kube-state-metrics is a simple service that listens to the Kubernetes API server and generates metrics about the state of the objects.

Overview of Kube State Metrics

Trademarks: This software listing is packaged by Bitnami. The respective trademarks mentioned in the offering are owned by the respective companies, and use of them does not imply any affiliation or endorsement.

TL;DR

helm install my-release oci://REGISTRY_NAME/REPOSITORY_NAME/kube-state-metrics

Note: You need to substitute the placeholders REGISTRY_NAME and REPOSITORY_NAME with a reference to your Helm chart registry and repository.

Introduction

This chart bootstraps kube-state-metrics on Kubernetes using the Helm package manager.

Bitnami charts can be used with Kubeapps for deployment and management of Helm Charts in clusters.

Prerequisites

• Kubernetes 1.23+
• Helm 3.8.0+

Installing the Chart

To install the chart with the release name my-release:

helm install my-release oci://REGISTRY_NAME/REPOSITORY_NAME/kube-state-metrics

Note: You need to substitute the placeholders REGISTRY_NAME and REPOSITORY_NAME with a reference to your Helm chart registry and repository. For example, in the case of Bitnami, you need to use REGISTRY_NAME=registry-1.docker.io and REPOSITORY_NAME=bitnamicharts.

The command deploys kube-state-metrics on the Kubernetes cluster in the default configuration. The configuration section lists the parameters that can be configured during installation.

Configuration and installation details

Resource requests and limits

Bitnami charts allow setting resource requests and limits for all containers inside the chart deployment. These are inside the resources value (check parameter table). Setting requests is essential for production workloads and these should be adapted to your specific use case.

To make this process easier, the chart contains the resourcesPreset values, which automatically sets the resources section according to different presets. Check these presets in the bitnami/common chart. However, in production workloads using resourcesPreset is discouraged as it may not fully adapt to your specific needs. Find more information on container resource management in the official Kubernetes documentation.

Rolling vs Immutable tags

It is strongly recommended to use immutable tags in a production environment. This ensures your deployment does not change automatically if the same tag is updated with a different image.

Bitnami will release a new chart updating its containers if a new version of the main container, significant changes, or critical vulnerabilities exist.

Backup and restore

To back up and restore Helm chart deployments on Kubernetes, you need to back up the persistent volumes from the source deployment and attach them to a new deployment using Velero, a Kubernetes backup/restore tool. Find the instructions for using Velero in this guide.

Use Sidecars and Init Containers

If additional containers are needed in the same pod (such as additional metrics or logging exporters), they can be defined using the sidecars config parameter.

sidecars:
- name: your-image-name
  image: your-image
  imagePullPolicy: Always
  ports:
  - name: portname
    containerPort: 1234

If these sidecars export extra ports, extra port definitions can be added using the service.extraPorts parameter (where available), as shown in the example below:

service:
  extraPorts:
  - name: extraPort
    port: 11311
    targetPort: 11311

NOTE: This Helm chart already includes sidecar containers for the Prometheus exporters (where applicable). These can be activated by adding the --enable-metrics=true parameter at deployment time. The sidecars parameter should therefore only be used for any extra sidecar containers.

If additional init containers are needed in the same pod, they can be defined using the initContainers parameter. Here is an example:

initContainers:
  - name: your-image-name
    image: your-image
    imagePullPolicy: Always
    ports:
      - name: portname
        containerPort: 1234

Learn more about sidecar containers and init containers.

Set Pod affinity

This chart allows you to set custom Pod affinity using the affinity parameter. Find more information about Pod’s affinity in the Kubernetes documentation.

As an alternative, use one of the preset configurations for pod affinity, pod anti-affinity, and node affinity available at the bitnami/common chart. To do so, set the podAffinityPreset, podAntiAffinityPreset, or nodeAffinityPreset parameters.

