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.

📌 NOTE: 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.

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

Download the Skupper Operator example files, for example:

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

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

a. Create a new namespace:
```
$ kubectl create namespace my-namespace
```
b. Switch context to the namespace:
```
$ kubectl config set-context --current --namespace=my-namespace
```
Create a CatalogSource in the openshift-marketplace namespace:
```
$ kubectl apply -f examples/k8s/00-cs.yaml
```
Verify the skupper-operator catalog pod is running before continuing:
```
$ kubectl -n olm get pods | grep skupper-operator
```
Create an OperatorGroup in the my-namespace namespace:
```
$ kubectl apply -f examples/k8s/10-og.yaml
```
Create a Subscription in the my-namespace namespace:
```
$ kubectl apply -f examples/k8s/20-sub.yaml
```

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

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"
```
📌 NOTE
Currently, you must enable the console on the same site as you enable the flow collector.

You can also create a site without a console:
```
apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
  name: skupper-site
  namespace: my-namespace
```
Apply the YAML to create a ConfigMap named skupper-site in the namespace you want to use:
```
$ kubectl apply -f skupper-site.yaml
```

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

📌 NOTE
If you deployed the Operator to a single namespace, an additional site controller pod is also running.