Creating a Private Helm Registry

There is no sign-up in Repsy Open Source: you use the repositories of your own instance. A private repository needs a login to be read or written, and a public repository can be read without one. This page shows how to find or create a Helm repository and where to get the credentials that Helm needs.

The Default Repository

When the first user of an instance is created, Repsy creates a private Helm repository named helm (and one private repository of every other type). If you only need one Helm repository, you can use it right away.

Create a repository

You need the ADMIN role to create repositories. Other users can use every repository, but they cannot create, rename, change or delete one.

Sign in to the web UI of your instance and go to the Repositories tab.
Click Create Repository.
Select the type Helm.
Enter a Name. It can have up to 25 characters: letters, digits, _ and -, and it cannot start with -. Some names are reserved for the web UI and are refused.
Leave the visibility on Private, or switch it to Public if anyone should be able to install from the repository without credentials. You can change it later in the repository settings. Publishing always needs credentials, also in a public repository.
Optionally add a description and click Create.

Find the repository URLs

One Helm repository serves both protocols, so it has two addresses, both made of the repository address of your instance and the repository name:

Use	Address
Classic (ChartMuseum-compatible): `helm repo add`, `helm cm-push`, `helm pull <repo>/<chart>`	`https://<your-repsy-host>/<repo-name>`
OCI: `helm push`, `helm pull oci://`, `helm install oci://`	`oci://<your-repsy-host>/<repo-name>`

https://<your-repsy-host> stands for the address of the package protocol port of your instance, for example http://localhost:9090 for a local start, see Ports and Repository URLs. For the OCI address, leave out http:// or https://. helm registry login takes the host without the repository name.

Open the repository in the web UI and click Configure to see the commands for both protocols filled in with the name of the repository.

Get your credentials

Helm authenticates with HTTP Basic credentials, and there are two choices:

A user account. Use the username and the password you sign in to the web UI with.
A deploy token. Open Settings of the repository (the more options menu (⋮) of the repository in the Repositories tab), go to Deploy Tokens, click Create Token, fill in the form and copy the token when Repsy shows it. It is shown only once. A token belongs to one repository and can be Read/Write or Read Only. Put the token where Helm asks for the password. Repsy checks only the token, so the username can be any non-empty value.

Use a deploy token in CI jobs and whenever you give somebody access to one repository only. A Read Only token is enough to install, and publishing needs Read/Write. You need the ADMIN role to create deploy tokens. See Creating a Deploy Token.

The Helm Configuration dialog with the commands of the classic protocol and of the OCI protocol. — The **Configure** dialog of a Helm repository with the commands for both protocols. Your instance shows its own address instead of the demo address `repsy.example.com`.

You can now publish to and install from your repository: see Publishing a Helm Chart and Installing a Helm Chart from Registry, or the tutorials for the classic protocol and OCI.

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