The Kubernetes Controller Manager operator manages and updates the Kubernetes Controller Manager deployed on top of OpenShift. The operator is based on OpenShift library-go framework and it is installed via Cluster Version Operator (CVO).

It contains the following components:

• Operator
• Bootstrap manifest renderer
• Installer based on static pods
• Configuration observer

By default, the operator exposes Prometheus metrics via metrics service. The metrics are collected from following components:

• Kubernetes Controller Manager operator

The configuration for the Kubernetes Controller Manager is coming from:

• a default config

Operator also expose events that can help debugging issues. To get operator events, run following command:

$ oc get events -n  openshift-kube-controller-manager-operator

This operator is configured via KubeControllerManager custom resource:

$ oc describe kubecontrollermanager

apiVersion: operator.openshift.io/v1
kind: KubeControllerManager
metadata:
  name: cluster
spec:
  managementState: Managed
  ...

$ oc explain kubecontrollermanager

to learn more about the resource itself.

The current operator status is reported using the ClusterOperator resource. To get the current status you can run follow command:

$ oc get clusteroperator/kube-controller-manager

In the running cluster cluster-version-operator is responsible for maintaining functioning and non-altered elements. In that case to be able to use custom operator image one has to perform one of these operations:

1. Set your operator in umanaged state, see here for details, in short:

oc patch clusterversion/version --type='merge' -p "$(cat <<- EOF
spec:
  overrides:
  - group: apps
    kind: Deployment
    name: kube-controller-manager-operator
    namespace: openshift-kube-controller-manager-operator
    unmanaged: true
EOF
)"

2. Scale down cluster-version-operator:

oc scale --replicas=0 deploy/cluster-version-operator -n openshift-cluster-version

IMPORTANT: This apprach disables cluster-version-operator completly, whereas previous only tells it to not manage a kube-controller-manager-operator!

After doing this you can now change the image of the operator to the desired one:

oc patch deployment/kube-controller-manager-operator -n openshift-kube-controller-manager-operator -p '{"spec":{"template":{"spec":{"containers":[{"name":"kube-controller-manager-operator","image":"<user>/cluster-kube-controller-manager-operator","env":[{"name":"OPERATOR_IMAGE","value":"<user>/cluster-kube-controller-manager-operator"}]}]}}}}'

The operator image version used by the installer bootstrap phase can be overridden by creating a custom origin-release image pointing to the developer's operator :latest image:

$ IMAGE_ORG=<user> make images
$ docker push <user>/origin-cluster-kube-controller-manager-operator

$ cd ../cluster-kube-apiserver-operator
$ IMAGES=cluster-kube-controller-manager-operator IMAGE_ORG=<user> make origin-release
$ docker push <user>/origin-release:latest

$ cd ../installer
$ OPENSHIFT_INSTALL_RELEASE_IMAGE_OVERRIDE=docker.io/<user>/origin-release:latest bin/openshift-install cluster ...