Deploy UniLink on Kubernetes using Helm Charts
This guide will help you to deploy a production ready UniLink instance with Helm Charts.
To quickly try out the charts, follow the two steps below. For a production deployment, please make sure to
pass in the required arguments to helm using your custom values.yaml
file.
helm repo add chatwoot https://chatwoot.github.io/charts
helm install chatwoot chatwoot/chatwoot
Prerequisites
- Kubernetes 1.16+
- Helm 3.1.0+
- PV provisioner support in the underlying infrastructure
The helm installation will create 3 "Persistent Volume Claims" for redis, rails and postgres. Setup up a default "Storage Class" (for automatic PV) or create 3 "Persistent Volumes" with the size of 8GB, before installing chatwoot. If the "Persistent Volume Claims" do not claim the "Persistent Volumes", leave storageClassName blank (inside the PV .yaml files).
Installing the chart
To install the chart with the release name chatwoot
, use the following. To deploy it in chatwoot
namespace, pass -n chatwoot
to the command.
helm install chatwoot chatwoot/chatwoot -f <your-custom-values.yaml> #-n chatwoot
The command deploys UniLink on the Kubernetes cluster in the default configuration. The parameters section lists the parameters that can be configured during installation.
Tip: List all releases using
helm list
Uninstalling the chart
To uninstall/delete the chatwoot
deployment:
helm delete chatwoot
The command removes all the Kubernetes components associated with the chart and deletes the release.
Note: Persistent volumes are not deleted automatically. They need to be removed manually.
Parameters
UniLink Image parameters
Name | Description | Value |
---|---|---|
image.repository | UniLink image repository | chatwoot/chatwoot |
image.tag | UniLink image tag (immutable tags are recommended) | v2.16.0 |
image.pullPolicy | UniLink image pull policy | IfNotPresent |
UniLink Environment Variables
Name | Type | Default Value |
---|---|---|
env.ACTIVE_STORAGE_SERVICE | Storage service. local for disk. amazon for s3. | "local" |
env.ASSET_CDN_HOST | Set if CDN is used for asset delivery. | "" |
env.INSTALLATION_ENV | Sets chatwoot installation method. | "helm" |
env.ENABLE_ACCOUNT_SIGNUP | true : default option, allows sign ups, false : disables all the end points related to sign ups, api_only : disables the UI for signup but you can create sign ups via the account apis. | "false" |
env.FORCE_SSL | Force all access to the app over SSL, default is set to false. | "false" |
env.FRONTEND_URL | Replace with the URL you are planning to use for your app. | "http://0.0.0.0:3000/" |
env.IOS_APP_ID | Change this variable only if you are using a custom build for mobile app. | "6C953F3RX2.com.chatwoot.app" |
env.ANDROID_BUNDLE_ID | Change this variable only if you are using a custom build for mobile app. | "com.chatwoot.app" |
env.ANDROID_SHA256_CERT_FINGERPRINT | Change this variable only if you are using a custom build for mobile app. | "AC:73:8E:DE:EB:5............" |
env.MAILER_SENDER_EMAIL | The email from which all outgoing emails are sent. | "" |
env.RAILS_ENV | Sets rails environment. | "production" |
env.RAILS_MAX_THREADS | Number of threads each worker will use. | "5" |
env.SECRET_KEY_BASE | Used to verify the integrity of signed cookies. Ensure a secure value is set. | replace_with_your_super_duper_secret_key_base |
env.SENTRY_DSN | Sentry data source name. | "" |
env.SMTP_ADDRESS | Set your smtp address. | "" |
env.SMTP_AUTHENTICATION | Allowed values: plain ,login ,cram_md5 | "plain" |
env.SMTP_ENABLE_STARTTLS_AUTO | Defaults to true. | "true" |
env.SMTP_OPENSSL_VERIFY_MODE | Can be: none , peer , client_once , fail_if_no_peer_cert | "none" |
env.SMTP_PASSWORD | SMTP password | "" |
env.SMTP_PORT | SMTP port | "587" |
env.SMTP_USERNAME | SMTP username | "" |
env.USE_INBOX_AVATAR_FOR_BOT | Bot customizations | "true" |
Email setup for conversation continuity (Incoming emails)
Name | Type | Default Value |
---|---|---|
