Install a Specific Version of IBM Cloud Pak Software on OpenShift

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One of a basic rule in a production environment is the control of the versioning. Without a CR approval, a new version of software should not be updated.

OpenShift Operators automate the installation and management of software. However it doesn’t mean we should lose the change control.

A Potential Problem

Commonly we will see a Catalog Source is created in the following way,

apiVersion: operators.coreos.com/v1alpha1
kind: CatalogSource
metadata:
  name: ibm-operator-catalog
  namespace: openshift-marketplace
spec:
  displayName: IBM Operator Catalog
  image: 'icr.io/cpopen/ibm-operator-catalog:latest'
  publisher: IBM
  sourceType: grpc
  updateStrategy:
    registryPoll:
      interval: 45m

Well this may works well in a testing environment, where the latest update of the operators can be introduced quickly into the environment.

But in a production environment, this may not be what you want. Imagine you subscribe the operator with the installPlanApproval set to Automatic, any new version release in the current channel will be automatically applied. You lost your control.

Install Specific Version Catalog Source