Installing Helm Chart

This guide walks through installing Helm and deploying the kube-prometheus-stack Helm chart to provision Prometheus, Alertmanager, and related Kubernetes monitoring components. You’ll learn how to install Helm, add the Prometheus Community chart repository, inspect and customize chart values, and install/uninstall the chart.

Prerequisites

A Kubernetes cluster with kubectl configured to talk to it.
Sufficient RBAC permissions to create the monitoring components (or use a cluster-admin account for initial testing).

Install Helm

Follow the official Helm installation instructions: https://helm.sh/docs/. A quick cross-platform installer script is available for Linux/macOS:

curl -fsSL -o get_helm.sh https://raw.githubusercontent.com/helm/helm/main/scripts/get-helm-3
chmod 700 get_helm.sh
./get_helm.sh

You can also run the script via a pipe (less secure):

curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/helm/helm/main/scripts/get-helm-3 | bash

If you prefer a package manager:

brew install helm
choco install kubernetes-helm
scoop install helm

Or extract a tarball and move the binary:

tar -zxvf helm-v3.0.0-linux-amd64.tar.gz
mv linux-amd64/helm /usr/local/bin/helm

Verify Helm is installed:

helm version

Example output:

version.BuildInfo{Version:"v3.10.2", GitCommit:"50f003e5ee8704ec937a756c646870227d7c8b58", GitTreeState:"clean", GoVersion:"go1.18.8"}

Quick reference: Installation methods

Method	Command / Notes
Installer script	`./get_helm.sh` (download + run)
Direct pipe (not recommended)	`curl ... \| bash`
Homebrew (macOS)	`brew install helm`
Chocolatey (Windows)	`choco install kubernetes-helm`
Scoop (Windows)	`scoop install helm`
Tarball	`tar -zxvf ... && mv linux-amd64/helm /usr/local/bin/helm`

If you manage machines with configuration management or CI, install Helm using your package manager or extract the tarball and add the helm binary to your PATH for consistent, auditable installs.

Add the Prometheus Helm repository

Add the Prometheus Community charts repository and update the local index:

helm repo add prometheus-community https://prometheus-community.github.io/helm-charts
helm repo update

Expected output when the repo already exists:

"prometheus-community" already exists with the same configuration, skipping
Hang tight while we grab the latest from your chart repositories...
...Successfully got an update from the "prometheus-community" chart repository
Update Complete. ⚓ Happy Helming! ⚓

Inspect chart values (customization)

Charts expose configurable values to tailor deployments. To view the default values for kube-prometheus-stack:

helm show values prometheus-community/kube-prometheus-stack

The output is extensive. Save the defaults to a local file to edit:

helm show values prometheus-community/kube-prometheus-stack > values.yaml

Open values.yaml to customize namespaces, service types, ports, resource requests, and more. Example excerpts from the defaults:

containers: []

volumes: []
volumeMounts: []

initContainers: []

priorityClassName: ""

portName: "web"

extraSecret:
  annotations: {}
  data: {}

cleanPrometheusOperatorObjectNames: false

Service configuration excerpt:

externalTrafficPolicy: Cluster

type: ClusterIP

servicePerReplica:
  enabled: false
  annotations: {}

port: 9093
targetPort: 9093
nodePort: 30904

If you plan to customize the chart, edit values.yaml and pass it when installing or upgrading the release with -f values.yaml.

Install the kube-prometheus-stack chart

Install using the chart defaults:

helm install prometheus prometheus-community/kube-prometheus-stack

Notes:

prometheus is the Helm release name; choose any valid release name (for example monitoring or prom-stack).
To apply your custom values:

helm install prometheus prometheus-community/kube-prometheus-stack -f values.yaml

Uninstall the release:

helm uninstall prometheus

Example install session

helm repo add prometheus-community https://prometheus-community.github.io/helm-charts
helm repo update

helm install prometheus prometheus-community/kube-prometheus-stack

Example successful install output:

NAME: prometheus
LAST DEPLOYED: Mon Nov 21 13:22:39 2022
NAMESPACE: default
STATUS: deployed
REVISION: 1
NOTES:
  kube-prometheus-stack has been installed. Check its status by running:
    kubectl --namespace default get pods -l "release=prometheus"

Visit https://github.com/prometheus-operator/kube-prometheus for instructions on how to create & configure Alertmanager and Prometheus instances using the Operator.

After installation, verify deployed resources:

kubectl --namespace default get pods -l "release=prometheus"
kubectl get all -l "release=prometheus"

Chart documentation and files

To understand how the chart templates resources (Deployments, StatefulSets, Services, CRDs, and ConfigMaps) and how the Operator configures Prometheus and Alertmanager, inspect the chart files (templates, crds, Chart.yaml, values.yaml, README).

A GitHub repository page for prometheus-community/helm-charts showing the kube-prometheus-stack chart. The screen displays the chart's file list (folders like templates, crds and files such as Chart.yaml, values.yaml) and the README with prerequisites.

Next steps

Examine the Kubernetes resources created by the chart: Deployments, StatefulSets, Services, CRDs, ConfigMaps, ServiceMonitors, and PodMonitors.
Review the values.yaml you generated and iterate on resource sizing, persistence, and alerting rules.
Configure ingress or port-forwarding to access Grafana and Prometheus UI, and secure access with RBAC and secrets.

Links and references

Helm documentation: https://helm.sh/docs/
Prometheus Community Helm charts: https://prometheus-community.github.io/helm-charts
kube-prometheus repository: https://github.com/prometheus-operator/kube-prometheus

Introduction

Observability Fundamentals

Prometheus Fundamentals

PromQL

Dashboarding & Visualization

Application Instrumentation

Service Discovery

Push Gateway

Alerting

Monitoring Kubernetes

Conclusion

Scaling & Long Term Storage

Installing Helm Chart

Prerequisites

Install Helm

Quick reference: Installation methods

Add the Prometheus Helm repository

Inspect chart values (customization)

Install the kube-prometheus-stack chart

Example install session

Chart documentation and files

Next steps

Links and references

Watch Video

​Prerequisites

​Install Helm

​Quick reference: Installation methods

​Add the Prometheus Helm repository

​Inspect chart values (customization)

​Install the kube-prometheus-stack chart

​Example install session

​Chart documentation and files

​Next steps

​Links and references

Watch Video

Prerequisites

Install Helm

Quick reference: Installation methods

Add the Prometheus Helm repository

Inspect chart values (customization)

Install the kube-prometheus-stack chart

Example install session

Chart documentation and files

Next steps

Links and references