Flux Operator Installation

The Flux Operator is designed to run in a Kubernetes cluster on Linux nodes (AMD64 or ARM64) and is compatible with all major Kubernetes distributions. The operator is written in Go and statically compiled as a single binary with no external dependencies.

Install methods

The Flux Operator can be installed with Helm, Terraform, Operator Lifecycle Manager (OLM), the flux-operator CLI, or kubectl. It is recommended to install the operator in a dedicated namespace, such as flux-system.

Helm

The Flux Operator can be installed using the Helm chart available in GitHub Container Registry:

helm install flux-operator oci://ghcr.io/controlplaneio-fluxcd/charts/flux-operator \
  --namespace flux-system \
  --create-namespace

Terraform

Installing the Flux Operator with Terraform is possible using the flux-operator-bootstrap module:

module "flux_operator_bootstrap" {
  source  = "controlplaneio-fluxcd/flux-operator-bootstrap/kubernetes"

  revision = var.bootstrap_revision

  gitops_resources = {
    instance_yaml = file("${path.root}/clusters/staging/flux-system/flux-instance.yaml")
  }
}

For more information on how to configure the Flux instance with Terraform, see the Flux Operator terraform example.

Operator Lifecycle Manager

The Flux Operator can be installed on OpenShift using the bundle published on OperatorHub at operatorhub.io/operator/flux-operator.

Example subscription manifest:

apiVersion: operators.coreos.com/v1alpha1
kind: Subscription
metadata:
  name: flux-operator
  namespace: flux-system
spec:
  channel: stable
  name: flux-operator
  source: operatorhubio-catalog
  sourceNamespace: olm
  config:
    env:
      - name: DEFAULT_SERVICE_ACCOUNT
        value: "flux-operator"
      - name: REPORTING_INTERVAL
        value: "30s"
    affinity:
      nodeAffinity:
        requiredDuringSchedulingIgnoredDuringExecution:
          nodeSelectorTerms:
            - matchExpressions:
                - key: role
                  operator: In
                  values:
                    - flux
    tolerations:
      - effect: NoSchedule
        key: role
        operator: Equal
        value: flux

The Flux Operator is also available in the OpenShift and OKD production-ready catalog.

Flux Operator CLI

The Flux Operator can be installed using the flux-operator CLI, which bootstraps a Kubernetes cluster with the Flux Operator and a Flux instance.

Install the CLI with Homebrew:

brew install controlplaneio-fluxcd/tap/flux-operator

Install the Flux Operator and a Flux instance from a configuration file:

flux-operator install -f flux-instance.yaml

Kubectl

The Flux Operator can be installed with kubectl by applying the Kubernetes manifests published on the releases page:

kubectl apply -f https://github.com/controlplaneio-fluxcd/flux-operator/releases/latest/download/install.yaml

Upgrade

The recommended way to upgrade the Flux Operator is using GitOps, by managing the operator’s installation with a Flux HelmRelease.

For a complete example, see the Automating Flux Operator upgrades section in the migration guide.

Uninstall

The recommended way to uninstall the Flux Operator and Flux instance is using the flux-operator CLI:

flux-operator -n flux-system uninstall --keep-namespace

The uninstall command safely removes the Flux Operator and Flux controllers without affecting the Kubernetes objects or Helm releases reconciled by Flux. It is safe to re-install the Flux Operator later to resume managing the existing resources.