Using the Skupper Operator on Kubernetes

The Skupper Operator creates and manages Skupper sites in Kubernetes.

You can install the Operator as described in Installing the Operator using the CLI.

Installing an Operator requires administrator-level privileges for your Kubernetes cluster.

After installing the Operator, you can create a site by deploying a ConfigMap as described in Creating a site using the Skupper Operator

Installing the Operator using the CLI

The steps in this section show how to use the kubectl command-line interface (CLI) to install and deploy the latest version of the Skupper Operator in a given Kubernetes cluster.

Prerequisites

  • The Operator Lifecycle Manager is installed in the cluster. For more information, see the QuickStart.

Procedure

  1. Download the Skupper Operator example files, for example:

    $ wget https://github.com/skupperproject/skupper-operator/archive/refs/heads/main.zip

  2. Create a my-namespace namespace. NOTE: If you want to use a different namespace, you need to edit the referenced YAML files.

    1. Create a new namespace:

      $ kubectl create namespace my-namespace

    2. Switch context to the namespace:

      $ kubectl config set-context --current --namespace=my-namespace

  3. Create a CatalogSource in the openshift-marketplace namespace:

    $ kubectl apply -f examples/k8s/00-cs.yaml

  4. Verify the skupper-operator catalog pod is running before continuing:

    $ kubectl -n olm get pods | grep skupper-operator

  5. Create an OperatorGroup in the my-namespace namespace:

    $ kubectl apply -f examples/k8s/10-og.yaml

  6. Create a Subscription in the my-namespace namespace:

    $ kubectl apply -f examples/k8s/20-sub.yaml

  7. Verify that the Operator is running:

    $ kubectl get pods -n my-namespace

NAME                                     READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
skupper-site-controller-d7b57964-gxms6   1/1     Running   0          1m

    If the output does not report the pod is running, use the following command to determine the issue that prevented it from running:

    $ kubectl describe pod -l name=skupper-operator

Creating a site using the Skupper Operator

  1. Create a YAML file defining the ConfigMap of the site you want to create.

    For example, create skupper-site.yaml that provisions a site with a console:

    apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
  name: skupper-site
  namespace: my-namespace
data:
  console: "true"
  flow-collector: "true"
  console-user: "admin"
  console-password: "changeme"
    The console is a preview feature and may change before becoming fully supported by skupper.io. Currently, you must enable the console on the same site as you enable the flow collector. This requirement may change before the console is fully supported by skupper.io.

    You can also create a site without a console:

    apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
  name: skupper-site
  namespace: my-namespace

  2. Apply the YAML to create a ConfigMap named skupper-site in the namespace you want to use:

    $ kubectl apply -f skupper-site.yaml

  3. Verify that the site is created by checking that the Skupper router and service controller pods are running:

    $ kubectl get pods

NAME                                          READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
skupper-router-8c6cc6d76-27562                1/1     Running   0          40s
skupper-service-controller-57cdbb56c5-vc7s2   1/1     Running   0          34s
    If you deployed the Operator to a single namespace, an additional site controller pod is also running.