Installation

pgEdge Helm supports both Enterprise and Distributed deployment models. This grants you flexibility to deploy across one or more regions with the same chart.

This guide demonstrates how to install pgEdge Helm into a single Kubernetes cluster with the distributed deployment model.

This example uses three pgEdge nodes: n1, n2, and n3 deployed into a single Kubernetes cluster.

n1 is configured with 3 instances (1 primary, 2 standby), and n2/n3 are configured with just 1 primary instance.

pgEdge:
  appName: pgedge
  nodes:
    - name: n1
      hostname: pgedge-n1-rw
      clusterSpec:
        instances: 3
        postgresql:
          synchronous:
            method: any
            number: 1
            dataDurability: required
    - name: n2
      hostname: pgedge-n2-rw
    - name: n3
      hostname: pgedge-n3-rw
  clusterSpec:
    storage:
      size: 1Gi

You can also follow this guide for single region deployments with pgEdge Enterprise Postgres.

To do this, specify a single node n1 under nodes with standby instances configured:

pgEdge:
  appName: pgedge
  nodes:
    - name: n1
      hostname: pgedge-n1-rw
      clusterSpec:
        instances: 3
        postgresql:
          synchronous:
            method: any
            number: 1
            dataDurability: required
  clusterSpec:
    storage:
      size: 1Gi

If you want to extend this configuration later to use a distributed architecture, see Adding Nodes.

Prerequisites

To perform the installation, you'll need the following tools installed on your machine:

• helm: The package manager for Kubernetes, used to install, upgrade, and manage Kubernetes applications via Helm charts.
• kubectl: The Kubernetes command-line tool, used to interact with and manage your Kubernetes clusters.
• kubectl cnpg plugin: A plugin for kubectl that provides additional commands for managing CloudNativePG clusters. Download the appropriate binary for your platform from the pgEdge distribution releases.

Step 1: Configure your kubectl context and namespace

Before you get started, you should setup your kubectl context to interact with the correct cluster and namespace before performing the install.

Identify Your Kubernetes Cluster and User

First, you need to know the names of the cluster and user you want to use. You can list them with these commands:

kubectl config get-clusters
kubectl config get-users

The example that follows uses a cluster named kubernetes, accessed by a user named kubernetes-admin.

Create the New Context

Now, create the new context using the cluster and user names you just found.

kubectl config set-context helm-test --cluster=kubernetes --user=kubernetes-admin

This command creates a new context and links it to your existing cluster and user credentials.

Configuring your kubectl context and namespace

For convenience, configure your desired context and namespace prior to running the rest of the commands.

kubectl config use-context <cluster-context> --namespace <desired-namespace>

For example:

kubectl config use-context helm-test --namespace pgedge

Step 2: Install chart dependencies

First, add the pgEdge Helm repository and install the CloudNativePG and cert-manager operators:

# Add the pgEdge Helm repository
helm repo add pgedge https://pgedge.github.io/charts
helm repo update

# Install CloudNativePG operator
helm install cnpg pgedge/cloudnative-pg \
  --namespace cnpg-system \
  --create-namespace

# Install cert-manager
kubectl apply -f \
  https://github.com/cert-manager/cert-manager/releases/download/v1.19.3/cert-manager.yaml

kubectl wait --for=condition=Available deployment \
  -n cert-manager cert-manager cert-manager-cainjector cert-manager-webhook --timeout=120s

Step 3: Install the chart

Install from pgEdge Helm Repository

The recommended method is to install directly from the pgEdge Helm repository:

helm install pgedge pgedge/pgedge \
  --values values.yaml \
  --wait

You'll need to create a values.yaml file with your configuration. See the example configurations:

• Single region: examples/configs/single/values.yaml

Install from Local Chart

Alternatively, you can download and install from a local chart package:

1. Download the latest release from pgEdge Helm Releases
2. Extract the package and navigate to the chart directory
3. Install using the local chart:

helm install pgedge ./ \
  --values examples/configs/single/values.yaml \
  --wait

Command Details

• helm install: Deploys a Helm chart
• pgedge: The release name for your installation (can be customized)
• pgedge/pgedge or ./: The chart to install (from repository or local path)
• --values: Path to your configuration file
• --wait: Waits for all resources to be ready before completing

NOTE: This command may take a long time to run depending on your configuration. You can monitor the progress of the Spock initialization job with this command:

kubectl logs --follow jobs/pgedge-init-spock

Once the installation completes, you should see output similar to:

NAME: pgedge
LAST DEPLOYED: Fri Oct 10 14:07:41 2025
NAMESPACE: pgedge
STATUS: deployed
REVISION: 1
TEST SUITE: None

This confirms the chart has been successfully installed.

Uninstallation

If you wish to uninstall the pgEdge Helm chart, you can perform a helm uninstall using the following command:

helm uninstall pgedge

All resources will be removed, with the exception of secrets which were created to store generated client certificates by cert-manager.

This is a safety mechanism which aligns with cert-manager's default behavior, and ensures that dependent services are not brought down by an accidental update.

If you wish to delete these secrets, you can identify then via kubectl:

kubectl get secrets

NAME                 TYPE                DATA   AGE
admin-client-cert    kubernetes.io/tls   3      3m43s
app-client-cert      kubernetes.io/tls   3      3m43s
client-ca-key-pair   kubernetes.io/tls   3      3m46s
pgedge-client-cert   kubernetes.io/tls   3      3m45s

From there, you can delete each secret using the following command:

kubectl delete secret <name>