Parameters

Global parameters

Common parameters

kube-state-metrics parameters

Specify each parameter using the --set key=value[,key=value] argument to helm install. For example the following command sets the replicas of the kube-state-metrics Pods to 2.

helm install my-release --set replicas=2 oci://REGISTRY_NAME/REPOSITORY_NAME/kube-state-metrics

Note: You need to substitute the placeholders REGISTRY_NAME and REPOSITORY_NAME with a reference to your Helm chart registry and repository. For example, in the case of Bitnami, you need to use REGISTRY_NAME=registry-1.docker.io and REPOSITORY_NAME=bitnamicharts.

Alternatively, a YAML file that specifies the values for the parameters can be provided while installing the chart. For example,

helm install my-release -f values.yaml oci://REGISTRY_NAME/REPOSITORY_NAME/kube-state-metrics

Note: You need to substitute the placeholders REGISTRY_NAME and REPOSITORY_NAME with a reference to your Helm chart registry and repository. For example, in the case of Bitnami, you need to use REGISTRY_NAME=registry-1.docker.io and REPOSITORY_NAME=bitnamicharts. Tip: You can use the default values.yaml

Troubleshooting

Find more information about how to deal with common errors related to Bitnami’s Helm charts in this troubleshooting guide.

Upgrading

To 5.0.0

Removal of kubeResources.verticalpodautoscalers which no longer work since version 2.9.0 of kube-state-metrics. If you are using an older version and want to keep this metric, use the following configuration:

rbac:
  rules:
    - apiGroups: ["autoscaling.k8s.io"]
      resources:
        - verticalpodautoscalers
      verbs: ["list", "watch"]
extraArgs:
  resources: verticalpodautoscalers

To 4.3.0

This version introduces image verification for security purposes. To disable it, set global.security.allowInsecureImages to true. More details at GitHub issue.

helm upgrade my-release oci://REGISTRY_NAME/REPOSITORY_NAME/kube-state-metrics

Note: You need to substitute the placeholders REGISTRY_NAME and REPOSITORY_NAME with a reference to your Helm chart registry and repository. For example, in the case of Bitnami, you need to use REGISTRY_NAME=registry-1.docker.io and REPOSITORY_NAME=bitnamicharts.

To 4.0.0

This major bump changes the following security defaults:

• runAsGroup is changed from 0 to 1001
• readOnlyRootFilesystem is set to true
• resourcesPreset is changed from none to the minimum size working in our test suites (NOTE: resourcesPreset is not meant for production usage, but resources adapted to your use case).
• global.compatibility.openshift.adaptSecurityContext is changed from disabled to auto.

This could potentially break any customization or init scripts used in your deployment. If this is the case, change the default values to the previous ones.

To 3.0.0

This major release renames several values in this chart and adds missing features, in order to be aligned with the rest of the assets in the Bitnami charts repository.

Affected values:

• service.port was renamed as service.ports.metrics.
• service.nodePort was renamed as service.nodePorts.metrics.
• securityContext was split in podSecurityContext and containerSecurityContext.
• Removed unused value rbac.apiVersion.

To 2.0.0

This version updates kube-state-metrics to its new major, 2.0.0. There have been some value’s name changes to acommodate to the naming used in 2.0.0:

• .Values.namespace -> .Values.namespaces
• .Values.collectors -> .Values.kubeResources

For more information, please refer to kube-state-metrics 2 release notes.

To 1.1.0

This version introduces bitnami/common, a library chart as a dependency. More documentation about this new utility could be found here. Please, make sure that you have updated the chart dependencies before executing any upgrade.

To 1.0.0

On November 13, 2020, Helm v2 support formally ended. This major version is the result of the required changes applied to the Helm Chart to be able to incorporate the different features added in Helm v3 and to be consistent with the Helm project itself regarding the Helm v2 EOL.

License

Copyright © 2025 Broadcom. The term “Broadcom” refers to Broadcom Inc. and/or its subsidiaries.

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the “License”); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at

http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an “AS IS” BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.