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Installing RabbitMQ Cluster Operator in a Kubernetes Cluster

Overview

This guide covers the installation of the RabbitMQ Cluster Kubernetes Operator in a Kubernetes cluster.

Compatibility

The Operator requires

• Kubernetes 1.18 or above
• RabbitMQ DockerHub image 3.8.8+

Installation

To install the Operator, run the following command:

kubectl apply -f "https://github.com/rabbitmq/cluster-operator/releases/latest/download/cluster-operator.yml"
# namespace/rabbitmq-system created
# customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/rabbitmqclusters.rabbitmq.com created
# serviceaccount/rabbitmq-cluster-operator created
# role.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/rabbitmq-cluster-leader-election-role created
# clusterrole.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/rabbitmq-cluster-operator-role created
# rolebinding.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/rabbitmq-cluster-leader-election-rolebinding created
# clusterrolebinding.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/rabbitmq-cluster-operator-rolebinding created
# deployment.apps/rabbitmq-cluster-operator created

At this point, the RabbitMQ Cluster Kubernetes Operator is successfully installed. Once the RabbitMQ Cluster Kubernetes Operator pod is running, head over to Using Kubernetes RabbitMQ Cluster Kubernetes Operator for instructions on how to deploy RabbitMQ using a Kubernetes Custom Resource.

If you want to install a specific version of the Operator, you will have to obtain the manifest link from the Operator Releases. Please note that releases prior to 0.46.0 do not have this manifest. We strongly recommend to install versions 0.46.0+

If you want to relocate the Operator image to a custom location, the section Relocate the Image has instructions to relocate the Operator image to a private registry.

Installation using kubectl-rabbitmq plugin

The kubectl rabbitmq plugin provides commands for managing RabbitMQ clusters. The plugin can be installed using krew:

kubectl krew install rabbitmq

To get the list of available commands, use:

kubectl rabbitmq help
# USAGE:
#   Install RabbitMQ Cluster Operator (optionally provide image to use a relocated image or a specific version)
#     kubectl rabbitmq install-cluster-operator [IMAGE]
# [...]
kubectl rabbitmq install-cluster-operator
# namespace/rabbitmq-system created
# customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/rabbitmqclusters.rabbitmq.com created
# serviceaccount/rabbitmq-cluster-operator created
# role.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/rabbitmq-cluster-leader-election-role created
# clusterrole.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/rabbitmq-cluster-operator-role created
# rolebinding.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/rabbitmq-cluster-leader-election-rolebinding created
# clusterrolebinding.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/rabbitmq-cluster-operator-rolebinding created
# deployment.apps/rabbitmq-cluster-operator created

(Optional) Relocate the Image

If you can't pull images from Docker Hub directly to your Kubernetes cluster, you need to relocate the images to your private registry first. The exact steps depend on your environment but will likely look like this:

docker pull rabbitmqoperator/cluster-operator:{some-version}
docker tag rabbitmqoperator/cluster-operator:{some-version} {someregistry}/cluster-operator:{some-version}
docker push {someregistry}/cluster-operator:{some-version}

The value of {someregistry} should be the address of an OCI compatible registry. The value of {some-version} is a version number of the Cluster Operator.

If you require authentication to pull images from your private image registry, you must Configure Kubernetes Cluster Access to Private Images.

Download the manifest from the release you are relocating and edit the section in Deployment image. You can locate this section by grep'ing the string image:

grep -C3 image: releases/cluster-operator.yml
# [...]
# --
#           valueFrom:
#             fieldRef:
#               fieldPath: metadata.namespace
#         image: rabbitmqoperator/cluster-operator:0.49.0
#         name: operator
#         resources:
#           limits:

(Optional) Configure Kubernetes Cluster Access to Private Images

If you relocated the image to a private registry and your registry requires authentication, you need to follow these steps to allow Kubernetes to pull the image.

First, create the Service Account that the Operator will use to run and to pull images:

apiVersion: v1
kind: ServiceAccount
metadata:
  name: rabbitmq-cluster-operator
  namespace: rabbitmq-system

Second, create a Secret with the credentials to pull from the private registry:

kubectl -n rabbitmq-system create secret \
docker-registry rabbitmq-cluster-registry-access \
--docker-server=DOCKER-SERVER \
--docker-username=DOCKER-USERNAME \
--docker-password=DOCKER-PASSWORD

Where:

• DOCKER-SERVER is the server URL for your private image registry.
• DOCKER-USERNAME is your username for your private image registry authentication.
• DOCKER-PASSWORD is your password for your private image registry authentication.

For example:

kubectl -n rabbitmq-system create secret \
docker-registry rabbitmq-cluster-registry-access \
--docker-server=docker.io/my-registry \
--docker-username=my-username \
--docker-password=example-password1

Now update the Operator Service Account by running:

kubectl -n rabbitmq-system patch serviceaccount \
rabbitmq-cluster-operator -p '{"imagePullSecrets": [{"name": "rabbitmq-cluster-registry-access"}]}'

Please note that the name of the Operator Service Account is not configurable and it must be rabbitmq-cluster-operator.