Traefik

Traefik is a modern HTTP reverse proxy and load balancer made to deploy microservices with ease.

Introduction

Philosophy

The Traefik Helm chart is focused on Traefik deployment configuration.

To keep this Helm chart as generic as possible, we avoid integrating third-party solutions or targeting specific use cases.

If you want to customize the chart for your needs, you can:

1. Override the default Traefik configuration values (see yaml file or CLI).
2. Append your own configurations (for example, by running kubectl apply -f myconf.yaml).

Examples of common usage are provided.

If you need to include additional Kubernetes objects or extend functionality, use extraObjects or add this chart as a subchart.

Major Changes

Starting with v28.x, this chart bootstraps Traefik Proxy version 3 as a Kubernetes ingress controller, using the IngressRoute Custom Resource.

To upgrade from chart versions prior to v28.x (which use Traefik Proxy version 2), see:

• Migration guide from v2 to v3
• Upgrade notes in the README on the v27 branch

Starting with v34.x, to work around Helm caveats, you can use an additional chart dedicated to CRDs: traefik-crds.

⚠️ This has been deprecated since v38.0.2.

Gateway API CRDs

⚠️ Gateway API CRDs are no longer shipped with this chart.

If you use the Kubernetes Gateway API provider, you will need to install them yourself before deploying Traefik v3.7.12:

kubectl apply -f https://github.com/kubernetes-sigs/gateway-api/releases/download/v1.6.1/standard-install.yaml

Support for unmaintained versions of Traefik Proxy

This chart's support policy aligns with the upstream support policy of Traefik Proxy.

If you need to use an unmaintained version of Traefik, it requires a previous version of the Chart.

Below is non-exhaustive compatibility list:

Installing

Prerequisites

1. Kubernetes (server) version v1.25.0 or higher: kubectl version
2. Helm v3.9.0 or higher installed: helm version
3. Traefik's chart repository: helm repo add traefik https://traefik.github.io/charts

Deploying

Standard Installation

To install the chart with default values:

helm install traefik traefik/traefik

or, to install from the OCI registry:

helm install traefik oci://ghcr.io/traefik/helm/traefik

To customize the installation, provide a custom values file:

helm install -f myvalues.yaml traefik traefik/traefik

To see example values files, refer to the provided EXAMPLES.

For complete documentation on all available parameters, check the default values file.

Verification

Starting with v37.0.0, chart releases are signed using provenance files.

To verify the chart, follow these steps:

1. Download the Public Signing Key

To download the official Traefik Helm chart signing key, run:

gpg --receive-keys --keyserver hkps://keys.openpgp.org 'B0FBA7678F685E9B7024B79FFD92BB57C5A71A99'

Example output:

gpg: key FD92BB57C5A71A99: public key "TraefikLabs Chart Signing Key <noreply@traefik.io>" imported
gpg: Total number processed: 1
gpg:               imported: 1

2. Export the Signing Key

By default, GnuPG v2 stores keyrings in a format that is not compatible with Helm chart provenance verification. Before you can verify a Helm chart, you must convert your keyrings to the legacy format:

gpg --export --output $HOME/.gnupg/pubring.gpg 'B0FBA7678F685E9B7024B79FFD92BB57C5A71A99'

3. Verify the Chart

To verify the chart, use the appropriate command for your registry:

• OCI Registry

  helm fetch --verify --keyring $HOME/.gnupg/traefik.pubring.gpg oci://ghcr.io/traefik/helm/traefik:<VERSION>
  

• Helm Registry (GitHub Pages)

  helm fetch --verify --keyring $HOME/.gnupg/traefik.pubring.gpg traefik/traefik --version <VERSION>
  

Upgrading

To see what has changed in each release, check the Changelog.

A new major version indicates that there is an incompatible breaking change.

[!WARNING] To avoid issues, always read the release notes for this chart before upgrading.

Upgrade the Standalone Traefik Chart

If you use Helm's native CRD management, you MUST upgrade CRDs before running helm upgrade, since Helm does not update CRDs automatically. See HIP-0011 for details.

To upgrade the Traefik chart and its CRDs:

# Update the chart repository
helm repo update
# Check current chart & Traefik version
helm search repo traefik/traefik
# Update Traefik CRDs
helm show crds traefik/traefik | kubectl apply --server-side --force-conflicts -f -
# Update Gateway API CRDs, if needed
kubectl apply -f https://github.com/kubernetes-sigs/gateway-api/releases/download/v1.5.1/standard-install.yaml
# Upgrade Traefik release
helm upgrade traefik traefik/traefik

Contributing

To contribute to this chart, please read the Contributing Guide.

Thank you to everyone who has already contributed!