env.MAILER_INBOUND_EMAIL_DOMAIN | This is the domain set for the reply emails when conversation continuity is enabled. | "" |
env.RAILS_INBOUND_EMAIL_SERVICE | Set this to appropriate ingress channel with regards to incoming emails. Possible values are relay , mailgun , mandrill , postmark and sendgrid . | "" |
env.RAILS_INBOUND_EMAIL_PASSWORD | Password for the email service. | "" |
env.MAILGUN_INGRESS_SIGNING_KEY | Set if using mailgun for incoming conversations. | "" |
env.MANDRILL_INGRESS_API_KEY | Set if using mandrill for incoming conversations. | "" |
Postgres variables
Name | Type | Default Value |
---|---|---|
postgresql.enabled | Set to false if using external postgres and modify the below variables. | true |
postgresql.auth.database | UniLink database name | chatwoot_production |
postgresql.postgresqlHost | Postgres host. Edit if using external postgres. | "" |
postgresql.auth.postgresPassword | Postgres password. Edit if using external postgres. | postgres |
postgresql.postgresqlPort | Postgres port | 5432 |
postgresql.auth.username | Postgres username. | postgres |
Redis variables
Name | Type | Default Value |
---|---|---|
redis.auth.password | Password used for internal redis cluster | redis |
redis.enabled | Set to false if using external redis and modify the below variables. | true |
redis.host | Redis host name | "" |
redis.port | Redis port | "" |
redis.password | Redis password | "" |
env.REDIS_TLS | Set to true if TLS(rediss:// ) is required | false |
env.REDIS_SENTINELS | Redis Sentinel can be used by passing list of sentinel host and ports. | "" |
env.REDIS_SENTINEL_MASTER_NAME | Redis sentinel master name is required when using sentinel. | "" |
Logging variables
Name | Type | Default Value |
---|---|---|
env.RAILS_LOG_TO_STDOUT | string | "true" |
env.LOG_LEVEL | string | "info" |
env.LOG_SIZE | string | "500" |
Third party credentials
Name | Type | Default Value |
---|---|---|
env.S3_BUCKET_NAME | S3 bucket name | "" |
env.AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID | Amazon access key ID | "" |
env.AWS_REGION | Amazon region | "" |
env.AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY | Amazon secret key ID | "" |
env.FB_APP_ID | For facebook channel https://www.chatwoot.com/docs/facebook-setup | "" |
env.FB_APP_SECRET | For facebook channel | "" |
env.FB_VERIFY_TOKEN | For facebook channel | "" |
env.SLACK_CLIENT_ID | For slack integration | "" |
env.SLACK_CLIENT_SECRET | For slack integration | "" |
env.TWITTER_APP_ID | For twitter channel | "" |
env.TWITTER_CONSUMER_KEY | For twitter channel | "" |
env.TWITTER_CONSUMER_SECRET | For twitter channel | "" |
env.TWITTER_ENVIRONMENT | For twitter channel | "" |
Autoscaling
Name | Type | Default Value |
---|---|---|
web.hpa.enabled | Horizontal Pod Autoscaling for UniLink web | false |
web.hpa.cputhreshold | CPU threshold for UniLink web | 80 |
web.hpa.minpods | Minimum number of pods for UniLink web | 1 |
web.hpa.maxpods | Maximum number of pods for UniLink web | 10 |
web.replicaCount | No of web pods if hpa is not enabled | 1 |
worker.hpa.enabled | Horizontal Pod Autoscaling for UniLink worker | false |
worker.hpa.cputhreshold | CPU threshold for UniLink worker | 80 |
worker.hpa.minpods | Minimum number of pods for UniLink worker | 2 |
worker.hpa.maxpods | Maximum number of pods for UniLink worker | 10 |
worker.replicaCount | No of worker pods if hpa is not enabled | 1 |
Other Parameters
Key | Type | Default | Description |
---|---|---|---|
affinity | object | {} | |
existingEnvSecret | string | "" | Allows the use of an existing secret to set env variables |
fullnameOverride | string | "" | |
hooks.affinity | object | {} | |
hooks.migrate.env | list | [] | |
hooks.migrate.hookAnnotation | string | "post-install,post-upgrade" | |
hooks.migrate.resources.limits.memory | string | "1000Mi" | |
hooks.migrate.resources.requests.memory | string | "1000Mi" | |
imagePullSecrets | list | [] | |
ingress.annotations | object | {} | |
