Adding Operators to a cluster

Navigate in the web console to the Operators → OperatorHub page.

Scroll or type a keyword into the Filter by keyword box to find the Operator you want. For example, type advanced to find the Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes Operator.

Select the Operator to display additional information.

Read the information about the Operator and click Install.

On the Install Operator page:

Click Install to make the Operator available to the selected namespaces on this OpenShift Container Platform cluster.

After the upgrade status of the subscription is Up to date, select Operators → Installed Operators to verify that the cluster service version (CSV) of the installed Operator eventually shows up. The Status should ultimately resolve to InstallSucceeded in the relevant namespace.

View the list of Operators available to the cluster from OperatorHub:

$ oc get packagemanifests -n openshift-marketplace

NAME                               CATALOG               AGE
3scale-operator                    Red Hat Operators     91m
advanced-cluster-management        Red Hat Operators     91m
amq7-cert-manager                  Red Hat Operators     91m
...
couchbase-enterprise-certified     Certified Operators   91m
crunchy-postgres-operator          Certified Operators   91m
mongodb-enterprise                 Certified Operators   91m
...
etcd                               Community Operators   91m
jaeger                             Community Operators   91m
kubefed                            Community Operators   91m
...

Inspect your desired Operator to verify its supported install modes and available channels:

$ oc describe packagemanifests <operator_name> -n openshift-marketplace

An Operator group, defined by an OperatorGroup object, selects target namespaces in which to generate required RBAC access for all Operators in the same namespace as the Operator group.

Create a Subscription object YAML file to subscribe a namespace to an Operator, for example sub.yaml:

apiVersion: operators.coreos.com/v1alpha1
kind: Subscription
metadata:
  name: <subscription_name>
  namespace: openshift-operators (1)
spec:
  channel: <channel_name> (2)
  name: <operator_name> (3)
  source: redhat-operators (4)
  sourceNamespace: openshift-marketplace (5)
  config:
    env: (6)
    - name: ARGS
      value: "-v=10"
    envFrom: (7)
    - secretRef:
        name: license-secret
    volumes: (8)
    - name: <volume_name>
      configMap:
        name: <configmap_name>
    volumeMounts: (9)
    - mountPath: <directory_name>
      name: <volume_name>
    tolerations: (10)
    - operator: "Exists"
    resources: (11)
      requests:
        memory: "64Mi"
        cpu: "250m"
      limits:
        memory: "128Mi"
        cpu: "500m"
    nodeSelector: (12)
      foo: bar

If the cluster is in STS mode, include the following fields in the Subscription object:

kind: Subscription
# ...
spec:
  installPlanApproval: Manual (1)
  config:
    env:
    - name: ROLEARN
      value: "<role_arn>" (2)

Create the Subscription object:

$ oc apply -f sub.yaml

Look up the available versions and channels of the Operator you want to install by running the following command:

$ oc describe packagemanifests <operator_name> -n <catalog_namespace>

$ oc describe packagemanifests quay-operator -n openshift-marketplace

Name:         quay-operator
Namespace:    operator-marketplace
Labels:       catalog=redhat-operators
              catalog-namespace=openshift-marketplace
              hypershift.openshift.io/managed=true
              operatorframework.io/arch.amd64=supported
              operatorframework.io/os.linux=supported
              provider=Red Hat
              provider-url=
Annotations:  <none>
API Version:  packages.operators.coreos.com/v1
Kind:         PackageManifest
...
    Current CSV:  quay-operator.v3.7.11
...
    Entries:
      Name:       quay-operator.v3.7.11
      Version:    3.7.11
      Name:       quay-operator.v3.7.10
      Version:    3.7.10
      Name:       quay-operator.v3.7.9
      Version:    3.7.9
      Name:       quay-operator.v3.7.8
      Version:    3.7.8
      Name:       quay-operator.v3.7.7
      Version:    3.7.7
      Name:       quay-operator.v3.7.6
      Version:    3.7.6
      Name:       quay-operator.v3.7.5
      Version:    3.7.5
      Name:       quay-operator.v3.7.4
      Version:    3.7.4
      Name:       quay-operator.v3.7.3
      Version:    3.7.3
      Name:       quay-operator.v3.7.2
      Version:    3.7.2
      Name:       quay-operator.v3.7.1
      Version:    3.7.1
      Name:       quay-operator.v3.7.0
      Version:    3.7.0
    Name:         stable-3.7
...
   Current CSV:  quay-operator.v3.8.5
...
   Entries:
      Name:         quay-operator.v3.8.5
      Version:      3.8.5
      Name:         quay-operator.v3.8.4
      Version:      3.8.4
      Name:         quay-operator.v3.8.3
      Version:      3.8.3
      Name:         quay-operator.v3.8.2
      Version:      3.8.2
      Name:         quay-operator.v3.8.1
      Version:      3.8.1
      Name:         quay-operator.v3.8.0
      Version:      3.8.0
    Name:           stable-3.8
  Default Channel:  stable-3.8
  Package Name:     quay-operator

