Helm secrets

Where are secrets set in values.yaml in Kubernetes?

Published: Friday, Jul 22, 2022 Last modified: Wednesday, Oct 2, 2024

Take a values.yaml file like:

gitlabUrl: https://gitlab.example.com/
runnerRegistrationToken: "FOOBAR"
rbac:
  create: true

To reproduce my Kubernetes environment, setup minikube and then run:

  1. helm repo add gitlab https://charts.gitlab.io
  2. helm install gitlab-runner -f values.yaml gitlab/gitlab-runner

Where is the secret FOOBAR?

kubectl describe pods

Gives the clue…

To see the “secret” runnerRegistrationToken:

$ kubectl get secret gitlab-runner -o go-template='{{range $k,$v := .data}}{{"### "}}{{$k}}{{"\n"}}{{$v|base64decode}}{{"\n\n"}}{{end}}'
### runner-registration-token
FOOBAR