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Use manual deployment when Sawmills should generate collector configuration, but your team applies the Helm changes in your own release process. This is common when the Sawmills collector chart is embedded in an umbrella chart, monochart, or Helmsman-managed deployment.
Note: Automatic collector management and manual deployment use different workflows. With automatic management, the Sawmills remote operator applies collector upgrades. With manual deployment, Sawmills provides the chart version and values artifacts, and your deployment system applies them.

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Choose the Values Format

Set the manual deployment format in the collector setup flow or on the collector page. For umbrella and Helmsman formats, add the Sawmills collector chart dependency to your chart and apply the generated values files through your existing release process. The UI intentionally does not show a standalone Helm command for those formats because the release name, namespace, and install command belong to your parent chart.

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Generated Files

Each manual deployment creates values artifacts you can download from the deployment UI. For direct chart installs, apply the generated file first and the customer override file second:
For umbrella chart installs, place the Sawmills collector chart under the dependency key shown as Values root in the UI. For example, if the values root is sawmillsCollector, generated values are nested like this:

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Values Root Key

The values root key is the top-level key used by your umbrella chart for the embedded Sawmills collector dependency. Direct chart installs do not use a values root key. Use the same key in:
  • your umbrella chart dependency alias
  • sawmills-generated.values.yaml
  • sawmills-customer-overrides.yaml
  • any parent chart values that override Sawmills collector settings

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Resource Base Name

resourceBaseName controls the Kubernetes base name used by the collector resources. Set it when your parent chart release name differs from the collector resource names you want Sawmills to manage. The default base name is sawmills-collector. With that default:
Warning: Changing resourceBaseName on an existing release changes rendered Kubernetes resource names. Use it on a fresh install or plan a rename migration.

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S3 Config Files

Manual deployments can write Sawmills-generated collector config files in two modes:

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KEDA and Load Balancer Routing

If load balancing is enabled, telemetry sources should send data to the source-facing load balancer service, not directly to backend collectors. The load balancer routes to backend collectors through the backend headless service. If KEDA external scaling is enabled, the chart derives the scaler address from the release namespace and generated scaler service name. You normally do not need to hardcode scalerAddress; keep the chart default unless Sawmills Support asks you to override it. When using Helmsman, choose Umbrella chart with Helmsman so Sawmills escapes ${...} expressions before Helmsman processes the values file.