Plan stalls due to failed tiller during helm_resource state refresh

[joatmon08]

Terraform Version

Terraform v0.12.6

• provider.helm v0.10.2

Affected Resource(s)

• helm_resource
• tiller

Terraform Configuration Files

main.tf

terraform {
  required_version = "~> 0.12"
}

provider "helm" {
  version = "~> 0.10"
  install_tiller = true
}

module "helm-consul" {
  source    = "./helm-consul"
  name      = "consul"
  namespace = var.namespace
  enable    = true
}

module file (located in ./helm-consul)

resource "helm_release" "consul" {
  name      = var.name
  chart     = "${path.module}/consul-helm"  ## official Helm Consul chart, local
  namespace = var.namespace

  set {
    name  = "server.replicas"
    value = var.replicas
  }

  set {
    name  = "server.bootstrapExpect"
    value = var.replicas
  }

  set {
    name  = "server.connect"
    value = true
  }

  provisioner "local-exec" {
    command = "helm test ${var.name}"
  }
}

Debug Output

https://gist.github.com/joatmon08/c77de83d65709c06e5313331f3aa8c4a

Expected Behavior

Tiller pod should be re-initialized or error message should return "could not find a ready tiller pod".

Actual Behavior

$ terraform plan
Refreshing Terraform state in-memory prior to plan...
The refreshed state will be used to calculate this plan, but will not be
persisted to local or remote state storage.

module.helm-consul.helm_release.consul[0]: Refreshing state... [id=consul]

Error: timeout while waiting for state to become 'Running' (last state: 'Pending', timeout: 5m0s)

Steps to Reproduce

1. Create a Kubernetes cluster.

2. Run terraform init with install_tiller = true. Tiller initializes correctly in cluster.

3. Successfully deploy a helm_resource using terraform apply. This gets logged into Terraform state.

4. Scale Tiller deployment down using kubectl scale deployment/tiller-deploy -n kube-system --replicas=0. (To mimic failed tiller.)

5. Run terraform plan. It will wait for available tiller pod and times out.

Important Factoids

Initially, we discovered this when we created a managed Kubernetes cluster and updated some configuration. This caused the Kubernetes cluster to destroy and re-create itself. When the cluster re-initialized, Tiller was stuck in a failed state. Running helm init again re-deployed the Tiller pod and allows the plan to complete.

While this does not apply to Helm v3, any cluster running Helm v2 that is re-created could result in a failed tiller pod and cause the plan to stall. Initially discussed this with @alexsomesan, posting here to collect input.

References

N/A

[alexsomesan]

Able to reproduce this. I'll be working on a fix in the coming days.

[mmclane]

I am seeing this issue. Any updates?

[fl-max]

I'm seeing this same issue however Tiller never failed and is still healthy

Stuck on:
helm_release.airflow: Refreshing state... [id=heroic-seahorse]

In Tiller, I see:

[storage] 2019/10/31 17:14:19 getting last revision of "heroic-seahorse"
[storage] 2019/10/31 17:14:19 getting release history for "heroic-seahorse"
[storage] 2019/10/31 17:14:20 getting last revision of "heroic-seahorse"
[storage] 2019/10/31 17:14:20 getting release history for "heroic-seahorse"

Cancelling and running the plan again seems to fix it.

[zzzuzik]

+1 constantly stuck with
getting last revision... getting release ...

[ryudice]

Hi, same issue here

[zzzuzik]

btw, since my resource is recyclable, workarounded the problem by issuing terraform destroy for the resource and creating it with a different terraform name, like resource.mysql -> resource.mysql2

[suheb]

I found a workaround to this. You need to delete the failed tiller-deploy pod in your cluster.
Run kubectl -n kube-system get pods | grep tiller to get the pod name.
Then, run kubectl delete pods <pod>.

After this, terraform plan should run normally.

[cliedeman]

In my case I had made a mistake and the deploy never started the tiller pod because the sa account could not be found

kubectl -n kube-system get deploy | grep tiller-deploy

Deleting the deploy fixed my issue. Can't wait for helm 3

[ArthurSens]

I'm experiencing a similar issue.

I've created an eks cluster with terraform and deployed tiller and some helm_resources with the helm provider.

After that I deleted my eks cluster with terraform destroy -target=module.eks

Of course, all my pods were deleted with the cluster and I cannot perform any of the following comands terraform plan, terraform apply, terraform destroy.. with the following logs:

module.helm-releases.helm_release.metrics-server: Refreshing state... [id=metrics-server]


Error: timeout while waiting for state to become 'Running' (last state: 'Pending', timeout: 5m0s)

---

Just to let you guys know...
The issue was solved with

terraform state rm module.helm-releases.helm_release.metrics-server
terraform destroy -auto-approve

[pio2pio]

after removing tiller pod manually, terraform was unable to refresh the state got stack in
module.kubernetes.module.config.module.gitlab-ci.helm_release.gitlab[0]: Refreshing state... [id=gitlab-runner]

Removing missing resource from the state file resolved the issue

$ terraform state rm module.kubernetes.module.config.module.gitlab-ci.helm_release.gitlab[0]
Removed module.kubernetes.module.config.module.gitlab-ci.helm_release.gitlab[0]
Successfully removed 1 resource instance(s).

[nidhi5885]

The issue is intermittent, I am also facing the same.

[mcuadros]

Closing this issue since is making reference to a version based on Helm 2, if this is still valid to the master branch please reopen it. Thanks.

[ghost]

I'm going to lock this issue because it has been closed for 30 days ⏳. This helps our maintainers find and focus on the active issues.

If you feel this issue should be reopened, we encourage creating a new issue linking back to this one for added context. If you feel I made an error 🤖 🙉 , please reach out to my human friends 👉 hashibot-feedback@hashicorp.com. Thanks!