Install your operator with OLM

Prerequisites

Before installing an operator into a namespace, you will need to create an OperatorGroup that targets the namespaces your operator is planning to watch, to generate the required RBACs for your operator in those namespaces. You can read more about OperatorGroup here.

NOTE: The namespaces targeted by the OperatorGroup must align with the installModes specified in the ClusterServiceVersion of the operator’s package.

To know the installModes of an operator, inspect the packagemanifest:

$ kubectl get packagemanifest <operator-name> -o jsonpath="{.status.channels[0].currentCSVDesc.installModes}"
          

You can read more about target namespace selection for your OperatorGroup here

Subscribe to your operator

To install an Operator, simply create a Subscription for your operator.

apiVersion: operators.coreos.com/v1alpha1
kind: Subscription
metadata:
  name: <name-of-your-subscription>
  namespace: <namespace-you-want-your-operator-installed-in>
spec:
  channel: <channel-you-want-to-subscribe-to>
  name: <name-of-your-operator>
  source: <name-of-catalog-operator-is-part-of>
  sourceNamespace: <namespace-that-has-catalog>
  approval: <Automatic/Manual>

You can read more about the Subscription object and what the different fields mean here.

The Subscription object creates an InstallPlan, which is either automatically approved (if sub.spec.approval: Automatic), or needs to be approved (if sub.spec.approval: Manual), following which the operator is installed in the namespace you want.

Example

If you want to install an operator named my-operator in the namespace foo that is cluster scoped (i.e installModes:AllNamespaces), from a catalog named my-catalog that is in the namespace olm, and you want to subscribe to the channel stable,

create a global OperatorGroup (which selects all namespaces):

$ cat og.yaml 

  apiVersion: operators.coreos.com/v1
  kind: OperatorGroup
  metadata:
    name: my-group
    namespace: foo

$ kubectl apply og.yaml 
  operatorgroup.operators.coreos.com/my-group created 

Then, create a subscription for the operator:

$ cat sub.yaml

apiVersion: operators.coreos.com/v1alpha1
kind: Subscription
metadata:
  name: sub-to-my-operator
  namespace: foo
spec:
  channel: stable
  name: my-operator
  source: my-catalog
  sourceNamespace: olm
  approval: Manual

$ kubectl apply -f sub.yaml
subscription.operators.coreos.com/sub-to-my-operator created

Since the approval is Manual, we need to manually go in and approve the InstallPlan

$ kubectl get ip -n foo

NAME            CSV                   APPROVAL    APPROVED
install-nlwcw   my-operator.v0.9.2   Automatic     false

$ kubectl edit ip install-nlwcw -n foo

And then change the spec.approved from false to true

This should spin up the ClusterServiceVersion of the operator in the foo namespace`, following which the operator pod will spin up.

To ensure the operator installed successfully, check for the ClusterServiceVersion and the operator deployment in the namespace it was installed in.

$ kubectl get csv -n <namespace-operator-was-installed-in>

NAME                  DISPLAY          VERSION           REPLACES              PHASE
<name-of-csv>     <operator-name>     <version>  <csv-of-previous-version>   Succeeded

$ kubectl get deployments -n <namespace-operator-was-installed-in>
NAME                         READY   UP-TO-DATE   AVAILABLE   AGE
<name-of-your-operator>      1/1     1            1           9m48s

If the ClusterServiceVersion fails to show up or does not reach the Succeeded phase, please check the troubleshooting documentation to debug your installation.