Adding a catalog of extensions to a cluster

Extension authors can publish their products in catalogs. Catalogs are curated collections of Kubernetes extensions, such as Operators. Cluster administrators can add these catalogs to their cluster. Cluster administrators can enable polling to get over-the-air updates to catalogs when extension authors publish changes such as bug fixes and new features.

For example, the Kubernetes community Operators catalog is a catalog of curated extensions that is developed by the Kubernetes community. You can see the available extensions at Operatorhub.io. This catalog is distributed as an image quay.io/operatorhubio/catalog that can be installed on clusters.

Prerequisites

Access to a Kubernetes cluster, for example kind, using an account with cluster-admin permissions
Operator Controller installed on the cluster
Catalogd installed on the cluster
Kubernetes CLI (kubectl) installed on your workstation

Procedure

Create a catalog custom resource (CR):

catalog_cr.yaml

apiVersion: catalogd.operatorframework.io/v1alpha1
kind: Catalog
metadata:
  name: operatorhubio
spec:
  source:
    type: image
    image:
      ref: <catalog_image>
      pollInterval: <poll_interval_duration>

catalog_name: Specifies the image reference for the catalog you want to install, such as quay.io/operatorhubio/catalog:latest.
poll_interval_duration: Specifies the interval for polling the remote registry for newer image digests. The default value is 24h. Valid units include seconds (s), minutes (m), and hours (h). To disable polling, set a zero value, such as 0s.

Example `operatorhubio.yaml` CR

apiVersion: catalogd.operatorframework.io/v1alpha1
kind: Catalog
metadata:
  name: operatorhub
spec:
  source:
    type: image
    image:
      ref: quay.io/operatorhubio/catalog:latest
      pollInterval: 1h

Apply the catalog CR:

$ kubectl apply -f <catalog_cr>.yaml

Example output

catalog.catalogd.operatorframework.io/redhat-operators created

Verification

Run the following commands to verify the status of your catalog:

Check if your catalog is available on the cluster:

$ kubectl get catalog

Example output

NAME            PHASE   AGE
operatorhubio           9s

Check the status of your catalog:

$ kubectl describe catalog

Example output

Name:         operatorhubio
Namespace:
Labels:       <none>
Annotations:  <none>
API Version:  catalogd.operatorframework.io/v1alpha1
Kind:         Catalog
Metadata:
  Creation Timestamp:  2024-03-12T19:34:50Z
  Finalizers:
    catalogd.operatorframework.io/delete-server-cache
  Generation:        2
  Resource Version:  6469
  UID:               2e2778cb-dda6-4645-96b7-992e8dd37503
Spec:
  Source:
    Image:
      Poll Interval:  15m0s
      Ref:            quay.io/operatorhubio/catalog:latest
    Type:             image
Status:
  Conditions:
    Last Transition Time:  2024-03-12T19:35:34Z
    Message:
    Reason:                UnpackSuccessful
    Status:                True
    Type:                  Unpacked
  Content URL:             http://catalogd-catalogserver.catalogd-system.svc/catalogs/operatorhubio/all.json
  Observed Generation:     2
  Phase:                   Unpacked
  Resolved Source:
    Image:
      Last Poll Attempt:  2024-03-12T19:35:26Z
      Ref:                quay.io/operatorhubio/catalog:latest
      Resolved Ref:       quay.io/operatorhubio/catalog@sha256:dee29aaed76fd1c72b654b9bc8bebc4b48b34fd8d41ece880524dc0c3c1c55ec
    Type:                 image
Events:                   <none>