How to initialize NewClientFromKubeConf on Google Cloud's GKE

[masus04]

I am trying to create a Client using the NewClientFromKubeConf factory but keep getting errors.

If I try to simply pass an empty KubeConfClientOptions I get the following error:

panic: kubeconfig missing

Even though my kubeconfig is located under ~/.kube/config and $KUBECONFIG is set accordingly.

So instead I tried passing the KubeConfig parameter to KubeConfClientOptions:

kubeConfig, err := os.ReadFile(kubeConfigPath)
checkErr(err)

clientOptions := &helmclient.KubeConfClientOptions{
    KubeConfig: kubeConfig,
}

kubeConfig properly contains the kubeconfig file as []byte, but I receive the following error anyway:

panic: runtime error: invalid memory address or nil pointer dereference [recovered]
	panic: runtime error: invalid memory address or nil pointer dereference
[signal SIGSEGV: segmentation violation code=0x1 addr=0x0 pc=0x243b3d6]

With a StackTrace that points to this line:

client, err := helmclient.NewClientFromKubeConf(clientOptions)

Am I misunderstanding something?

[zvonkok]

You haven't created a helmclient.Options object. Since it is a pointer a dereference to read its values will fail. Start with a full example and remove parts that you do not need. https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/mittwald/go-helm-client@v0.9.0#example-NewClientFromKubeConf

This is how I use it:

        // Either provide path or read from default location
	if path == "" {
		homeDir, err := os.UserHomeDir()
		if err != nil {
			return errors.Wrap(err, "GetClientWithKubeConf: cannot read user home dir")
		}
		path = homeDir + "/.kube/config"
	}

	kubeConfig, err := os.ReadFile(path)
	if err != nil {
		return errors.Wrapf(err, "GetClientWithKubeConf cannot read kubeConfig from path %s:%v", path, err)
	}

	opt := &helmclient.KubeConfClientOptions{
		Options: &helmclient.Options{
			Namespace:        h.ChartSpec.Namespace, // Change this to the namespace you wish to install the chart in.
			RepositoryCache:  "/tmp/.helmcache",
			RepositoryConfig: "/tmp/.helmrepo",
			Debug:            true,
			Linting:          false, // Change this to false if you don't want linting.
			DebugLog:         klog.Infof,
		},
		KubeContext: kubeContext,
		KubeConfig:  kubeConfig,
	}

	h.HelmClient, err = helmclient.NewClientFromKubeConf(opt)
	if err != nil {
		return errors.Wrap(err, "GetClientWithKubeConf cannot create client from kubeConfig")
	}
	return nil

[masus04]

@zvonkok That did the trick, thank you 👍

Now I'm running into the next error that I don't know how to solve:

panic: Kubernetes cluster unreachable: no Auth Provider found for name "gcp"

Is there any chance you have a solution for that as well?

[zvonkok]

Add this to your imports:

_ "k8s.io/client-go/plugin/pkg/client/auth/gcp" // register GCP auth provider

[masus04]

Great, thank you very much!

[masus04]

I think error handling messages could be slightly improved: Similar to how a readable error is thrown when KubeConfig is not passed, the same could be donw for Options. Or simply use a reasonable default instead of the current error that is hard to interpret.