Install Chaos Mesh using Helm

This document describes how to install Chaos Mesh in the production environment.

Prerequisites

Before installing Chaos Mesh, make sure that you have installed Helm in your environment.

To check whether Helm is installed or not, execute the following command:

  1. helm version

The expected output is as follows:

  1. version.BuildInfo{Version:"v3.5.4", GitCommit:"1b5edb69df3d3a08df77c9902dc17af864ff05d1", GitTreeState:"dirty", GoVersion: "go1.16.3"}

If your actual output is similar to the expected output with Version, GitCommit, GitTreeState, and GoVersion, it means that Helm is installed successfully.

Install Chaos Mesh using Helm - 图1note

In this document, Helm v3 is used in commands to make operations on Chaos Mesh. If Helm v2 is used in your environment, refer to Migrate Helm v2 to v3 or modify the Helm version to the v2 format.

Install Chaos Mesh using Helm

Step 1: Add Chaos Mesh repository

Add the Chaos Mesh repository to the Helm repository:

  1. helm repo add chaos-mesh https://charts.chaos-mesh.org

Step 2: View the installable versions of Chaos Mesh

To see charts that can be installed, execute the following command:

  1. helm search repo chaos-mesh

Install Chaos Mesh using Helm - 图2note

The above command will output the latest release of chart. If you want to install a historical version, execute the following command to view all released versions:

  1. helm search repo chaos-mesh -l

After the above command is completed, you can start installing Chaos Mesh.

Step 3: Create the namespace to install Chaos Mesh

It is recommended to install Chaos Mesh under the chaos-mesh namespace, or you can specify any namespace to install Chaos Mesh:

  1. kubectl create ns chaos-mesh

Step 4: Install Chaos Mesh in different environments

Install Chaos Mesh using Helm - 图3note

When installing Chaos Mesh on Kubernetes v1.15(or an earlier version), you need to manually install CRD. For more information, see FAQ.

As the daemons of different container runtimes listen on different socket paths, you need to set the appropriate values during installation. You can run the following installation commands according to different environments.

  • Docker
  • Containerd
  • K3s
  • CRI-O

Install Chaos Mesh using Helm - 图4info

To install a specific version of Chaos Mesh, add the --version x.y.z parameter after helm install. For example, helm install chaos-mesh chaos-mesh/chaos-mesh -n=chaos-mesh --version 2.1.0.

Install Chaos Mesh using Helm - 图5tip

To ensure high availability, Chaos Mesh turns on leader-election feature by default. If you do not need to use this feature, you can disable it manually with --set controllerManager.leaderElection.enabled=false.

If version <2.6.1, you still need to set --set controllerManager.replicaCount=1 to reduce the controller manager to one replica.

Verify the installation

To check the running status of Chaos Mesh, execute the following command:

  1. kubectl get po -n chaos-mesh

The expected output is as follows:

  1. NAME                                        READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
  2. chaos-controller-manager-69fd5c46c8-xlqpc   3/3     Running   0          2d5h
  3. chaos-daemon-jb8xh                          1/1     Running   0          2d5h
  4. chaos-dashboard-98c4c5f97-tx5ds             1/1     Running   0          2d5h

If your actual output is similar to the expected output with NAME, READY, STATUS, RESTARTS, and AGE, it means that Helm is installed successfully.

Install Chaos Mesh using Helm - 图6note

If the STATUS of your actual output is not Running, then execute the following command to check the Pod details, and troubleshoot issues according to the error information.

  1. # Take the chaos-controller as an example
  2. kubectl describe po -n chaos-mesh chaos-controller-manager-69fd5c46c8-xlqpc

Install Chaos Mesh using Helm - 图7note

If leader-election feature is turned off manually, chaos-controller-manager should only have 1 replication.

  1. NAME                                        READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
  2. chaos-controller-manager-69fd5c46c8-xlqpc   1/1     Running   0          2d5h
  3. chaos-daemon-jb8xh                          1/1     Running   0          2d5h
  4. chaos-dashboard-98c4c5f97-tx5ds             1/1     Running   0          2d5h

Run Chaos experiments

After verifying that the installation is complete, you can run a Chaos experiment to experience the features of Chaos Mesh.

For the method to run the experiment, it is recommended to refer to Run a Chaos experiment. After successfully creating the experiment, you can observe the running status of the experiment on the Chaos Dashboard.

Upgrade Chaos Mesh

To upgrade Chaos Mesh, execute the following command:

  1. helm upgrade chaos-mesh chaos-mesh/chaos-mesh

Install Chaos Mesh using Helm - 图8info

To upgrade to a specific version of Chaos Mesh, add the --version x.y.z parameter after helm upgrade. For example, helm upgrade chaos-mesh chaos-mesh/chaos-mesh -n=chaos-mesh --version 2.1.0.

Install Chaos Mesh using Helm - 图9note

If you have upgraded Chaos Mesh in a non-Docker environment, you will need to add the appropriate parameters as described in Step 4: Install Chaos Mesh in different environments.

To modify the configuration, set different values according to your need. For example, execute the following command to upgrade and uninstall chaos-dashboard:

Install Chaos Mesh using Helm - 图10note

For more values and their usages, refer to all values.

Install Chaos Mesh using Helm - 图11caution

Currently, the latest CustomResourceDefinition (CRD) is not applied during the Helm upgrading, which might cause errors. To avoid this situation, you can apply the latest CRD manually:

Uninstall Chaos Mesh

To uninstall Chaos Mesh, execute the following command:

  1. helm uninstall chaos-mesh -n chaos-mesh

FAQs

How can I install the latest version of Chaos Mesh?

The helm/chaos-mesh/values.yaml file defines the image of the latest version (the master branch). To install the latest version of Chaos Mesh, execute the following command:

  1. # Clone repository
  2. git clone https://github.com/chaos-mesh/chaos-mesh.git
  3. cd chaos-mesh
  5. helm install chaos-mesh helm/chaos-mesh -n=chaos-mesh

How can I disable the safe mode?

Safe mode allows you to disable authentication to the Chaos Mesh dashboard, and should only be used for non-production deployments. Safe mode is enabled by default. To disable the safe mode, specify dashboard.securityMode as false during the installation or upgrade:

How can I persist Chaos Dashboard data

Chaos Dashboard uses SQLite as the default database engine. If PV (Persistent Volumes) is disabled, the data of Chaos Dashboard will be lost after a reboot occurs. To avoid data loss, you can refer to the Persistence of Chaos Dashboard Data document to enable PV for Chaos Dashboard or set MySQL and PostgreSQL as the database engine.