$ oc get packagemanifests <operator_name> -n <catalog_namespace> -o yaml

An Operator group, defined by an OperatorGroup object, selects target namespaces in which to generate required role-based access control (RBAC) access for all Operators in the same namespace as the Operator group.

Create a Subscription object YAML file that subscribes a namespace to an Operator with a specific version by setting the startingCSV field. Set the installPlanApproval field to Manual to prevent the Operator from automatically upgrading if a later version exists in the catalog.

apiVersion: operators.coreos.com/v1alpha1
kind: Subscription
metadata:
  name: quay-operator
  namespace: quay
spec:
  channel: stable-3.7
  installPlanApproval: Manual (1)
  name: quay-operator
  source: redhat-operators
  sourceNamespace: openshift-marketplace
  startingCSV: quay-operator.v3.7.10 (2)

Create the Subscription object:

$ oc apply -f sub.yaml

Manually approve the pending install plan to complete the Operator installation.

From the web console, click Operators → OperatorHub.

Select an Operator you want to install.

From the selected Operator, you can select a Channel and Version from the lists.

Click Install

Before installing the Operator, create a namespace for the tenant Operator that is separate from the tenant’s namespace. For example, if the tenant’s namespace is team1, you might create a team1-operator namespace:

Create an Operator group for the tenant Operator scoped to the tenant’s namespace, with only that one namespace entry in the spec.targetNamespaces list:

Before installing the Operator, create a namespace for the installation of your desired Operator. This installation namespace will become the custom global namespace:

Create a custom global Operator group, which is an Operator group that watches all namespaces:

Determine a node or set of nodes to target for the pods per your requirements. If available, note an existing label, such as node-role.kubernetes.io/app, that identifies the node or nodes. Otherwise, add a label, such as myoperator, by using a compute machine set or editing the node directly. You will use this label in a later step as the node selector on your project.

If you want to ensure that only pods with a certain label are allowed to run on the nodes, while steering unrelated workloads to other nodes, add a taint to the node or nodes by using a compute machine set or editing the node directly. Use an effect that ensures that new pods that do not match the taint cannot be scheduled on the nodes. For example, a myoperator:NoSchedule taint ensures that new pods that do not match the taint are not scheduled onto that node, but existing pods on the node are allowed to remain.

Create a project that is configured with a default node selector and, if you added a taint, a matching toleration.

Install the Operator as usual.

If needed, ensure that your nodes are labeled to properly respond to the affinity.

Edit the Operator Subscription object to add an affinity:

apiVersion: operators.coreos.com/v1alpha1
kind: Subscription
metadata:
  name: openshift-custom-metrics-autoscaler-operator
  namespace: openshift-keda
spec:
  name: my-package
  source: my-operators
  sourceNamespace: operator-registries
  config:
    affinity: (1)
      nodeAffinity:
        requiredDuringSchedulingIgnoredDuringExecution:
          nodeSelectorTerms:
          - matchExpressions:
            - key: kubernetes.io/hostname
              operator: In
              values:
              - ip-10-0-185-229.ec2.internal
#...