Creating and using config maps

You can review the following sections to learn how to create and use config maps. By using a config map, you can decouple environment-specific configuration from your container images, so that your applications are easily portable.

Understand config maps

You can review the following sections to learn how to use config maps to make configuration values available to your pods separately from application code.

Many applications require configuration by using some combination of configuration files, command-line arguments, and environment variables. In OpenShift Container Platform, these configuration artifacts are decoupled from image content to keep containerized applications portable.

The ConfigMap object provides mechanisms to inject containers with configuration data while keeping containers agnostic of OpenShift Container Platform. A config map can be used to store fine-grained information like individual properties or coarse-grained information like entire configuration files or JSON blobs.

The ConfigMap object holds key-value pairs of configuration data that can be consumed in pods or used to store configuration data for system components such as controllers. For example:

ConfigMap Object Definition
kind: ConfigMap
apiVersion: v1
metadata:
  creationTimestamp: 2016-02-18T19:14:38Z
  name: example-config
  namespace: my-namespace
data:
  example.property.1: hello
  example.property.2: world
  example.property.file: |-
    property.1=value-1
    property.2=value-2
    property.3=value-3
binaryData:
  bar: L3Jvb3QvMTAw

where:

data: Specifies the configuration data.
binaryData.bar: Specifies a file that contains non-UTF8 data, for example, a binary Java keystore file. Enter the file data in Base 64.

note

You can use the binaryData field when you create a config map from a binary file, such as an image.

Configuration data can be consumed in pods in a variety of ways. A config map can be used to:

Populate environment variable values in containers
Set command-line arguments in a container
Populate configuration files in a volume

Users and system components can store configuration data in a config map.

A config map is similar to a secret, but designed to more conveniently support working with strings that do not contain sensitive information.

Config map restrictions

A config map must be created before its contents can be consumed in pods.

Controllers can be written to tolerate missing configuration data. Consult individual components configured by using config maps on a case-by-case basis.

ConfigMap** objects reside in a project.**

They can only be referenced by pods in the same project.

The Kubelet only supports the use of a config map for pods it gets from the API server.

This includes any pods created by using the CLI, or indirectly from a replication controller. It does not include pods created by using the OpenShift Container Platform node’s --manifest-url flag, its --config flag, or its REST API because these are not common ways to create pods.

Creating a config map in the OpenShift Container Platform web console

To provide configuration data to your pods, you can create a config map by using the OpenShift Container Platform web console. You can use config maps to define key-value pairs that contain information for your applications.

Procedure

To create a config map as a cluster administrator:
1. In the Administrator perspective, select Workloads → Config Maps.
2. At the top right side of the page, select Create Config Map.
3. Enter the contents of your config map.
4. Select Create.
To create a config map as a developer:
1. In the Developer perspective, select Config Maps.
2. At the top right side of the page, select Create Config Map.
3. Enter the contents of your config map.
4. Select Create.

Create a config map by using the CLI

To provide configuration data to your pods, you can use the OpenShift CLI (oc) to create a config map from directories, specific files, or literal values.

Procedure

Create a config map:

$ oc create configmap <configmap_name> [options]

Creating a config map from a directory

You can create a config map from a directory by using the --from-file flag. By creating the config map from a directory, you can include multiple files from that directory in the config map with one command.

Each file in the directory is used to populate a key in the config map, where the name of the key is the file name, and the value of the key is the content of the file.

For example, the following command creates a config map with the contents of the example-files directory:

$ oc create configmap game-config --from-file=example-files/

View the keys in the config map:

$ oc describe configmaps game-config

The output is similar to the following example:

Name:           game-config
Namespace:      default
Labels:         <none>
Annotations:    <none>

Data

game.properties:        158 bytes
ui.properties:          83 bytes

You can see that the two keys in the map are created from the file names in the directory specified in the command. The content of those keys might be large, so the output of oc describe only shows the names of the keys and their sizes.

