RKE2 Cluster Templates: Some fields (i.e. ec2 rootSize) need to be wrapped in quotes, otherwise an error is thrown

[slickwarren]

on 2.6.0-rc1:
When provisioning using a cluster template, the rootSize for aws EC2 provisioners does not currently take an integer when it should. Instead an error is thrown when the below is used.

wrapping the number i.e. "16" is a workaround for this issue.

repro steps:

• add an rke2 template that can use amazonec2 provisioner
• provision using the template -> under nodepools ensure that the rootSize option has an integer value
• chart will install to fail

[richard-cox]

@slickwarren Are you using https://github.com/slickwarren/cluster-template-examples repo main branch and default-template? I've just tried that myself and the values we send look correct (v1/catalog.cattle.io.clusterrepos/cluster-templates?action=install charts.0.values.nodepool.rootSize: "16g"
The field itself is a generic question component which is created via the questions.yaml from the repo (contains type: string for nodepool.rootSize)

[slickwarren]

I was using @StrongMonkey 's chart. Would the default value in questions.yaml not being a string, even though the default type is string cause this issue that rancher's end can't really fix @richard-cox ?

[richard-cox]

So values missing the g might be mistaken as a number instead of string

[slickwarren]

ah, I see it now in the values-aws.yaml. However, I just checked the request sent when provisioning an RKE2 cluster using the node driver (not template) and it does not have a g in it @richard-cox @StrongMonkey

so we would need this to format the number as a string afaik

[nwmac]

@slickwarren Where are we with this? What is the cluster template git repo that you are using that has the problem? I tried the https://github.com/StrongMonkey/cluster-template-example but this does not presents form to edit

[slickwarren]

@nwmac it should be available there https://github.com/StrongMonkey/cluster-template-examples , use branch new. when provisioning the cluster with the template, select amazonec2 as the infrastructure provider in order to view rootSize in the UI (nodepools will appear after selecting amazonec2)

[neillsom]

@slickwarren This does not appear to be a UI issue.
The UI form interprets the input (whether 16 or '16') as a string and submits it as such.
The issue is that once the form is submitted it is templated into yaml, and even though we are sending the value as a string, yaml converts it to an integer.
Updating the template chart should solve the problem

[slickwarren]

hmm. I've tried updating the values in yaml to "16", Even in the yaml (viewed through the UI) the number is wrapped. But it is giving me the same error.

but the UI still shows it without the quotes

The only way I could get it to work properly was to do it through the UI field "16".

This seems like a UI problem still since the quotes are stripped in the UI view. If that's not the root cause, would this be a backend issue?

[catherineluse]

I believe this issue should be transferred to the back end.

This seems to be an issue with Helm. As Neill noted above, the UI always sends the value as a string regardless of whether it is wrapped in quotes or not. But that value is then passed to Helm, which converts it to an integer when there are no letters in it. helm/helm#1694

I'm pretty sure a small PR to the cluster template repo (https://github.com/rancher/cluster-template-examples) ought to force Helm to keep the value in string format, but I didn't figure out exactly how to do it.

In the helm chart values.yaml, I tried wrapping the value in quotes like this:

rootSize: "{{ $nodepool.rootSize }}"

and like this:

rootSize: {{ $nodepool.rootSize | quote }}

But neither worked. In any case, it's probably more of a matter for the back end.

[gaktive]

Transferring to backend.

@Jono-SUSE-Rancher this isn't a high priority, barring anything that QA brings up, but it's a solid tech debt issue to consider. This should be able to leverage form usage in other parts of Helm chart validation.