Introduction
This blog post is for everyone familiar with Kubernetes and Shopware. Currently, installing and managing Shopware in a Kubernetes cluster requires individual solutions.
Shopware has published a new open source project to help with that. Currently, the project is in an experimental state. We hope to get your feedback at this early stage, which will help us make the project as valuable as possible.
Overview
The project is available on GitHub and consists of Helm Charts and the Shopware Operator.
To run this project in production, you will need a Kubernetes cluster. We don't provide documentation for setting up a Kubernetes cluster for production, but in our Community Slack, you can find people happy to help with any questions!
You can also test the project locally to see how it works and what it is capable of. Documentation is included in the project repository; more information is below.
Helm Charts
Helm is a software used as a package manager for Kubernetes. Helm charts are described on the Helm website as follows:
Helm uses a packaging format called charts. A chart is a collection of files that describe a related set of Kubernetes resources. A single chart might be used to deploy something simple, like a memcached pod, or something complex, like a full web app stack with HTTP servers, databases, caches, and so on.
The newly published Shopware project has only one Helm Chart, but more are planned for the future. It uses the Shopware Operator to configure one or multiple namespaces in a Kubernetes cluster to run Shopware.
As mentioned, the Kubernetes cluster must already exist, but everything can also be tested locally.
Documentation on how to install Shopware using the existing Shopware Helm Chart can be found in the GitHub repository:
https://github.com/shopware/helm-charts/blob/main/charts/shopware/README.md
The Shopware Operator
Helm uses the operator directly through the provided Helm Charts and handles the Shopware configuration.
The operator itself is written in Go and available on GitHub. Usually, you don't need to bother with it. You can use the operator on its own and contribute, but it is intended to stay out of your way.
The default configuration options of the operator and all possible settings can be found in the values.yaml on GitHub:
https://github.com/shopware/helm-charts/blob/main/charts/shopware/values.yaml
Usage
The project aims for ease of use. Although it still lacks some functionality in this experimental phase, it is already usable.
There is extensive documentation on how to install and use all needed parts on GitHub:
https://github.com/shopware/helm-charts/blob/main/charts/shopware/README.md
Feedback
We would love to get your feedback to make this project into something useful for the whole community.
Join us in shaping this project into an incredible resource for our community. Your feedback is the key to making it genuinely impactful.
Please give us positive feedback to help us identify areas we already have right and critical feedback so we know what needs improvement.
We plan to publish the project's first official release in the first quarter of 2025.
