Helm: How to Override Value with Periods in Name

Question

I am trying to script setup of Jenkins so that I can create and tear down Jenkins clusters programmatically with helm. I've hit an annoying snag where I cannot set a key with dots in the name. My helm values.yaml file looks like this:

--- rbac:   install: true  Master:   HostName: jenkins.mycompany.com   ServiceType: ClusterIP   ImageTag: lts   InstallPlugins:     - kubernetes     - workflow-aggregator     - workflow-job     - credentials-binding     - git     - blueocean     - github     - github-oauth    ScriptApproval:     - "method groovy.json.JsonSlurperClassic parseText java.lang.String"     - "new groovy.json.JsonSlurperClassic"     - "staticMethod org.codehaus.groovy.runtime.DefaultGroovyMethods leftShift java.util.Map java.util.Map"     - "staticMethod org.codehaus.groovy.runtime.DefaultGroovyMethods split java.lang.String"     - "method java.util.Collection toArray"     - "staticMethod org.kohsuke.groovy.sandbox.impl.Checker checkedCall java.lang.Object boolean boolean java.lang.String java.lang.Object[]"     - "staticMethod org.kohsuke.groovy.sandbox.impl.Checker checkedGetProperty java.lang.Object boolean boolean java.lang.Object"    Ingress:     Annotations:       kubernetes.io/ingress.class: nginx       kubernetes.io/tls-acme: "true"     TLS:       - secretName: jenkins-mycompany-com         hosts:           - jenkins.mycompany.com    Memory: "2Gi"   # This breaks the init container   # RunAsUser: 1000   # FSGroup: 1000  Agent:   Enabled: false   ImageTag: latest 

After installing cert-manager, external-dns, nginx-ingress (for now via a bash script) I install it like so:

helm install --values helm/jenkins.yml stable/jenkins 

I failed to read the letsencrypt docs at all, so throughout the course of testing I used my production quota. I want to be able to add an annotation to the Ingress: certmanager.k8s.io/cluster-issuer: letsencrypt-staging so that I can continue testing (and set this as the default in the future, overriding when I'm ready for production).

The trouble is... I can't figure out how to pass this via the --set flag, since there are periods in the key name. I've tried:

helm install --values helm/jenkins.yml stable/jenkins --set Master.Ingress.Annotations.certmanager.k8s.io/cluster-issuer=letsencrypt-staging 

and

helm install --values helm/jenkins.yml stable/jenkins --set Master.Ingress.Annotations.certmanager\.k8s\.io/cluster-issuer=letsencrypt-staging 

I can of course solve this by adding a value that I use as a flag, but it's less explicit. Is there any way to set it directly?

Answer 1

You need to enclose the key with quotations and then escape the dots

helm install --values helm/jenkins.yml stable/jenkins --set Master.Ingress.Annotations."certmanager\.k8s\.io/cluster-issuer"=letsencrypt-staging 

Answer 2

Use \ to escape the dots in the key. Quotation marks are required to prevent shell interpreting the \ character.

helm install --values helm/jenkins.yml stable/jenkins --set 'Master.Ingress.Annotations.certmanager\.k8s\.io/cluster-issuer=letsencrypt-staging' 

Helm requires these characters to be escaped: . [ , =

Source: https://paul-boone.medium.com/helm-chart-install-advanced-usage-of-the-set-argument-3e214b69c87a