ingress.enabled | bool | false | |
ingress.hosts[0].host | string | "" | |
ingress.hosts[0].paths[0].backend.service.name | string | "chatwoot" | |
ingress.hosts[0].paths[0].backend.service.port.number | int | 3000 | |
ingress.hosts[0].paths[0].path | string | "/" | |
ingress.hosts[0].paths[0].pathType | string | "Prefix" | |
ingress.tls | list | [] | |
nameOverride | string | "" | |
nodeSelector | object | {} | |
podAnnotations | object | {} | |
podSecurityContext | object | {} | |
redis.master.persistence.enabled | bool | true | |
redis.nameOverride | string | "chatwoot-redis" | |
resources | object | {} | |
securityContext | object | {} | |
service.port | int | 80 | |
service.type | string | "ClusterIP" | |
serviceAccount.annotations | object | {} | |
serviceAccount.create | bool | true | |
serviceAccount.name | string | "" | |
services.annotations | object | {} | |
services.internalPort | int | 3000 | |
services.name | string | "chatwoot" | |
services.targetPort | int | 3000 | |
services.type | string | "LoadBalancer" | |
tolerations | list | [] |
Install with custom parameters
Specify each parameter using the --set key=value[,key=value]
argument to helm install
. For example,
helm install my-release \
--set env.FRONTEND_URL="chat.yourdomain.com"\
chatwoot/chatwoot
The above command sets the UniLink server frontend URL to chat.yourdoamain.com
.
Alternatively, a YAML file that specifies the values for the parameters can be provided while installing the chart. For example,
helm install my-release -f values.yaml chatwoot/chatwoot
Tip You can use the default
values.yaml
file.
Postgres
PostgreSQL is installed along with the chart if you choose the default setup. To use an external Postgres DB, please set postgresql.enabled
to false
and set the variables under the Postgres section above.
Redis
Redis is installed along with the chart if you choose the default setup. To use an external Redis DB, please set redis.enabled
to false
and set the variables under the Redis section above.
ActionController::InvalidAuthenticityToken HTTP Origin header https://mydomain.com didn't match request.base_url http://mydomain.comv
Autoscaling
To enable horizontal pod autoscaling, set web.hpa.enabled
and worker.hpa.enabled
to true
. Also make sure to uncomment the values under, resources.limits
and resources.requests
. This assumes your k8s cluster is already having a metrics-server. If not, deploy metrics-server with the following command.
kubectl apply -f https://github.com/kubernetes-sigs/metrics-server/releases/latest/download/components.yaml
Upgrading
Do helm repo update
and check the version of charts that is going to be installed. Helm charts follows semantic versioning and so if the MAJOR version is different from your installed version, there might be breaking changes. Please refer to the changelog before upgrading.
# update helm repositories
helm repo update
# list your current installed version
helm list
# show the latest version of charts that is going to be installed
helm search repo chatwoot
#if it is major version update, refer to the changelog before proceeding
helm upgrade chatwoot chatwoot/chatwoot -f <your-custom-values>.yaml
To 1.x.x
Make sure you are on UniLink helm charts version 0.9.0
before upgrading to version 1.x.x
. If not, please upgrade to 0.9.0
before proceeding.
helm repo update
helm upgrade chatwoot chatwoot/chatwoot --version="0.9.0" -f <your-custom-values> --debug
This release changes the postgres and redis versions. This is a breaking change and requires manual data migration if you are not using external postgres and redis.
Note: This release also changes the postgres and redis auth paramaters values under
.Values.redis
and.Values.postgres
. Make the necessary changes to your customvalues.yaml
file if any.Values.postgresqlDatabase
is nowValues.auth.postgresqlDatabase
,Values.postgresqlUsername
is nowValues.auth.postgresqlUsername
andValues.postgresqlPassword
is renamed toValues.auth.postgresqlPassword
.
