IBM Cloud Operator

With the IBM Cloud Operator, you can provision and bind IBM public cloud services to your Kubernetes cluster in a Kubernetes-native way. The IBM Cloud Operator is based on the Kubernetes custom resource definition (CRD) API so that your applications can create, update, and delete IBM Cloud services from within the cluster by calling Kubnernetes APIs, instead of needing to use several IBM Cloud APIs in addition to configuring your app for Kubernetes.

Table of content

• Features
• Upgrading the operator
• Prerequisites
• Setting up the operator
  • Using a service ID
  • Installing the operator for OpenShift clusters
  • Installing the operator for Kubernetes clusters
  • Uninstalling the operator
• Using the IBM Cloud Operator
• Using separate IBM Cloud accounts
• Setting up a management namespace
• Reference documentation
  • Service properties
  • Binding properties
  • Account context in operator secret and configmap
  • Versions
• Contributing to the project
• Troubleshooting

Features

• Service provisioning: Create any service with any plan that is available in the IBM Cloud catalog.

• Bindings management: Automatically create Kubernetes secrets in your Kubernetes cluster with the credentials to bind to any provisioned service to the cluster.

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Upgrading the operator

Follow the instructions for the kind of installation you used: OperatorHub or the curl installation command.

curl installation command

To upgrade existing curl installs, you can reinstall the operator with the curl installation command. If your current installation is version 0.1.x or 0.2.x, then follow these steps to complete a successful upgrade.

1. Copy your secrets and configmaps to use the new names.

2. Re-run the curl installation command to install the latest version.

3. Verify the new operator is running.

   kubectl get pods -n ibmcloud-operator-system

4. Verify ibmcloud.ibm.com/v1 Service versions provision correctly.

5. Delete the old version with kubectl delete ns ibmcloud-operators.

6. Delete the secrets and configmaps using the old names from step 1.

OperatorHub

To upgrade an OperatorHub installation, use the OpenShift web console to perform the upgrade. If upgrading from the alpha channel subscription to stable, follow the additional upgrade instructions below.

Upgrading to version v0.3 or v1.0

IMPORTANT NOTICE: v0.1 and v0.2 used a different naming scheme for secrets and configmaps. Before you update the IBM Cloud Operator, create secret and configmap resources with these names and copy the contents of your previous resources to the new resources. Then, the upgraded operator recognizes and continues to update the resources.

Existing Service and Binding resources do not need modification for the upgrade.

Previous names (v0.1 and v0.2)	Current names (v0.3 and v1.0)	Description
secret-ibm-cloud-operator	ibmcloud-operator-secret	Secret with the API key, scoped to the namespace.
config-ibm-cloud-operator	ibmcloud-operator-defaults	ConfigMap with the default values for new resources.
ibm-cloud-operator	ibmcloud-operator-config	ConfigMap with the management namespace configuration.
${namespace}-secret-ibm-cloud-operator	${namespace}-ibmcloud-operator-secret	Management namespace Secret with the API key for ${namespace}.
${namespace}-config-ibm-cloud-operator	${namespace}-ibmcloud-operator-defaults	Management namespace ConfigMap with default values for new resources in ${namespace}.

Tip: Forgot to update the secret and configmap names before upgrading? The operator will not take action on Service and Binding resources until the new secrets and configmaps have been created. Creating these after the upgrade will also work.

OperatorHub stable channel

Continuous updates and bug fixes are provided in the latest stable channel. Subscribing to the stable channel in OperatorHub means you automatically get the latest updates without breaking backward compatibility.

Changelog

For a list of recent changes, see the releases page.

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Prerequisites

1. Have an IBM Cloud account.

2. Have a cluster that runs Kubernetes version 1.11 or later (OpenShift 3.11 or later).

3. Install the required command line tools.

   • IBM Cloud CLI (ibmcloud)
   • Kubernetes CLI (kubectl)

4. Log in to your IBM Cloud account from the CLI.

   ibmcloud login

5. Target the appropriate resource group (-g) and default region (-r) for provisioning services:

   ibmcloud target -g default -r us-south

6. If you also want to provision Cloud Foundry services, target the appropriate org and space (--cf).

   ibmcloud target --cf

7. Set the Kubernetes context of your CLI to your cluster so that you can run kubectl commands. For example, if your cluster runs OpenShift, use the oc login command.

