How to deploy with Helm* Chart#

This section shows how to deploy the Video Search and Summary Sample Application using Helm chart.

Prerequisites#

Before you begin, ensure that you have the following:

  • Kubernetes* cluster set up and running.

  • The cluster must support dynamic provisioning of Persistent Volumes (PV). Refer to the Kubernetes Dynamic Provisioning Guide for more details.

  • Install kubectl on your system. See the Installation Guide. Ensure access to the Kubernetes cluster.

  • Helm chart installed on your system. See the Installation Guide.

  • Storage Requirement : Application requests for 50GiB of storage in its default configuration. (This should change with choice of models and needs to be properly configured). Please make sure that required storage is available in you cluster.

Before setting up Smart NVR, ensure these services are running on their respective devices:

1. VSS (Video Search and Summarization) Services#

Deploy these on separate devices:

  • VSS Search: Handles video search functionality

  • VSS Summary: Provides video summarization capabilities

đź“– VSS Documentation

2. VLM Microservice (Optional)#

Required only when enabling AI-powered event descriptions (NVR_GENAI=true):

  • Runs the VLM model defined in the frigate config file

  • Use VLM_MAX_COMPLETION_TOKENS to limit response length during deployment

đź“– VLM Serving Documentation

Helm Chart Installation#

In order to setup the end-to-end application, we need to acquire the charts and install it with optimal values and configurations. Subsequent sections will provide step by step details for the same.

1. Acquire the helm chart#

There are 2 options to get the charts in your workspace:

Option 1: Get the charts from Docker Hub#

Step 1: Pull the Specific Chart#

Use the following command to pull the Helm chart from Docker Hub:

helm pull oci://registry-1.docker.io/intel/smart-nvr --version 1.2.3

Refer to the release notes for details on the latest version number to use for the sample application.

Step 2: Extract the .tgz File#

After pulling the chart, extract the .tgz file:

tar -xvf smart-nvr-1.2.3.tgz

This will create a directory named smart-nvr containing the chart files. Navigate to the extracted directory to access the charts.

cd smart-nvr

Option 2: Install from Source#

Step 1: Clone the Repository#

Clone the repository containing the Helm chart:

git clone https://github.com/open-edge-platform/edge-ai-suites.git
Step 2: Change to the Chart Directory#

Navigate to the chart directory:

cd edge-ai-suites/metro-ai-suite/smart-nvr

2. Configure Required Values#

The application requires several values to be set by user in order to work. To make it easier, we have included a user_values_override.yaml file, which contains only the values that user needs to tweak. Open the file in your favorite editor or use nano:

nano user_values_override.yaml

Update or edit the values in YAML file as follows:

Key

Description

Example Value

global.pvcName

Name for PVC to be used for storage by all components of application

nvr-resource

global.keepPvc

PVC gets deleted by default once helm is uninstalled. Set this to true to persist PVC (helps avoid delay due to model re-downloads when re-installing chart).

true or false

global.proxy.http_proxy

HTTP proxy if required

http://proxy-example.com:000

global.proxy.https_proxy

HTTPS proxy if required

http://proxy-example.com:000

frigate.env.FRIGATE_MQTT_USER

User name for mqtt

<your-mqtt-username>

frigate.env.FRIGATE_MQTT_PASSWORD

Password for mqtt

<your-mqtt-password>

frigate.env.OPENAI_BASE_URL

Needed when NVR_GENAI flag is set to true

<your-open-ai-base-url>

frigate.env.OPENAI_API_KEY

Needed when NVR_GENAI flag is set to true

<your-open-ai-api-key>

nvr-event-router.env.VSS_SEARCH_IP

VSS Search IP

http://<your-vss-search-ip>

nvr-event-router.env.VSS_SEARCH_PORT

VSS Search port

http://<your-vss-search-port>

nvr-event-router.env.VSS_SUMMARY_IP

VSS summary IP

<your-vss-summary-ip>

nvr-event-router.env.VSS_SUMMARY_PORT

VSS summary port

<your-vss-summary-port>

nvr-event-router-ui.NVR_GENAI

Flag to enable GENAI on Frigate NVR

true/false

3. Build Helm Dependencies#

Navigate to the chart directory and build the Helm dependencies using the following command:

helm dependency build

4. Set and Create a Namespace#

We will install the helm chart in a new namespace. Create a shell variable to refer a new namespace and create it.

