## Helm command line interface (helmcli) 

The helmcli  commands manage the application lifecycle in IBM Cloud Private cluster. Before you set up the Helm CLI, you need to perform the following steps: 

1. Install the Kubernetes command line tool, kubectl, and configure access to your cluster. See Kubernetes section on page 353. 

2. Install the IBM Cloud Private CLI and log in to your cluster. See IBM Cloud Private CLI section on page 350. 

3. Obtain access to the boot node and the cluster administrator account, or request that someone with that access level create your certificate. If you cannot access the cluster administrator account, you need an IBM Cloud Private account that is assigned to the administrator role for a team and can access the kube-system namespace. 

## Installing the Helm CLI 

You can install the Helm CLI by downloading it from the Helm GitHub site. Complete the following steps to install the Helm CLI: 

1. Download the Helm v2.9.1 binary from helm GitHub site. 

2. Make a helm-unpacked directory and unpack the installation file into that directory with the following commands: 

mkdir helm-unpacked tar -xvzf ./<path_to_installer> -C helm-unpacked 

3. Change the file to an executable, then move the file to your directory: 

a. For Linux and MacOS, run the following commands to change the permissions and move the file: 

chmod 755 ./helm-unpacked/<unpacked_dir>/helm sudo mv ./helm-unpacked/<unpacked_dir>/helm /usr/local/bin/helm 

b. For Windows, rename the downloaded file to Helm and place the file in a directory that is listed in the PATH environment variable. 

## Verifying the installation 

4. Delete the installer and the unpacked archives: 

 rm -rf ./helm-unpacked ./<path_to_installer>. 

Perform the following steps to verify the installation: 

1. If you are using Helm 2.9.1, you must set HELM_HOME: 

 export HELM_HOME=~/.helm 

2. Initialize your Helm CLI. Do not use the --upgrade flag with the  helm init command. Adding the --upgrade flag replaces the server version of Helm Tiller that is installed with IBM Cloud Private. 

3. For environments with Internet access, run the following command: 

helm init --client-only 

4. For environments that do not have Internet access, run the following command: 

helm init --client-only --skip-refresh 