Note: Append the kubectl commands with
-n chatwoot
, if you have deployed it under the chatwoot namespace.
Before updating,
- Set the replica count to 0 for both UniLink web(
.Values.web.replicaCount
) and worker(.Values.worker.replicaCount
) replica sets. Applying this change will bring down the pods count to 0. This is to ensure the database will not be having any activity and is in a state to backup.
helm upgrade chatwoot chatwoot/chatwoot --version="0.9.0" --namespace ug3 -f values.ci.yaml --create-namespace --debug
- Log into the postgres pod and take a backup of your database.
kubectl exec -it chatwoot-chatwoot-postgresql-0 -- /bin/sh
env | grep -i postgres_password #get postgres password to use in next step
pg_dump -Fc --no-acl --no-owner -U postgres chatwoot_production > /tmp/cw.dump
exit
- Copy the backup to your local machine.
kubectl cp pod/chatwoot-chatwoot-postgresql-0:/tmp/cw.dump ./cw.dump
- Delete the deployments.
helm delete chatwoot
kubectl get pvc
# this will delete the database volumes
# make sure you have backed up before proceeding
kubectl delete pvc <data-postgres->
kubectl delete pvc <redis>
- Update and install new version of charts.
helm repo update
#reset web.replicaCount and worker.replicaCount to your previous values
helm install chatwoot chatwoot/chatwoot -f <your-values.yaml> #-n chatwoot
- Copy the local db backup into postgres pod.
kubectl cp cw.dump chatwoot-chatwoot-postgresql-0:/tmp/cw.dump
- Exec into the postgres pod and drop the database.
kubectl exec -it chatwoot-chatwoot-postgresql-0 -- /bin/sh
psql -u postgres -d postgres
# this is a destructive action
# remove -- to take effect
-- DROP DATABASE chatwoot_production with (FORCE);
exit
- Restore the database from the backup. If you are seeing no errors, the databse has been restored and you are good to go.
pg_restore --verbose --clean --no-acl --no-owner --create -U postgres -d postgres /tmp/cw.dump
- Exec into the web pod and remove the onboarding variable in redis.
kubectl exec -it chatwoot-web-xxxxxxxxxx -- /bin/sh
RAILS_ENV=production bundle exec rails c
::Redis::Alfred.delete(::Redis::Alfred::CHATWOOT_INSTALLATION_ONBOARDING)
- Load the UniLink web url, log in using the old credentials and verify the contents. Voila! Thats it!!
To 0.9.x
This release adds support for horizontal pod autoscaling(hpa) for chatwoot-web and chatwoot-worker deployments.
Also, this changes the default redis replica count to 1
. The Values.web.replicas
and Values.worker. replicas
parameters
where renamed to Values.web.replicaCount
and Values.worker.replicaCount
respectively. Also services.internlPort
was renamed
to services.internalPort
.
Please make the necessary changes in your custom values file if needed.
To 0.8.x
Move from Kubernetes ConfigMap to Kubernetes Secrets for environment variables. This is not a breaking change.
To 0.6.x
Existing labels were causing issues with helm upgrade
. 0.6.x
introduces breaking changes related to selector
labels used for deployements. Please delete your helm release and recreate. Deleting your helm release will
not delete your persistent volumes used for redis and postgres and as such your data should be safe.
helm delete chatwoot
helm repo update
helm install chatwoot chatwoot/chatwoot
TroubleShooting
pod has unbound immediate PersistentVolumeClaims
Make sure the "Persistent Volume Claims" can be satisfied. Refer to prerequisites.
ActionController::InvalidAuthenticityToken HTTP Origin header
ActionController::InvalidAuthenticityToken HTTP Origin header (https://mydomain.com) didn't match request.base_url (http://mydomain.com)
If you are recieving the above error when trying to access the superadmin panel, configure your ingress controller to forward the protocol of the origin request. For nginx
ingress, you can do this by setting the proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto https;
config. Refer this issue to learn more.