  1. Refer a new namespace using shell variable my_namespace. Set any desired unique value.

    my_namespace=foobar

  2. Create the Kubernetes namespace. If it is already created, creation will fail. You can update the namespace in previous step and try again.

    kubectl create namespace $my_namespace

NOTE : All subsequent steps assume that you have my_namespace variable set and accessible on your shell with the desired namespace as its value.

5. Deploy the Helm Chart#

Deploy the Smart NVR Application:

helm install smart-nvr . -f user_value_override.yaml -n $my_namespace

6: Verify the Deployment#

Check the status of the deployed resources to ensure everything is running correctly:

kubectl get pods -n $my_namespace

Before proceeding to access the application we must ensure the following status of output of the above command:

  1. Ensure all pods are in the “Running” state. This is denoted by Running state mentioned in the STATUS column.

  2. Ensure all containers in each pod are Ready. As all pods are running single container only, this is typically denoted by mentioning 1/1 in the READY column.

IMPORTANT NOTE : When deployed for first time, it may take up-to around 5 Mins to bring all the pods/containers in running and ready state, as several containers try to download models which can take a while. The time to bring up all the pods depends on several factors including but not limited to node availability, node load average, network speed, compute availability etc.

IMPORTANT NOTE : If you want to persist the downloaded models and avoid delays pertaining to model downloads when re-installing the charts, please set the global.keepPvc value to true in user_values_override.yaml file before installing the chart.

Step 7: Accessing the application#

Nginx service running as a reverse proxy in one of the pods, helps us to access the application. We need to get Host IP and Port on the node where the nginx service is running.

Run the following command to get the host IP of the node and port exposed by Nginx service:

smart_nvr_ip=$(kubectl get pods -l app=nvr-event-router-ui-nginx -n $my_namespace -o jsonpath='{.items[0].status.hostIP}')
smart_nvr_port=$(kubectl get service nvr-event-router-ui-nginx -n $my_namespace -o jsonpath='{.spec.ports[0].nodePort}')
echo "http://${smart_nvr_ip}:${smart_nvr_port}"

Copy the output of above bash snippet and paste it into your browser to access the Video Search and Summarization Application.

Step 8: Update Helm Dependencies#

If any changes are made to the sub-charts, always remember to update the Helm dependencies using the following command before re-installing or upgrading your helm installation:

helm dependency update

Step 9: Uninstall Helm chart#

To uninstall the Video Summary Helm chart, use the following command:

helm uninstall smart-nvr -n $my_namespace

Verification#

  • Ensure that all pods are running and the services are accessible.

  • Access the Video Summary application dashboard and verify that it is functioning as expected.

  • Upload a test video to verify that the ingestion, processing, and summary pipeline works correctly.

  • Check that all components (MinIO, PostgreSQL, RabbitMQ, video ingestion, VLM inference, audio analyzer) are functioning properly.

Troubleshooting#

  • Pods not coming in Ready or Running state for a long time.

    There could be several possible reasons for this. Most likely reasons are storage unavailability, node unavailability, network slow-down or faulty network etc. Please check with your cluster admin or try fresh installation of charts, after deleting the PVC (see next issue) and un-installing the current chart.

  • All containers Ready, all Pods in Running state, application UI is accessible but search or summary is failing.

    • Verify that the VSS Search and Summary services are running properly.

    • If PVC has been configured to be retained, most common reason for application to fail to work is a stale PVC. This problem most likely occurs when helm charts are re-installed after some updates to helm chart or the application image. To fix this, delete the PVC before re-installing the helm chart by following command:

      kubectl delete pvc nvr-resource -n <your_namespace>

    If you have updated the global.pvcName in the values file, use the updated name instead of default PVC name nvr-resource in above command.

  • If you encounter any issues during the deployment process, check the Kubernetes logs for errors:

    kubectl logs <pod-name> -n $my_namespace

  • Some issues might be fixed by freshly setting up storage. This is helpful in cases where deletion of PVC is prohibited by configuration on charts un-installation (when global.keepPvc is set to true):

    kubectl delete pvc <pvc-name> -n $my_namespace