access the key-values from the secretvalues.yaml file by using POSTGRES_PASSWORD: {{ .Values.config.postgres_admin_password }} in the postgres.configmap.yml seems to pull null/nil values.

I am getting the error when I run helm install testapp k8shelmcharts/ --dry-run --debug -f k8shelmcharts/secretvalues.yaml:

Error: unable to build kubernetes objects from release manifest: error validating "": error validating data: unknown object type "nil" in ConfigMap.data.POSTGRES_PASSWORD
helm.go:94: [debug] error validating "": error validating data: unknown object type "nil" in ConfigMap.data.POSTGRES_PASSWORD

When I try to debug the template using helm template k8shelmcharts/ --debug, I see:

apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
  name: postgres-config
data:
  # property-like keys; each key maps to a simple value
  POSTGRES_USER: postgres
  POSTGRES_PASSWORD:         

indicating helm is not able to pull values from the secretvalues.yaml file. NOTE: I have updated the key from secrets to config in the secretvalues.yaml file.

Answer 1

Values from all files are merged into one object Values, so you should access variables from the secretvalues.yaml the same way you access the others, i.e.

.Values.secrets.postgres_admin_password