CKAN

Deploy CKAN on Kubernetes — the world’s leading open-source data management system for powering data hubs and data portals with full catalog and API capabilities.

Key Features

CKAN application — uWSGI-based Python application on port 5000
DataPusher — optional automatic resource loading for CSV, Excel to DataStore
Built-in Solr — StatefulSet with CKAN-specific schema configuration
PostgreSQL metadata store — bundled subchart or external connection
Redis task queue — bundled subchart or external connection
Auto-generated secrets — sysadmin password, session secret, JWT secret
Persistent storage — uploaded datasets at /var/lib/ckan
Plugin system — configurable CKAN plugins list
Ingress support — TLS via cert-manager with configurable ingress class

Installation

HTTPS repository:

helm repo add helmforge https://repo.helmforge.dev
helm repo update
helm install ckan helmforge/ckan -f values.yaml

OCI registry:

helm install ckan oci://ghcr.io/helmforgedev/helm/ckan -f values.yaml

Basic Example

ckan:
  siteUrl: https://data.example.com
  sysadminName: admin
  sysadminPassword: 'my-secure-password'

ingress:
  enabled: true
  ingressClassName: traefik
  hosts:
    - host: data.example.com
      paths:
        - path: /
          pathType: Prefix

External Services

database:
  mode: external
  external:
    type: postgresql
    host: postgres.example.internal
    port: 5432
    name: ckan
    username: ckan
    existingSecret: ckan-db

redisConfig:
  mode: external
  external:
    host: redis.example.internal
    port: 6379

postgresql:
  enabled: false

redis:
  enabled: false

Key Values

Key	Default	Description
`image.repository`	`ckan/ckan-base`	CKAN container image
`ckan.siteUrl`	`http://localhost:5000`	Public site URL
`ckan.sysadminName`	`admin`	Sysadmin username
`ckan.sysadminPassword`	`""`	Auto-generated if empty
`ckan.plugins`	`envvars image_view text_view datatables_view`	Active plugins
`ckan.replicaCount`	`1`	CKAN replicas
`datapusher.enabled`	`true`	Enable DataPusher
`solr.enabled`	`true`	Enable built-in Solr
`solr.persistence.size`	`5Gi`	Solr data volume size
`database.mode`	`subchart`	Database mode: subchart or external
`persistence.enabled`	`true`	Enable CKAN storage
`persistence.size`	`10Gi`	CKAN storage volume size
`ingress.enabled`	`false`	Enable ingress

Operational Notes

Solr is deployed as a StatefulSet with CKAN-specific schema — do not share with other applications
DataPusher is optional but recommended for automatic resource indexing
health probes target /api/action/status_show
set ckan.siteUrl to the actual public URL for correct link generation

More Information

See the source code and full values reference on GitHub.