Tile38 Helm Chart

Introduction

Tile38 is an ultra-fast, in-memory geospatial database with native geofencing capabilities. It is designed for real-time location-based applications and supports complex spatial queries with very low latency.

This Helm chart deploys Tile38 on Kubernetes and supports a leader–follower architecture to enable horizontal read scaling while keeping write consistency.

Architecture Overview

The chart deploys Tile38 using a single leader and zero or more followers:

Leader
- Handles all write operations
- Acts as the source of truth
- Can optionally persist data using a PersistentVolumeClaim (PVC)
Followers
- Replicate data from the leader
- Serve read-only traffic for horizontal read scaling
- Can be enabled or disabled via values
- Replica count is configurable

Followers automatically connect to the leader using Tile38's native replication (FOLLOW) mechanism.

Prerequisites

Kubernetes 1.19+
Helm 3.0+
A working PersistentVolume provisioner (if persistence is enabled)
Prometheus Operator (only if serviceMonitor.enabled=true)

Installation and Quick Start

helm repo add tile38 https://1995parham.github.io/tile38-chart
helm repo update
helm install tile38 tile38/tile38

Post-installation

After installation, Helm prints connection instructions in the output of NOTES.txt.

Example port-forwarding:

kubectl port-forward svc/tile38-leader 9851:9851

You can then connect using:

tile38-cli -p 9851 ping

Configuration

Configuration values follow the structure of values.yaml.

Image Parameters

Name	Description	Default
`image.repository`	Tile38 image repository	`tile38/tile38`
`image.tag`	Image tag	`latest`
`image.pullPolicy`	Image pull policy	`IfNotPresent`

Leader Parameters

Name	Description	Default
`leader.config.*`	Tile38 leader configuration	`{}`
`leader.service.type`	Service type	`ClusterIP`
`leader.service.port`	Service port	`9851`
`leader.persistence.enabled`	Enable persistence	`false`
`leader.persistence.size`	PVC size	`8Gi`
`leader.persistence.storageClass`	StorageClass name	`""`
`leader.persistence.existingClaim`	Use existing PVC	`""`
`leader.resources.*`	Resource requests/limits	`{}`
`leader.extraFlags`	Extra Tile38 flags	`[]`
`leader.extraArgs`	Extra container args	`[]`

Follower Parameters

Name	Description	Default
`followers.enabled`	Enable follower replicas	`false`
`followers.replicaCount`	Number of follower replicas	`1`
`followers.config.follow_host`	Leader service hostname	`tile38-leader`
`followers.config.follow_port`	Leader port	`9851`
`followers.config.leaderauth`	Leader auth password	`""`
`followers.config.read_only`	Enable read-only mode	`true`
`followers.service.type`	Service type	`ClusterIP`
`followers.service.port`	Service port	`9851`
`followers.persistence.enabled`	Enable persistence	`false`
`followers.persistence.size`	PVC size	`8Gi`
`followers.resources.*`	Resource requests/limits	`{}`

Global Parameters

Name	Description	Default
`global.podSecurityContext`	Pod-level security context	`{}`
`global.securityContext`	Container security context	`{}`
`global.nodeSelector`	Node selector	`{}`
`global.tolerations`	Tolerations	`[]`
`global.affinity`	Affinity rules	`{}`

Optional Features

ServiceAccount

Name	Description	Default
`serviceAccount.create`	Create ServiceAccount	`true`
`serviceAccount.annotations`	ServiceAccount annotations	`{}`
`serviceAccount.name`	Custom ServiceAccount name	`""`

Useful for integrating with cloud IAM roles (e.g., IRSA on AWS).

Monitoring

Name	Description	Default
`serviceMonitor.enabled`	Enable ServiceMonitor	`false`

Requires Prometheus Operator.

Network Policy

Name	Description	Default
`networkPolicy.enabled`	Enable NetworkPolicy	`false`
`networkPolicy.from`	Allowed ingress sources	`[]`

Provides pod-level network isolation.

For advanced Tile38 configuration options, refer to:
https://tile38.com/topics/configuration

Operational Guidance

Persistence

Leader uses a single PVC when persistence is enabled
Followers use StatefulSet volumeClaimTemplates, creating one PVC per replica

Existing Claims

You can attach an existing PVC to the leader using:

leader:
  persistence:
    existingClaim: my-tile38-pvc

PVC Retention

If persistence.keepOnDelete=true, PVCs are retained after Helm uninstall.

Verification

Run the included tests:

helm test tile38

Tests include:

Connectivity test
Follower replication test
Geospatial operation test
Set/Get validation

Troubleshooting

Validate connectivity:

tile38-cli ping

Check replication status on followers:

tile38-cli server

Uninstalling the Chart

helm uninstall tile38

Note: PersistentVolumeClaims may remain depending on retention settings.

License

This chart is licensed under the Apache 2.0 License.

tile38-chart

Specs

README