If your cluster is in IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service, run the following command.

ibmcloud ks cluster config -c <cluster_name_or_ID>

To check that your Kubernetes context is set to your cluster, run the following command.

kubectl config current-context

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Setting up the operator

You can use an installation script to set up the IBM Cloud Operator. By default, the installation script stores an API key in a Kubernetes secret in your cluster that can be accessed by the IBM Cloud Operator. Next, the script sets default values that are used to provision IBM Cloud services, like the resource group and region to provision the services in. Later, you can override any default value in the Service custom resource. Finally, the script deploys the operator in your cluster.

To use your own API key, set the IBMCLOUD_API_KEY environment variable to the key before running the installation script:

export IBMCLOUD_API_KEY="CUSTOM_API_KEY"

If installed with Operator Hub, the operator will run in the openshift-operators namespace. Otherwise, it will run in the ibmcloud-operator-system namespace.

Prefer to create the secrets and defaults yourself? See the IBM Cloud Operator installation guide.

Using a service ID

By default, the installation script creates an IBM Cloud API key that impersonates your user credentials, to use to set up the IBM Cloud Operator. However, you might want to create a service ID in IBM Cloud Identity and Access Managment (IAM). By using a service ID, you can control access for the IBM Cloud Operator without having the permissions tied to a particular user, such as if that user leaves the company. For more information, see the IBM Cloud docs.

1. Create a service ID in IBM Cloud IAM. If possible, do not use spaces in the names for your IAM credentials. When you use the operator binding feature, any spaces are replaced with underscores.

   ibmcloud iam service-id-create serviceid-ico -d service-ID-for-ibm-cloud-operator

2. Assign the service ID access to the required permissions to work with the IBM Cloud services that you want the operator to manage. The required permissions vary with each IBM Cloud service. You can also scope an access policy to different regions or resource groups. For example, the following command grants the service ID the Administrator platform role in the default resource group in the US South (Dallas) region. For more information, see the IBM Cloud docs.

   ibmcloud iam service-policy-create serviceid-ico --roles Administrator --resource-group-name default --region us-south

3. Create an API key for the service ID.

   ibmcloud iam service-api-key-create apikey-ico serviceid-ico -d api-key-for-ibm-cloud-operator

4. Set the API key of the service ID as your CLI environment variable. Now, when you run the installation script, the script uses the service ID's API key. The following command is an example for macOS.

   export IBMCLOUD_API_KEY=<apikey-ico-value>

5. Confirm that the API key environment variable is set in your CLI.

   echo $IBMCLOUD_API_KEY

6. Follow the prerequisite steps to log in to the IBM Cloud account that owns the service ID.

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Installing the operator for OpenShift clusters

Before you begin, complete the prerequisite steps to log in to IBM Cloud and your cluster, and optionally set up a service ID API key.

To configure the latest release for OpenShift before installing via the OperatorHub, run the following script:

• Latest release:

  curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/IBM/cloud-operators/master/hack/configure-operator.sh | bash

• Specific release: Replace -v 0.0.0 with the specific version that you want to install.

  curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/IBM/cloud-operators/master/hack/configure-operator.sh | bash -s -- -v 0.0.0 store-creds

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Installing the operator for Kubernetes clusters

Before you begin, complete the prerequisite steps to log in to IBM Cloud and your cluster, and optionally set up a service ID API key.

• Latest release: To install the latest stable release of the operator, run the following script.

  curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/IBM/cloud-operators/master/hack/configure-operator.sh | bash -s -- install

• Specific release: Replace -v 0.0.0 with the specific version that you want to install.

  curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/IBM/cloud-operators/master/hack/configure-operator.sh | bash -s -- -v 0.0.0 install

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Uninstalling the operator

WARNING: This is a destructive operation. The uninstaller deletes the Service and Binding CRDs, which deletes the custom resources of those types. If you only want to upgrade to a newer version, only delete the operator's Deployment.

Before you begin, complete the prerequisite steps to log in to IBM Cloud and your cluster.

To remove the operator and all of the associated custom resources, run the following script:

curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/IBM/cloud-operators/master/hack/configure-operator.sh | bash -s -- remove

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Using the IBM Cloud Operator

To use the IBM Cloud Operator, create a service instance and then bind the service to your cluster. For more information, see the sample configuration files, user guide, and reference documentation.

