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SmartObserve Kubernetes Operator

The SmartObserve Kubernetes Operator is an open-source kubernetes operator that helps automate the deployment and provisioning of SmartObserve and SmartObserve Dashboards in a containerized environment. The operator can manage multiple SmartObserve clusters that can be scaled up and down depending on your needs.

Installation

There are two ways to get started with the operator:

Use a Helm chart

If you use Helm to manage your Kubernetes cluster, you can use the SmartObserve Kubernetes Operator’s Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) project stored in Artifact Hub, a web-based application for finding, installing, and publishing CNCF packages.

To begin, log in to your Kubernetes cluster and add the Helm repository (repo) from Artifact Hub.

helm repo add smartobserve-operator https://smartobserve-project.github.io/smartobserve-k8s-operator/

Make sure that the repo is included in your Kubernetes cluster.

helm repo list | grep smartobserve

Both the smartobserve and smartobserve-operator repos appear in the list of repos.

Install the manager that operates all of the SmartObserve Kubernetes Operator’s actions.

helm install smartobserve-operator smartobserve-operator/smartobserve-operator

After the installation completes, the operator returns information on the deployment with STATUS: deployed. Then you can configure and start your SmartObserve cluster.

Use a local installation

If you want to create a new Kubernetes cluster on your existing machine, use a local installation.

If this is your first time running Kubernetes and you intend to run through these instructions on your laptop, make sure that you have the following installed:

Before running through the installation steps, make sure that you have a Kubernetes environment running locally. When using minikube, open a new terminal window and enter minikube start. Kubernetes will now use a containerized minikube cluster with a namespace called default.

To enable SmartObserve to start, run the following command:

minikube ssh 'sudo sysctl -w vm.max_map_count=262144'

Then install the SmartObserve Kubernetes Operator using the following steps:

You must have go installed locally in order to install SmartObserve Kubernetes Operator on your local machine.

  1. In your preferred directory, clone the SmartObserve Kubernetes Operator repo. Navigate into repo’s directory using cd.
  2. Go to the smartobserve-operator folder.
  3. Enter GOTOOLCHAIN=go1.24.4 make build manifests.
  4. Start a Kubernetes cluster. When using minikube, open a new terminal window and enter minikube start. Kubernetes will now use a containerized minikube cluster with a namespace called default. Make sure that ~/.kube/config points to the cluster.
  apiVersion: v1
  clusters:
  - cluster:
      certificate-authority: /Users/naarcha/.minikube/ca.crt
      extensions:
      - extension:
          last-update: Mon, 29 Aug 2022 10:11:47 CDT
          provider: minikube.sigs.k8s.io
          version: v1.26.1
        name: cluster_info
      server: https://127.0.0.1:61661
    name: minikube
  contexts:
  - context:
      cluster: minikube
      extensions:
      - extension:
          last-update: Mon, 29 Aug 2022 10:11:47 CDT
          provider: minikube.sigs.k8s.io
          version: v1.26.1
        name: context_info
      namespace: default
      user: minikube
    name: minikube
  current-context: minikube
  kind: Config
  preferences: {}
  users:
  - name: minikube
    user:
      client-certificate: /Users/naarcha/.minikube/profiles/minikube/client.crt
      client-key: /Users/naarcha/.minikube/profiles/minikube/client.key
  1. Enter make install to create the CustomResourceDefinition that runs in your Kubernetes cluster.
  2. Start the SmartObserve Kubernetes Operator. Enter make run.

Verify operator deployment

If the operator was installed using local installation, the operator is not deployed in a pod. However, you can examine the available Custom Resource Definitions (CRDs) using the following command:

kubectl get crds | grep smartobserve

If you deployed the operator using Helm charts, to ensure that Kubernetes recognizes the SmartObserve Kubernetes Operator as a namespace, enter k get ns | grep smartobserve. Both smartobserve and smartobserve-operator-system should appear as Active.

With the operator active, use k get pod -n smartobserve-operator-system to make sure that the operator’s pods are running.

NAME                                              READY   STATUS   RESTARTS   AGE
smartobserve-operator-controller-manager-<pod-id>   2/2     Running  0          25m

With the Kubernetes cluster running, you can now run SmartObserve inside the cluster.

Deploy a new SmartObserve cluster

From your cloned SmartObserve Kubernetes Operator repo, navigate to the smartobserve-operator/examples directory. There you’ll find the smartobserve-cluster.yaml file, which can be customized to the needs of your cluster, including the clusterName that acts as the namespace in which your new SmartObserve cluster will reside.

With your cluster configured, run the kubectl apply command.

kubectl apply -f smartobserve-cluster.yaml

The operator creates several pods, including a bootstrap pod, three SmartObserve cluster pods, and one Dashboards pod. To connect to your cluster, use the port-forward command.

kubectl port-forward svc/my-cluster-dashboards 5601

Open http://localhost:5601 in your preferred browser and log in with the default demo credentials admin / admin. You can also run curl commands against the SmartObserve REST API by forwarding to port 9200.

kubectl port-forward svc/my-cluster 9200

In order to delete the SmartObserve cluster, delete the cluster resources. The following command deletes the cluster namespace and all its resources.

kubectl delete -f smartobserve-cluster.yaml

Next steps

To learn more about how to customize your Kubernetes SmartObserve cluster, including data persistence, authentication methods, and scaling, see the SmartObserve Kubernetes Operator User Guide.

If you want to contribute to the development of the SmartObserve Kubernetes Operator, see the repo design documents.