The CockroachDB Kubernetes Operator deploys CockroachDB on a Kubernetes cluster. You can use the Operator to manage the configuration of a running CockroachDB cluster, including:

• Authenticating certificates
• Configuring resource requests and limits
• Scaling the cluster
• Performing a rolling upgrade

• This project is in beta and is not production-ready.
• The Operator currently runs on GKE. VMware Tanzu, EKS, and AKS have not been tested.
• Currently the Kubernetes CA is required to deploy a secure cluster.
• Expansion of persistent volumes is not yet functional.
• The Operator does not yet support multiple Kubernetes clusters for multi-region deployments.
• The Operator does not yet automatically create Pod Security Policies.
• Migrating from a deployment using the Helm Chart to the Operator has not been defined or tested.
• The Operator does not yet automatically create an ingress object.
• The Operator has not been tested with Istio.

• Kubernetes 1.15 or higher (1.18 is recommended)
• kubectl
• A GKE cluster (n1-standard-4 machines are recommended)

Apply the CustomResourceDefinition (CRD) for the Operator:

kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cockroachdb/cockroach-operator/master/config/crd/bases/crdb.cockroachlabs.com_crdbclusters.yaml

Apply the Operator manifest:

kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cockroachdb/cockroach-operator/master/manifests/operator.yaml

Validate that the Operator is running:

kubectl get pods

NAME                                  READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
cockroach-operator-6f7b86ffc4-9ppkv   1/1     Running   0          54s

Download example.yaml and optionally modify the default configuration as outlined below.

apiVersion: crdb.cockroachlabs.com/v1alpha1
kind: CrdbCluster
metadata:
  name: cockroachdb
spec:
  dataStore:
    pvc:
      spec:
        accessModes:
        - ReadWriteOnce
        resources:
          requests:
            storage: "60Gi"
        volumeMode: Filesystem
  resources:
    requests:
      cpu: "2"
      memory: "2Gi"
    limits:
      cpu: "2"
      memory: "2Gi"
  tlsEnabled: true
  image:
    name: cockroachdb/cockroach:v20.2.0
  nodes: 3

By default, the Operator uses the built-in Kubernetes CA to generate and approve 1 root and 1 node certificate for the cluster.

Before deploying, we recommend explicitly allocating CPU and memory to CockroachDB in the Kubernetes pods.

Enable the commented-out lines in the resources.requests object and substitute values appropriate for your workload. Note that requests and limits should have identical values.

resources:
  requests:
    cpu: "2"
    memory: "2Gi"
  limits:
    cpu: "2"
    memory: "2Gi"

Apply example.yaml:

kubectl create -f example.yaml

Check that the pods were created:

kubectl get pods

NAME                                  READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
cockroach-operator-6f7b86ffc4-9t9zb   1/1     Running   0          3m22s
cockroachdb-0                         1/1     Running   0          2m31s
cockroachdb-1                         1/1     Running   0          102s
cockroachdb-2                         1/1     Running   0          46s

Each pod should have READY status soon after being created.

Get a shell into one of the pods and start the CockroachDB built-in SQL client:

kubectl exec -it cockroachdb-2 -- ./cockroach sql --certs-dir=/cockroach/cockroach-certs

If you want to access the Admin UI, create a SQL user with a password while you're here:

CREATE USER roach WITH PASSWORD 'Q7gc8rEdS';

\q

To access the cluster's Admin UI, port-forward from your local machine to the cockroachdb-public service:

kubectl port-forward service/cockroachdb-public 8080

Access the Admin UI at https://localhost:8080. Note that certain Admin UI pages require admin access, which you can grant to the SQL user you created earlier:

GRANT admin TO roach;

To scale the cluster up and down, edit nodes in example.yaml:

nodes: 4

Do not scale down to fewer than 3 nodes. This is considered an anti-pattern on CockroachDB and will cause errors.

Note that you must scale by updating the nodes value in the Operator configuration. Using kubectl scale statefulset <cluster-name> --replicas=4 will result in new pods immediately being terminated.

Apply the new configuration:

kubectl apply -f example.yaml

Perform a rolling upgrade by changing the image name in example.yaml:

image:
  name: cockroachdb/cockroach:v20.2.0

Apply the new configuration:

kubectl apply -f example.yaml

Delete the StatefulSet:

kubectl delete -f example.yaml

Delete the persistent volumes and persistent volume claims:

kubectl delete pv,pvc --all

Remove the Operator:

kubectl delete -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cockroachdb/cockroach-operator/master/manifests/operator.yaml

The pre-release procedure requires you to adjust the version in version.txt and run a command to generate the OpenShift metadata. See details below.

The version from the version.txt file is used for the following artifacts:

• Operator docker image published to Docker hub (using the "v" prefix, e.g. v1.0.0)
• Operator docker image published to RedHat Connect (using the "v" prefix, e.g. v1.0.0)
• OpenShift Metadata bundle (no "v" prefix, e.g. 1.0.0), committed in the source directory
• OpenShift Metadata bundle docker image published to RedHat Connect (using the "v" prefix, e.g. v1.0.0)

• Create a PR branch in your local checkout, e.g. git checkout -b release-1.0.0 origin/master.
• Adjust the version in the version.txt file or set it from command line. Use the semantic version schema (do not use the "v" prefix).
• Edit Makefile and adjust the release/versionbump target.
  • Set the CHANNEL to beta or stable.
  • Set the DEFAULT_CHANNEL to 0 or 1.
• Run make release/versionbump.
• Push the local branch and request a review.
• After the PR is merged, tag the corresponding commit, e.g. git tag v1.0.0 1234567890abcdef.

Release automation is run in TeamCity. This section will be updated after the corresponding changes are merged.