Prerequisite

You must have a directory with files that contain the data you want to populate a config map with. The following procedure uses these example files: game.properties and ui.properties:

$ cat example-files/game.properties

Example output
enemies=aliens
lives=3
enemies.cheat=true
enemies.cheat.level=noGoodRotten
secret.code.passphrase=UUDDLRLRBABAS
secret.code.allowed=true
secret.code.lives=30

$ cat example-files/ui.properties

Example output
color.good=purple
color.bad=yellow
allow.textmode=true
how.nice.to.look=fairlyNice

Procedure

Create a config map holding the content of each file in this directory by entering the following command:
```
$ oc create configmap game-config \
    --from-file=example-files/
```

Verification

Enter the oc get command for the object with the -o option to see the values of the keys:

$ oc get configmaps game-config -o yaml

Example output
apiVersion: v1
data:
  game.properties: |-
    enemies=aliens
    lives=3
    enemies.cheat=true
    enemies.cheat.level=noGoodRotten
    secret.code.passphrase=UUDDLRLRBABAS
    secret.code.allowed=true
    secret.code.lives=30
  ui.properties: |
    color.good=purple
    color.bad=yellow
    allow.textmode=true
    how.nice.to.look=fairlyNice
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
  creationTimestamp: 2016-02-18T18:34:05Z
  name: game-config
  namespace: default
  resourceVersion: "407"
  selflink: /api/v1/namespaces/default/configmaps/game-config
  uid: 30944725-d66e-11e5-8cd0-68f728db1985

Creating a config map from a file

You can create a config map from a file, which you can use to quickly add multiple key=value pairs for applications to read.

You can also specify the key to set in a config map for content imported from a file by passing a key=value expression to the --from-file option. For example:

$ oc create configmap game-config-3 --from-file=game-special-key=example-files/game.properties

You can pass the --from-file option multiple times to the CLI.

note

If you create a config map from a file, you can include files containing non-UTF8 data that are placed in this field without corrupting the non-UTF8 data. OpenShift Container Platform detects binary files and transparently encodes the file as MIME. On the server, the MIME payload is decoded and stored without corrupting the data.

Prerequisite

You must have a directory with files that contain the data you want to populate a config map with. The following procedure uses these example files: game.properties and ui.properties:

$ cat example-files/game.properties

Example output
enemies=aliens
lives=3
enemies.cheat=true
enemies.cheat.level=noGoodRotten
secret.code.passphrase=UUDDLRLRBABAS
secret.code.allowed=true
secret.code.lives=30

$ cat example-files/ui.properties

Example output
color.good=purple
color.bad=yellow
allow.textmode=true
how.nice.to.look=fairlyNice

Procedure

Create a config map by specifying a specific file:

$ oc create configmap game-config-2 \
    --from-file=example-files/game.properties \
    --from-file=example-files/ui.properties

Create a config map by specifying a key-value pair:

$ oc create configmap game-config-3 \
    --from-file=game-special-key=example-files/game.properties

Verification

Enter the oc get command for the object with the -o option to see the values of the keys from the file:

$ oc get configmaps game-config-2 -o yaml

Example output
apiVersion: v1
data:
  game.properties: |-
    enemies=aliens
    lives=3
    enemies.cheat=true
    enemies.cheat.level=noGoodRotten
    secret.code.passphrase=UUDDLRLRBABAS
    secret.code.allowed=true
    secret.code.lives=30
  ui.properties: |
    color.good=purple
    color.bad=yellow
    allow.textmode=true
    how.nice.to.look=fairlyNice
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
  creationTimestamp: 2016-02-18T18:52:05Z
  name: game-config-2
  namespace: default
  resourceVersion: "516"
  selflink: /api/v1/namespaces/default/configmaps/game-config-2
  uid: b4952dc3-d670-11e5-8cd0-68f728db1985

