Helm

Helm is a package manager that allows you to easily install and manage OpenSearch in a Kubernetes cluster. You can define your OpenSearch configurations in a YAML file and use Helm to deploy your applications in a version-controlled and reproducible way.

The Helm chart contains the resources described in the following table.

The specification in the default Helm chart supports many standard use cases and setups. You can modify the default chart to configure your desired specifications and set Transport Layer Security (TLS) and role-based access control (RBAC).

For information about the default configuration, steps to configure security, and configurable parameters, see the README.

The instructions here assume you have a Kubernetes cluster with Helm preinstalled. See the Kubernetes documentation for steps to configure a Kubernetes cluster and the Helm documentation to install Helm.

Prerequisites

The default Helm chart deploys a three-node cluster. We recommend that you have at least 8 GiB of memory available for this deployment. You can expect the deployment to fail if, say, you have less than 4 GiB of memory available.

For OpenSearch 2.12 or later, you must provide OPENSEARCH_INITIAL_ADMIN_PASSWORD to start the cluster. Customize the admin password in values.yaml under extraEnvs, as shown in the following example:

extraEnvs:
  - name: OPENSEARCH_INITIAL_ADMIN_PASSWORD
    value: <custom-admin-password>

Install OpenSearch using Helm

1. Add opensearch helm-charts repository to Helm:

   helm repo add opensearch https://opensearch-project.github.io/helm-charts/
   

2. Update the available charts locally from charts repositories:

   helm repo update
   

3. To search for the OpenSearch-related Helm charts:

   helm search repo opensearch
   

   The available charts are provided in the response:

   NAME                            	CHART VERSION	APP VERSION	DESCRIPTION                           
   opensearch/opensearch                  	3.1.0        	3.1.0      	A Helm chart for OpenSearch                      
   opensearch/opensearch-dashboards       	3.1.0        	3.1.0      	A Helm chart for OpenSearch Dashboards
   

4. Create a minimal values.yaml file:

   config:
     opensearch.yml: |-
       cluster.name: opensearch-cluster
       network.host: 0.0.0.0
   extraEnvs:
     - name: OPENSEARCH_INITIAL_ADMIN_PASSWORD
       value: <strong_password>
   

5. Deploy OpenSearch:

   helm install my-deployment opensearch/opensearch -f values.yaml
   

You can also build the opensearch-<VERSION>.tgz file manually:

1. Clone the helm-charts repo:

   git clone https://github.com/opensearch-project/helm-charts.git
   

2. Navigate to the opensearch directory:

   cd helm-charts/charts/opensearch
   

3. Package the Helm chart:

   helm package .
   

4. Deploy OpenSearch:

   helm install --generate-name opensearch-<VERSION>.tgz -f /path/to/values.yaml
   

   The output shows you the specifications instantiated from the install.

Sample output

  NAME: opensearch-3-1754992026
  LAST DEPLOYED: Tue Aug 12 10:47:06 2025
  NAMESPACE: default
  STATUS: deployed
  REVISION: 1
  TEST SUITE: None
  NOTES:
  Watch all cluster members come up.
  $ kubectl get pods --namespace=default -l app.kubernetes.io/component=opensearch-cluster-master -w

To make sure your OpenSearch pod is up and running, run the following command:

$ kubectl get pods

The response lists the running containers:

NAME                                                  READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
opensearch-cluster-master-0                           1/1     Running   0          3m56s
opensearch-cluster-master-1                           1/1     Running   0          3m56s
opensearch-cluster-master-2                           1/1     Running   0          3m56s

To access the OpenSearch shell:

$ kubectl exec -it opensearch-cluster-master-0 -- /bin/bash

You can send requests to the pod to verify that OpenSearch is up and running:

$ curl -XGET https://localhost:9200 -u 'admin:<custom-admin-password>' --insecure
{
  "name" : "opensearch-cluster-master-0",
  "cluster_name" : "opensearch-cluster",
  "cluster_uuid" : "72e_wDs1QdWHmwum_E2feA",
  "version" : {
    "distribution" : "opensearch",
    "number" : <version>,
    "build_type" : <build-type>,
    "build_hash" : <build-hash>,
    "build_date" : <build-date>,
    "build_snapshot" : false,
    "lucene_version" : <lucene-version>,
    "minimum_wire_compatibility_version" : "2.19.0",
    "minimum_index_compatibility_version" : "2.0.0"
  },
  "tagline" : "The OpenSearch Project: https://opensearch.org/"
}

Uninstall using Helm

To identify the OpenSearch deployment that you want to delete:

$ helm list

The reponse lists the current Helm deployments:

NAME                   	NAMESPACE	REVISION	UPDATED                            	STATUS  	CHART           	APP VERSION
opensearch-3-1754992026	default  	1       	2025-08-12 10:47:06.02703 +0100 IST	deployed	opensearch-3.1.0	3.1.0      

To delete or uninstall a deployment, run the following command:

helm delete opensearch-3-1754992026

For instructions on how to to install OpenSearch Dashboards, see Helm to install OpenSearch Dashboards.