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This guide will walk you through the steps to integrate MySQL into your existing Helm chart for your Kubernetes application. By adding MySQL, you can leverage its capabilities for relational database management. We will use the Bitnami MySQL Helm chart as a dependency and configure it accordingly.

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Prerequisites

  • Helm installed and configured
  • Kubernetes cluster up and running
  • Existing Helm chart for your application

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Steps to Integrate MySQL

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1. Add MySQL Helm Repository

First, add the Bitnami repository, which hosts the MySQL Helm chart, 
helm repo add bitnami https://charts.bitnami.com/bitnami
helm repo update

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2. Update Chart.yaml

Open your existing Helm chart directory and edit the Chart.yaml file to add MySQL as a dependency,
Chart.yaml
# Chart.yaml

apiVersion: v2
name: your-app
description: A Helm chart for your Kubernetes application
version: 0.1.0
appVersion: '1.0'

dependencies:
  - name: mysql
    version: 9.3.5
    repository: https://charts.bitnami.com/bitnami

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3. Update values.yaml

Create or update the values.yaml file to include configuration values for MySQL. Customize the values as per your requirements.
values.yaml
mysql:
  enabled: true
  auth:
    rootPassword: myrootpassword
    database: mydatabase
    username: myuser
    password: mypassword
  primary:
    persistence:
      enabled: true
      size: 50Gi
Over-provisioning on disk size (primary.persistence.size) isn’t a bad idea considering that disks are cheap in any cloud. It is also slightly trickier to increase volume sizes at later point in time due to some Kubernetes limitations. So we recommend you pick a good number here from the start.

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4. Install/Update Dependencies

Navigate to your Helm chart directory and run the following command to update dependencies, 
helm dependency update
This command will download the MySQL chart and add it to your charts/ directory.
  1. Update Your Application Deployment
Modify your application’s deployment files to include the MySQL service. Ensure your application can connect to MySQL using the service name and credentials specified in the values.yaml file. For example, if using a ConfigMap to store environment variables for your application, you might update it like this,
templates/configmap.yaml
apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
  name: your-app-config
data:
  DATABASE_HOST: 'your-app-mysql'
  DATABASE_PORT: '3306'
  DATABASE_USER: 'myuser'
  DATABASE_PASSWORD: 'mypassword'
  DATABASE_NAME: 'mydatabase'

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6. Deploy Your Application

Finally, deploy or upgrade your application using Helm, 
helm install your-app ./your-app-chart
# or if upgrading an existing release
helm upgrade your-app ./your-app-chart

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7. Verify Deployment

Check the status of your Helm release to ensure everything is running correctly, 
helm status your-app
Also, verify that the MySQL pod is running, 
kubectl get pods
You should see a pod for MySQL, something like your-app-mysql-0. Congratulations! You have successfully added MySQL to your existing Helm chart. 🚀 This integration allows your application to use MySQL for relational database management, managed efficiently with Helm. Customize the MySQL configuration further by modifying the values.yaml file as needed. For more detailed configurations and advanced settings, refer to the Bitnami MySQL Helm chart documentation.