Google Artifact Registry-based helm chart is not defaulting to latest version

[RGPosadas]

Describe the bug
GAR repo is not showing the latest release as default.

To Reproduce
Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. Have kubeapps configured to use Artifact Registry as an initial repo

    initialRepos:
      - name: gar
        url: <redacted>
        basicAuth:
          user: <redacted>
          password: <redacted>
        namespace: my-ns
        type: oci
        ociRepositories:
          - k8s-repo/my-chart

2. On Catalog view, it is not showing the latest release
   

3. On Deploy view, it is also not showing the latest release

   • Note that all releases are uploaded to GAR in the correct order for the non-dev official release versions
   • From what we've noticed, the chosen version is random
   • When new releases are uploaded to GAR, it could choose a new "default" version, and it may or may not be the correct latest release
     

4. View kubeappsapis logs:

   • On Catalog view

   I0807 19:38:23.367869       1 packages.go:60] "+core GetAvailablePackageSummaries" cluster="default" namespace="my-ns"
   I0807 19:38:23.367979       1 server.go:201] "+helm GetAvailablePackageSummaries" cluster="default" namespace="my-ns"
   I0807 19:38:23.592364       1 repositories.go:117] "+core GetPackageRepositorySummaries" cluster="default" namespace=""
   I0807 19:38:23.592438       1 server.go:1143] +helm GetPackageRepositorySummaries [cluster:"default"]
   I0807 19:38:23.592552       1 repositories_resources.go:31] +helm getPkgRepositoryResource [&{0xc00038e6a0  {kubeapps.com v1alpha1 apprepositories}}]

   • On Deploy view, note that while it is logging (latest version), it is actually not the correct latest version

   I0807 19:39:24.829848       1 packages.go:109] "+core GetAvailablePackageDetail" cluster="default" namespace="my-ns"
   I0807 19:39:24.829919       1 server.go:287] "+helm GetAvailablePackageDetail" cluster="default" namespace="my-ns"
   I0807 19:39:24.877494       1 server.go:317] Requesting chart 'gar/k8s-repo%2Fmy-chart' (latest version) in ns 'my-ns'

   • When selecting the correct latest version:

   I0807 19:41:48.651615       1 packages.go:109] "+core GetAvailablePackageDetail" cluster="default" namespace="my-ns"
   I0807 19:41:48.651672       1 server.go:287] "+helm GetAvailablePackageDetail" cluster="default" namespace="my-ns"
   I0807 19:41:48.708732       1 server.go:320] Requesting chart 'gar/k8s-repo%2/Fmy-chart' (version 4.0.0-cct-1200) in ns 'my-ns'

Expected behavior
We expect the latest semver version of a chart to be the default version when deploying a release.

Desktop (please complete the following information):

• Version: 2.8.0

• Kubernetes version: v1.24.12-gke.1000

• Config:

  config.json

  {
    "kubeappsCluster": "default",
    "kubeappsNamespace": "apps",
    "helmGlobalNamespace": "apps",
    "carvelGlobalNamespace": "kapp-controller-packaging-global",
    "appVersion": "v2.8.0",
    "authProxyEnabled": true,
    "oauthLoginURI": "/oauth2/start",
    "oauthLogoutURI": "/oauth2/sign_out",
    "authProxySkipLoginPage": false,
    "featureFlags": {"apiOnly":{"enabled":false,"grpc":{"annotations":{"nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/backend-protocol":"GRPC"}}},"operators":false,"schemaEditor":{"enabled":false}},
    "clusters": ["default"],
    "theme": "",
    "remoteComponentsUrl": "",
    "customAppViews": [],
    "skipAvailablePackageDetails": false,
    "createNamespaceLabels": {}
  }

