Introduction

Helm chart repositories are remote servers containing a collection of Kubernetes resource files. Charts are displayed in directory trees and packaged into Helm chart repositories.

To deploy applications with Helm, you need to know how to manage repositories.

In this tutorial, you will learn how to add, update, or remove Helm chart repositories.

How to add, update, or remove a Helm repo.

Prerequisites

  • A system running Ubuntu, Windows, or Mac.
  • Access to a command line/terminal.
  • A Kubernetes cluster installed.
  • Helm installed and configured.

How to Add Helm Repositories

The general syntax for adding a Helm chart repository is:

helm repo add [NAME] [URL] [flags]

To add official stable Helm charts, enter the following command:

helm repo add stable https://charts.helm.sh/stable

The terminal prints out a confirmation message when adding is complete:

Terminal command to add a Helm repository.

List the contents of the repository using the search repo command:

helm search repo stable

The terminal prints out the list of all available charts.

A list of Helm repositories when searched in the terminal.

How to Update Helm Repositories

Update all Helm repositories in your system by running the following command:

helm repo update

The output contains a list of all updated repositories.

How to update a helm repo.

How to Remove Helm Repositories

The general syntax for removing Helm repositories is:

helm repo remove [REPO1 [REPO2 ...]] [flags]

Remove a Helm repository by entering:

helm repo remove stable

The terminal prints out a confirmation message once the repository is removed.

Removing a Helm chart repo via terminal.

Note: Replace stable with the name of the repository you wish to remove.

Conclusion

After reading this tutorial, you should know how to add, update, or remove Helm repositories.

If you made some changes to your application that you want to revert, check out our article on how to rollback changes in Helm.

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