Install Operator Lifecycle Manager with Custom Operator Catalog for Kubernetes

  • OLM extends Kubernetes to provide a declarative way to install, manage and upgrade Operators and their dependencies in a cluster.

  • OLM has a concept of Catalogs from which Operators are available to install and being kept up to date.

  • Installing OLM:

    • To install OLM in a k8s cluster, two yaml files need to be applied.
      1. crds.yaml
      2. olm.yaml
    • These yamls can be downloaded from the OLM's github releases section:

    • Applying these yamls:

      • Apply crds.yaml first 
        $ kubectl apply -f https://github.com/operator-framework/operator-lifecycle-manager/releases/download/0.16.1/crds.yaml
customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/catalogsources.operators.coreos.com created
customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/clusterserviceversions.operators.coreos.com created
customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/installplans.operators.coreos.com created
customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/operatorgroups.operators.coreos.com created
customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/operators.operators.coreos.com created
customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/subscriptions.operators.coreos.com created
      • Apply olm.yaml: 
        $ kubectl apply -f https://github.com/operator-framework/operator-lifecycle-manager/releases/download/0.16.1/olm.yaml
namespace/olm created
namespace/operators created
serviceaccount/olm-operator-serviceaccount created
clusterrole.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/system:controller:operator-lifecycle-manager created
clusterrolebinding.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/olm-operator-binding-olm created
deployment.apps/olm-operator created
deployment.apps/catalog-operator created
clusterrole.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/aggregate-olm-edit created
clusterrole.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/aggregate-olm-view created
operatorgroup.operators.coreos.com/global-operators created
operatorgroup.operators.coreos.com/olm-operators created
clusterserviceversion.operators.coreos.com/packageserver created
catalogsource.operators.coreos.com/operatorhubio-catalog created
      $ kubectl get all -n olm
NAME                                    READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
pod/catalog-operator-66d58f7877-kg4wh   1/1     Running   0          155m
pod/olm-operator-5f75dd4c6c-p88g5       1/1     Running   0          155m
pod/operatorhubio-catalog-cs4zh         1/1     Running   0          153m
pod/packageserver-6459f9b47c-76glx      1/1     Running   0          152m
pod/packageserver-6459f9b47c-stmkd      1/1     Running   0          153m

NAME                            TYPE        CLUSTER-IP       EXTERNAL-IP   PORT(S)     AGE
service/operatorhubio-catalog   ClusterIP   10.108.137.92            50051/TCP   153m
service/packageserver-service   ClusterIP   10.105.218.183           5443/TCP    153m

NAME                               READY   UP-TO-DATE   AVAILABLE   AGE
deployment.apps/catalog-operator   1/1     1            1           155m
deployment.apps/olm-operator       1/1     1            1           155m
deployment.apps/packageserver      2/2     2            2           153m

NAME                                          DESIRED   CURRENT   READY   AGE
replicaset.apps/catalog-operator-66d58f7877   1         1         1       155m
replicaset.apps/olm-operator-5f75dd4c6c       1         1         1       155m
replicaset.apps/packageserver-6459f9b47c      2         2         2       153m
replicaset.apps/packageserver-69598696bd      0         0         0       153m

      $ kubectl get packagemanifests
NAME                                       CATALOG               AGE
starboard-operator                         Community Operators   160m
redis-operator                             Community Operators   160m
crossplane                                 Community Operators   160m
keycloak-operator                          Community Operators   160m
tidb-operator                              Community Operators   160m
ditto-operator                             Community Operators   160m
lightbend-console-operator                 Community Operators   160m
akka-cluster-operator                      Community Operators   160m
kubefed-operator                           Community Operators   160m
snyk-operator                              Community Operators   160m
wildfly                                    Community Operators   160m

  • By default the catalog source points to image - quay.io/operatorhubio/catalog:latest, which includes all the operators provided the community-operators

  • If you don't want, you're catalog server to support all these operators or want to include some other or you're own operator, you will need to build new image with operators you would like to be provided by catalog server. 

    $ git clone https://github.com/operator-framework/community-operators.git
community-operators$ cd community-operators/
community-operators$ rm ci.Dockerfile
community-operators$ mv upstream.Dockerfile Dockerfile

    You can check all the supported operators within upstream-community-operators directory

    community-operators$ cd upstream-community-operators/
community-operators/upstream-community-operators$ ls -1
akka-cluster-operator
anchore-engine
apicast-community-operator
apicurio-registry
api-operator
appdynamics-operator
appranix
appsody-operator
aqua
...

    Operators which are of no interest can be removed and and other operators can be included in this directory which you would like catalog server should support.

    For example I want only kafka and prometheus operator

    community-operators/upstream-community-operators$ rm -rfv !(*kafka*|"prometheus")
community-operators/upstream-community-operators$ ls -1
banzaicloud-kafka-operator
prometheus
strimzi-kafka-operator

    Build the catalog server docker image - docker build . --rm -t <any image registry username>/catalog-server

    $ docker build . --rm -t on2411/catalog-server
$ docker images | grep -i catalog
on2411/catalog-server                                      latest                   06a973f1b90e        About a minute ago   43.6MB
$ docker push on2411/catalog-server
    Note: if you're using kind then you will need to load the image in the kind cluster first:
    $ kind load docker-image on2411/catalog-server --name kind
    $ cat < ---
> apiVersion: operators.coreos.com/v1alpha1
> kind: CatalogSource
> metadata:
>   name: custom-catalog
>   namespace: olm
> spec:
>   sourceType: grpc
>   image: docker.io/on2411/catalog-server:latest
>   displayName: local Operators
>   publisher: local.io
> EOF
catalogsource.operators.coreos.com/custom-catalog created

$ kubectl get catalogsource -n olm
NAME             DISPLAY           TYPE   PUBLISHER   AGE
custom-catalog   local Operators   grpc   local.io    2s

    Delete the operatorhub catalog server

    $ kubectl delete catalogsource operatorhubio-catalog -n olm
catalogsource.operators.coreos.com "operatorhubio-catalog" deleted
    $ kubectl get pods -n olm
NAME                                READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
catalog-operator-66d58f7877-kg4wh   1/1     Running   0          13h
custom-catalog-dndrf                1/1     Running   0          9h
olm-operator-5f75dd4c6c-p88g5       1/1     Running   0          13h
packageserver-6459f9b47c-76glx      1/1     Running   0          13h
packageserver-6459f9b47c-stmkd      1/1     Running   0          13h

    Now if you check list of packagemanifests, it will only have the ones we included.

    $ kubectl get packagemanifests 
NAME                         CATALOG           AGE
banzaicloud-kafka-operator   local Operators   9h
prometheus                   local Operators   9h
strimzi-kafka-operator       local Operators   9h