• Plugins:

  plugins.conf

   {
     "core": {
       "packages": {
         "v1alpha1": {
           "timeoutSeconds": 300,
           "versionsInSummary": {
             "major": 3,
             "minor": 6,
             "patch": 8
           }
         }
       }
     },
     "flux": {
       "packages": {
         "v1alpha1": {
           "defaultUpgradePolicy": "none",
           "noCrossNamespaceRefs": false
         }
       }
     },
     "helm": {
       "packages": {
         "v1alpha1": {
           "globalPackagingNamespace": ""
         }
       }
     },
     "kappController": {
       "packages": {
         "v1alpha1": {
           "defaultAllowDowngrades": false,
           "defaultUpgradePolicy": "none",
           "globalPackagingNamespace": "kapp-controller-packaging-global"
         }
       }
     },
     "resources": {
       "packages": {
         "v1alpha1": {
           "trustedNamespaces": {
             "headerName": "",
             "headerPattern": ""
           }
         }
       }
     }
   }

[absoludity]

Thanks for the report @RGPosadas . Note that "4.0.0-cct-1200" is a pre-release version (see point 9 at https://semver.org/#semantic-versioning-specification-semver ) not a latest version, but I do also see you've got a version "3.1.4" which should be the latest version, rather than "3.1.3".

Notes: The log "Requesting chart (latest version)" is printed when a specific version is not requested - the call actually fetches all the versions that it knows about for that repo, then we filter it according to the configurued versions in summary, so what you're seeing in that list is meant to be the latest 3 major versions with the latest 3 minor with the latest 3 patch versions.

It's possible there's an issue in the filtering of that version summary in the frontend dashboard (eg. because there's a pre-release version for both 4.0.0 and 3.1.4, it's incorrectly not considering the non-pre-release 3.1.4 and choosing 3.1.3 - not sure, need to check.

[antgamdia]

Besides, I'm noticing there is no appVersion in those charts (example). Perhaps (haven't checked it), the faulty behavior has something to do with it.

Example of the bitnami/apache chart, with appVersion, working properly

Edit: I can replicate the issue locally:

Screenshots replicating the issue

Even with the API directly:

Edit2: I guess this is motivated by the fact that we are relying on the PostgreSQL sorting, which does not take into account the pre-releases... There are some pg extensions for doing so, but maybe we would have to handle this in our codebase.

kubeapps/cmd/kubeapps-apis/plugins/pkg/pkgutils/pkgutils.go

Lines 200 to 203 in a29e090

	pkg.LatestVersion = &corev1.PackageAppVersion{
	PkgVersion: chart.ChartVersions[0].Version,
	AppVersion: chart.ChartVersions[0].AppVersion,
	}

[RGPosadas]

@absoludity Ah yes that's my bad as I was not clear, you are correct - I was expecting either the latest pre-release (4.0.0-cct-1200) or the latest release (3.14) to be the default chart version, instead of 3.13.

@antgamdia Thank you for finding the root cause! Let me know if you need further info 🚀

[antgamdia]

@RGPosadas I have just sent a PR aimed at fixing it: #6588
Thanks for your detailed report of the issue :)

[absoludity]

Thanks Antonio. In the screenshot, it's displaying the pre-release version, does that mean that it'll also prompt people to upgrade to the pre-release version by default? I'm not convinced we should be doing that. We should see 3.1.4 IMO, but I'll comment with more context on the PR. EDIT: actually, nm, although it's not ideal, it's what we've always done for Helm here anyway. I'll comment on the PR after a few more thoughts.

All good - I think your solution Antonio is great. Thanks!

[RGPosadas]

Thanks for the speedy work @antgamdia 🚀
Would you know when this change will be released?
Also, is there an image tag I could use to test the changes?

[antgamdia]

@RGPosadas, anytime; happy to get rid of those bugs :)

We don't have a release date in mind (we are finishing some work on the new oci-catalog component and we'd like to get it done before releasing).
However, you can always get the latest version of any Kubeapps component by switching to the images built by our CI (albeit totally discouraged in production environments). For instance, using kubeapps/dashboard:latest image you'll already get this fix.

[RGPosadas]

Thanks, will play around with the latest release on our test env.