Step 1: Creating a service instance

1. To create an instance of an IBM public cloud service, first create a Service custom resource file. For more options, see the Service properties reference doc.

   • <SERVICE_CLASS> is the IBM Cloud service that you want to create. To list IBM Cloud services, run ibmcloud catalog service-marketplace and use the Name value from the output.
   • <PLAN> is the plan for the IBM Cloud service that you want to create, such as free or standard. To list available plans, run ibmcloud catalog service <SERVICE_CLASS> | grep plan.

   apiVersion: ibmcloud.ibm.com/v1
   kind: Service
   metadata:
       name: myservice
   spec:
       plan: <PLAN>
       serviceClass: <SERVICE_CLASS>

2. Create the service instance in your cluster.

   kubectl apply -f filepath/myservice.yaml

3. Check that your service status is Online in your cluster.

   kubectl get services.ibmcloud
   NAME           STATUS   AGE
   myservice      Online   12s

4. Verify that your service instance is created in IBM Cloud.

   ibmcloud resource service-instances | grep myservice

Step 2: Binding the service instance

1. To bind your service to the cluster so that your apps can use the service, create a Binding custom resource, where the serviceName field is the name of the Service custom resource that you previously created. For more options, see Binding properties.

   apiVersion: ibmcloud.ibm.com/v1
   kind: Binding
   metadata:
       name: mybinding
   spec:
       serviceName: myservice

2. Create the binding in your cluster.

   kubectl apply -f filepath/mybinding.yaml

3. Check that your service status is Online.

   kubectl get bindings.ibmcloud
   NAME         STATUS   AGE
   mybinding    Online   25s

4. Check that a secret of the same name as your binding is created. The secret contains the service credentials that apps in your cluster can use to access the service.

   kubectl get secrets
   NAME         TYPE      DATA   AGE
   mybinding    Opaque    6      102s

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Using separate IBM Cloud accounts

You can provision IBM Cloud services in separate IBM Cloud accounts from the same cluster. To use separate accounts, update the secrets and configmap in the Kubernetes namespace where you want to create services and bindings.

Tip: Just want to use a different account one time and don't want to manage a bunch of namespaces? You can also specify a different account in the individual service configuration, by overriding the default account context.

1. Get the IBM Cloud account details, including account ID, Cloud Foundry org and space, resource group, region, and API key credentials.
2. Edit or replace the ibmcloud-operator-secret secret in the Kubernetes namespace that you want to use to create services in the account.
3. Edit or replace the ibmcloud-operator-defaults configmap in the Kubernetes namespace that you want to use to create services in the account.
4. Optional: Set up a management namespace so that cluster users with access across namespaces cannot see the API keys for the different IBM Cloud accounts.

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Setting up a management namespace

By default, the API key credentials and other IBM Cloud account information are stored in a secret and a configmap within each namespace where you create IBM Cloud Operator service and binding custom resources. However, you might want to hide access to this information from cluster users in the namespace. For example, you might have multiple IBM Cloud accounts that you do not want cluster users in different namespaces to know about.

1. Create a management namespace that is named safe.

   kubectl create namespace safe

2. In the namespace where the IBM Cloud Operator runs, create an ibmcloud-operator-config configmap that points to the safe namespace.

   cat <<EOF | kubectl apply -f -
   apiVersion: v1
   kind: ConfigMap
   metadata:
     name: ibmcloud-operator-config
     namespace: openshift-operators # Or update to the namespace where IBM Cloud Operator is running
     labels:
       app.kubernetes.io/name: ibmcloud-operator
   data:
     namespace: safe
   EOF

3. Copy the existing or create your own ibmcloud-operator-secret secrets and ibmcloud-operator-defaults configmaps from the other Kubernetes namespace into the safe namespace. Important: You must rename the secrets and configmaps with the following naming convention.

   <namespace>-ibmcloud-operator-secret
   <namespace>-ibmcloud-operator-defaults
   

   For example, if you have a cluster with three namespaces default, test, and prod:

   default-ibmcloud-operator-secret
   default-ibmcloud-operator-defaults
   test-ibmcloud-operator-secret
   test-ibmcloud-operator-defaults
   prod-ibmcloud-operator-secret
   prod-ibmcloud-operator-defaults
   

4. Delete the ibmcloud-operator-secret secrets and ibmcloud-operator-defaults configmaps in the other Kubernetes namespaces.

