Installing OLM

September 19, 2025 ยท View on GitHub

OLM deployment resources are templated so that they can be easily configured for different deployment environments.

Installation Options

Manual installation

Installing the CRDs first gives them a chance to register before installing the rest, which requires the CRDs exist.

kubectl create -f https://github.com/operator-framework/operator-lifecycle-manager/releases/latest/download/crds.yaml
kubectl create -f https://github.com/operator-framework/operator-lifecycle-manager/releases/latest/download/olm.yaml

Install a Release

Check out the latest releases on github for release-specific install instructions.

OpenShift

IMPORTANT: OLM is installed by default in OpenShift 4.0 and above.

Install with operator-sdk olm install

OLM can be installed with the operator-sdk command operator-sdk olm install more information is available in the operator-sdk documentation.

Customizing OLM installation

Deployments of OLM can be stamped out with different configurations by writing a values.yaml file and running commands to generate resources.

Here's an example values.yaml

# sets the apiversion to use for rbac-resources. Change to `authorization.openshift.io` for openshift
rbacApiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io
# namespace is the namespace the operators will _run_
namespace: olm
# watchedNamespaces is a comma-separated list of namespaces the operators will _watch_ for OLM resources.
# Omit to enable OLM in all namespaces
watchedNamespaces: olm
# catalog_namespace is the namespace where the catalog operator will look for global catalogs.
# entries in global catalogs can be resolved in any watched namespace
catalog_namespace: olm
# operator_namespace is the namespace where the operator runs
operator_namespace: operators

# OLM operator run configuration
olm:
  # OLM operator doesn't do any leader election (yet), set to 1
  replicaCount: 1
  # The image to run. If not building a local image, use sha256 image references
  image:
    ref: quay.io/operator-framework/olm:local
    pullPolicy: IfNotPresent
  service:
    # port for readiness/liveness probes
    internalPort: 8080

# catalog operator run configuration
catalog:
  # Catalog operator doesn't do any leader election (yet), set to 1
  replicaCount: 1
  # The image to run. If not building a local image, use sha256 image references
  image:
    ref: quay.io/operator-framework/olm:local
    pullPolicy: IfNotPresent
  service:
    # port for readiness/liveness probes
    internalPort: 8080

To configure a release of OLM for installation in a cluster:

  1. Create a my-values.yaml like the example above with the desired configuration or choose an existing one from this repository. The latest production values can be found in deploy/upstream/values.yaml.

  2. Generate deployment files from the templates and the my-values.yaml using package_release.sh

    # first arg must be a semver-compatible version string
# second arg is the output directory
# third arg is the values.yaml file
./scripts/package_release.sh 1.0.0-myolm ./my-olm-deployment my-values.yaml

  3. Deploy to kubernetes: kubectl apply -f ./my-olm-deployment/templates/

The above steps are automated for official releases with make ver=0.3.0 release, which will output new versions of manifests in deploy/tectonic-alm-operator/manifests/$(ver).

Overriding the Global Catalog Namespace

It is possible to override the Global Catalog Namespace by setting the GLOBAL_CATALOG_NAMESPACE environment variable in the catalog operator deployment.

Subscribe to a Package and Channel

Cloud Services can be installed from the catalog by subscribing to a channel in the corresponding package.

If using one of the local run options, this will subscribe to etcd, vault, and prometheus operators. Subscribing to a service that doesn't exist yet will install the operator and related CRDs in the namespace.

apiVersion: operators.coreos.com/v1alpha1
kind: Subscription
metadata:
  name: etcd
  namespace: olm
spec:
  channel: singlenamespace-alpha
  name: etcd
  source: operatorhubio-catalog
  sourceNamespace: olm
---
apiVersion: operators.coreos.com/v1alpha1
kind: Subscription
metadata:
  name: prometheus
  namespace: olm
spec:
  channel: alpha
  name: prometheus
  source: operatorhubio-catalog
  sourceNamespace: olm

Uninstall

OLM can be uninstalled with the operator-sdk olm uninstall command. More information is available in the operator-sdk documentation