Install Simplyblock Operator

The Simplyblock Operator is deployed with a single Helm chart. The chart installs the operator, all simplyblock CRDs, the admission webhooks, and the metrics API. It also creates two custom resources, ControlPlane/simplyblock and SimplyblockDriver/simplyblock. From these, the operator installs the control plane (FoundationDB, the object store, and the management API) and the CSI driver. Storage clusters are created afterward, see Create a Storage Cluster.

Prerequisites

Kubernetes: A cluster that meets the Software Requirements.
Tools: Helm 3 and kubectl configured with cluster-admin access.
Storage for FoundationDB: A StorageClass for the FoundationDB persistent volumes of the control plane. It should not be a simplyblock StorageClass, because the control plane has to start before any simplyblock volume can be served.
Certificate issuer: TLS is enabled by default and requires either cert-manager ⧉ or, on OpenShift, the OpenShift service CA. Without either of them, TLS must be disabled explicitly with tls.enabled=false. See Securing the Control Plane.

When deploying onto an OpenShift cluster, the environment-specific instructions in the OpenShift guide must be followed first.

Installing the Operator

Install the Simplyblock Operator

helm repo add simplyblock https://install.simplyblock.io/helm
helm repo update

helm install simplyblock-operator simplyblock/simplyblock-operator \
    --version 26.4.0-beta1
    --namespace simplyblock \
    --create-namespace

The chart refuses to render if TLS is enabled but no issuer is available. On a cluster with neither cert-manager nor OpenShift, add --set tls.enabled=false.

The chart's values schema rejects unknown keys in several places, so a misspelled value fails the installation instead of being ignored.

Key Helm Values

Value	Default	Description
`deployment.profile`	`standalone`	`standalone` installs a local control plane (`ControlPlane.spec.source.local`). `managed` connects to a control plane elsewhere (`spec.source.managed`) and installs none.
`controlplane.managed.endpoint`		Base URL of the remote management API. Required for the `managed` profile.
`controlplane.managed.credentialsSecretRef`		Secret with the bearer token for the remote control plane.
`controlplane.managed.caBundleSecretRef`		Secret with the CA certificate the remote endpoint is verified against.
`image.simplyblock.repository`, `.tag`, `.pullPolicy`	`quay.io/simplyblock-io/simplyblock`	Control plane image, written to `ControlPlane.spec.source.local.image`. It is also the default storage node image.
`image.operator.repository`, `.tag`	`quay.io/simplyblock-io/simplyblock-operator`	Operator image.
`controlplane.foundationdb.redundancyMode`	`double`	`double` runs 3 FoundationDB coordinators and tolerates one failure. `triple` runs 5 coordinators and tolerates two failures.
`controlplane.storageclass.name`		StorageClass for the FoundationDB volumes.
`controlplane.nodeSelector.create`, `.key`, `.value`	`false`	Pins the control plane workloads to labeled nodes.
`controlplane.tolerations.create`, `.list`	`false`	Tolerations for the control plane workloads.
`controlplane.observability.enabled`	`false`	Installs the optional logging and dashboard stack. `standalone` profile only.
`tls.enabled`	`true`	Encrypts control plane traffic with TLS.
`tls.provider`	`cert-manager`	`cert-manager` or `openshift`.
`tls.mutual_enabled`	`true`	Requires client certificates (mutual TLS). Only allowed with `tls.provider=cert-manager`.
`tls.cert-manager.createSelfSignedIssuer`, `.cluster-issuer`	`true`, `selfsigned`	The cert-manager `ClusterIssuer` the chart mints its CA from.
`driver.*`		Copied into the `SimplyblockDriver` resource: `driverName`, `image.`, `controllerReplicas`, `nodeSelector`, `tolerations`, `controllerNodeSelector`, `controllerTolerations`, `enableVolumeSnapshots`, `enableServiceAccountAuth`, `sidecarImages.`.
`controlplane.trustCSIServiceAccounts`	`false`	Lets the control plane accept the CSI driver's service account tokens. Set together with `driver.enableServiceAccountAuth`.
`metricsAPI.enabled`	`true`	Serves the read-only metrics API `metrics.simplyblock.io/v1alpha2`.
`metricsAPI.prometheusURL`	`http://simplyblock-prometheus:9090`	Where the metrics API reads capacity samples from.
`prometheus.enabled`	`true`	Installs the Prometheus instance the control plane pushes metrics to.
`reloader.enabled`	`true`	Rolls workloads that mount the FoundationDB cluster file when the coordinators move.
`snapshotcontroller.create`	`true`	Installs the CSI snapshot controller.
`volumeMigration.legacy`	`false`	Re-enables the legacy `VolumeMigration` kind. Only needed while migrations raised against it drain after an upgrade.

The full list of values is documented in the Simplyblock Helm Chart Reference.

The driver name is immutable

driver.driverName (default csi.simplyblock.io) cannot be changed once the SimplyblockDriver exists. Every persistent volume records it, so changing it later orphans existing volumes.

Waiting for the Control Plane and the CSI Driver

With the standalone profile, the operator installs FoundationDB first and starts the management API once the database has reached quorum. The first installation therefore takes a few minutes.

Wait for the control plane

kubectl -n simplyblock get controlplane simplyblock -w

kubectl -n simplyblock wait controlplane simplyblock \
    --for=jsonpath='{.status.phase}'=Available --timeout=600s

The phase moves from Installing to Available. Degraded means the control plane answers while a component behind it is short, and status.components lists which one. No storage resource is reconciled before the control plane is Available.

Afterward, the CSI driver is deployed:

Check the CSI driver

kubectl -n simplyblock get simplyblockdriver simplyblock

The SimplyblockDriver phase is Installing, Ready, Degraded, or Unavailable. The columns NODESREADY and NODESTOTAL show how many node plugins are running.

Managed Profile

With deployment.profile=managed, the chart installs the operator and the CSI driver, but no control plane. The ControlPlane resource points at a management API that runs elsewhere, and the operator only resolves and probes that endpoint. Loopback and link-local endpoints are rejected. See Connecting to an External Control Plane.

Upgrading the Chart

helm upgrade does not update CRDs. Before upgrading the chart, apply the CRDs of the new chart version with a server-side apply:

Update the CRDs before a chart upgrade

helm pull simplyblock/simplyblock-operator --untar
kubectl apply --server-side -f simplyblock-operator/crds/
helm upgrade simplyblock-operator simplyblock/simplyblock-operator -n simplyblock

Uninstalling

The ControlPlane and SimplyblockDriver resources carry the annotation helm.sh/resource-policy: keep, so helm uninstall leaves them in place. They must be deleted with kubectl delete while the operator is still running, so that the operator can release their finalizers.

Warning

Deleting a local ControlPlane deletes the FoundationDB database that holds every cluster definition, node registration, and volume record. Deleting the SimplyblockDriver removes the CSI driver, and attached volumes can no longer be detached.

Next Steps

Once the control plane is Available, proceed to Create a Storage Cluster.

For a complete reference of all CRD fields, see Simplyblock Operator.