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Reference documentation

Service Properties

A Service custom resource includes the properties in the following table. Each parameter value is treated as a raw value by the operator and passed as-is. For more information, see the IBM Cloud Operator user guide.

Parameter	Required	Type	Comments
serviceClass *	Yes	string	The IBM Cloud service that you want to create. To list IBM Cloud services, run ibmcloud catalog service-marketplace and use the Name value from the output.
plan *	Yes	string	The plan to use for the service instance, such as free or standard. To use an existing service instance, set to Alias. To list available plans, run `ibmcloud catalog service <SERVICE_CLASS>
serviceClassType *	CF only	string	Set to CF for Cloud Foundry services. Otherwise, omit this field.
externalName *	No	string	The name for the service instance in IBM Cloud, such as in the console.
parameters	No	[]Param	Parameters that are passed in to create the service instance. These parameters vary by service, and can be anything, such as a number, string, or object.
tags	No	[]string	The IBM Cloud tag to assign the service instance, to help organize your cloud resources such as in the IBM Cloud console.
context	No	Context	The IBM Cloud account context to use instead of the default account context.

* Note: The serviceClass, plan, serviceClassType, and externalName parameters are immutable. After you set these parameters, you cannot later edit their values. If you do edit the values, the changes are overwritten back to the original values.

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Binding Properties

A Binding custom resources includes the properties in the following table. For more information, see the IBM Cloud Operator user guide.

Field	Required	Type	Comments
serviceName	Yes	string	The name of the Service resource that corresponds to the service instance on which to create credentials for the binding.
serviceNamespace	No	string	The namespace of the Service resource.
alias	No	string	The name of existing IBM Cloud credentials to link this binding to. This binding creates a secret for these credentials in the cluster namespace, but cannot modify the existing credentials in IBM Cloud. Note that any spaces are replaced with underscores.
secretName	No	string	The name of the Secret to be created. If you do not specify a value, the secret is given the same name as the binding.
role	No	string	The IBM Cloud IAM role to create the credentials to the service instance. Review the each service's documentation for a description of the roles. If you do not specify a role, the IAM Manager service access role is used. If the service does not support the Manager role, the first returned role from the service is used.
parameters	No	[]Any	Parameters that are passed in to create the create the service credentials. These parameters vary by service, and can be anything, such as an integer, string, or object.

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Account context in operator secret and configmap

The IBM Cloud Operator needs an account context, which indicates the API key and the details of the IBM Cloud account to be used for creating services. The API key is stored in a ibmcloud-operator-secret secret that is created when the IBM Cloud Operator is installed. Account details such as the account ID, Cloud Foundry org and space, resource group, and region are stored in a ibmcloud-operator-defaults configmap.

When you create an IBM Cloud Operator service or binding resource, the operator checks the namespace that you create the resource in for the secret and configmap. If the the operator does not find the secret and configmap, it checks its own namespace for a configmap that points to a management namespace. Then, the operator checks the management namespace for <namespace>-ibmcloud-operator-secret secrets and <namespace>-ibmcloud-operator-defaults configmaps. If no management namespace exists, the operator checks the default namespace for the ibmcloud-operator-secret secret and ibmcloud-operator-defaults configmap.

You can override the account context in the Service configuration file with the context field, as described in the following table. You might override the account context if you want to use a different IBM Cloud account to provision a service, but do not want to create separate secrets and configmaps for different namespaces.

Field	Required	Type	Description
org	No	string	The Cloud Foundry org. To list orgs, run ibmcloud account orgs.
space	No	string	The Cloud Foundry space. To list spaces, run ibmcloud account spaces.
region	No	string	The IBM Cloud region. To list regions, run ibmcloud regions.
resourceGroupID	No	string	The IBM Cloud resource group ID. To list resource groups, run ibmcloud resource groups.
resourceLocation	No	string	The location of the resource.

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Versions

Review the supported Kubernetes API versions for the following IBM Cloud Operator versions.

Operator version	Kubernetes API version
v0.3 or later	v1
v0.2	v1beta1 or v1alpha1
v0.1	v1alpha

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Contributing to the project

See Contributing to Cloud Operators

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Troubleshooting

See the Troubleshooting guide.

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