Using Operator Lifecycle Manager

Listing Operator Registries

You can show the available operator registries using the kubectl command on a control plane node:

kubectl get catalogsource --namespace operator-lifecycle-manager

The output looks similar to:

NAME                    DISPLAY               TYPE   PUBLISHER        AGE
operatorhubio-catalog   Community Operators   grpc   OperatorHub.io   3m35s

The OperatorHub registry is shown in the output. This is the default operator registry.

Installing Operators

To see all the operators that can be installed, use the kubectl command on a control plane node:

kubectl get packagemanifest

A list of the operators available on OperatorHub is displayed. These are all available to be installed by the Operator Lifecycle Manager. The following example shows you how to create an operator which is pulled from the OperatorHub.

To create an operator:

In a web browser, go to the OperatorHub and find the name of the operator you want to install. The OperatorHub is at:

https://operatorhub.io/

This example uses the cert-manager operator at:

https://operatorhub.io/operator/cert-manager

Click Install.

A dialog is displayed that shows the kubectl create command to deploy the operator. For example:
```
kubectl create -f https://operatorhub.io/install/cert-manager.yaml
```
Copy the URL in this command that contains the operator manifest YAML file.
On a control plane node, download the cert-manager operator manifest YAML file from the OperatorHub:
```
curl --remote-name https://operatorhub.io/install/cert-manager.yaml
```
Edit this manifest YAML file as needed.

Important:

If an operator includes the following line in the Subscription section:

sourceNamespace: olm

Change this to:

sourceNamespace: operator-lifecycle-manager

Operator Lifecycle Manager runs in the operator-lifecycle-manager namespace, which is different to the upstream namespace.

Edit the file to change sourceNamespace to operator-lifecycle-manager.
```
apiVersion: operators.coreos.com/v1alpha1
kind: Subscription
metadata:
  name: my-cert-manager
  namespace: operators
spec:
  channel: stable
  name: cert-manager
  source: operatorhubio-catalog
  sourceNamespace: operator-lifecycle-manager
```
Use the kubectl apply command to deploy the cert-manager operator.
```
kubectl apply -f cert-manager.yaml
```
The output looks similar to:
```
subscription.operators.coreos.com/my-cert-manager created
```
The operator is deployed into the namespace set in the operator manifest file, which in this example is operators.

You can see the operator's ClusterServiceVersion information using:

kubectl get csv --namespace operators

The output looks similar to:

NAME                   DISPLAY        VERSION   REPLACES               PHASE
cert-manager.v1.12.2   cert-manager   1.12.2    cert-manager.v1.11.4   Succeeded

You can see the operator deployments using:

kubectl get deployments --namespace operators

The output looks similar to:

NAME                      READY   UP-TO-DATE   AVAILABLE   AGE
cert-manager              1/1     1            1           6m
cert-manager-cainjector   1/1     1            1           6m
cert-manager-webhook      1/1     1            1           6m

Removing Operators

To remove an operator and uninstall it, you need to remove the Subscription and ClusterServiceVersion resources.

The example in this document doesn't include a Subscription resource, but if the operator you want to delete includes one, delete it using:

kubectl delete subscription subscription-name --namespace namespace

You also need to delete the Kubernetes ClusterServiceVersion resource using:

kubectl delete csv csv-name --namespace namespace

To delete the ClusterServiceVersion for the cert-manager operator, on a control plane node, run:

kubectl delete csv --namespace operators cert-manager.v1.12.2

The output looks similar to:

clusterserviceversion.operators.coreos.com "cert-manager.v1.12.2" deleted