Enter the oc get command for the object with the -o option to see the values of the keys from the key-value pair:

$ oc get configmaps game-config-3 -o yaml

Example output
apiVersion: v1
data:
  game-special-key: |-
    enemies=aliens
    lives=3
    enemies.cheat=true
    enemies.cheat.level=noGoodRotten
    secret.code.passphrase=UUDDLRLRBABAS
    secret.code.allowed=true
    secret.code.lives=30
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
  creationTimestamp: 2016-02-18T18:54:22Z
  name: game-config-3
  namespace: default
  resourceVersion: "530"
  selflink: /api/v1/namespaces/default/configmaps/game-config-3
  uid: 05f8da22-d671-11e5-8cd0-68f728db1985

You set the game-special-key key in the preceding step.

Creating a config map from literal values

You can create a config map by passing literal values in the key=value syntax, which allows literal values to be supplied directly on the command line.

Procedure

Create a config map by specifying a literal value:

$ oc create configmap special-config \
    --from-literal=special.how=very \
    --from-literal=special.type=charm

Verification

Enter the oc get command for the object with the -o option to see the values of the keys:

$ oc get configmaps special-config -o yaml

Example output
apiVersion: v1
data:
  special.how: very
  special.type: charm
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
  creationTimestamp: 2016-02-18T19:14:38Z
  name: special-config
  namespace: default
  resourceVersion: "651"
  selflink: /api/v1/namespaces/default/configmaps/special-config
  uid: dadce046-d673-11e5-8cd0-68f728db1985

Populate environment variables in containers by using config maps

You can use config maps to populate individual environment variables in containers or to populate environment variables in containers from all keys that form valid environment variable names.

The following example ConfigMap custom resource (CR) contains two environment variables:

apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
  name: special-config
  namespace: default
data:
  special.how: very
  special.type: charm

where:

metadata.name: Specifies the name of the config map.
metadata.namespace: Specifies the project in which the config map resides. Config maps can only be referenced by pods in the same project.
data: Specifies the environment variables to inject.

The following example ConfigMap (CR) contains one environment variable:

apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
  name: env-config
  namespace: default
data:
  log_level: INFO

where:

metadata.name: Specifies the name of the config map.
metadata.namespace: Specifies the project in which the config map resides. Config maps can only be referenced by pods in the same project.
data: Specifies the environment variables to inject.

Procedure

You can consume the keys of this ConfigMap in a pod using configMapKeyRef sections.

Sample Pod specification configured to inject specific environment variables
apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  name: dapi-test-pod
spec:
  securityContext:
    runAsNonRoot: true
    seccompProfile:
      type: RuntimeDefault
  containers:
    - name: test-container
      image: gcr.io/google_containers/busybox
      command: [ "/bin/sh", "-c", "env" ]
      env:
        - name: SPECIAL_LEVEL_KEY
          valueFrom:
            configMapKeyRef:
              name: special-config
              key: special.how
        - name: SPECIAL_TYPE_KEY
          valueFrom:
            configMapKeyRef:
              name: special-config
              key: special.type
              optional: true
      envFrom:
        - configMapRef:
            name: env-config
      securityContext:
        allowPrivilegeEscalation: false
        capabilities:
          drop: [ALL]
  restartPolicy: Never

where:

spec.containers.env: Specifies the environment variables to pull from a config map.
spec.containers.env.name: Specifies the name of a pod environment variable that you are injecting a key’s value into.
spec.containers.env.valueFrom.configMapKeyRef.name: Specifies the name of the config map to pull specific environment variables from.
spec.containers.env.valueFrom.configMapKeyRef.key: Specifies the environment variable to pull from the config map.
spec.containers.env.valueFrom.configMapKeyRef.optional: Specifies that the environment variable is optional. As optional, the pod will be started even if the specified config map and keys do not exist.
spec.containers.envFrom.configMapRef: Specifies the name of the config map to pull all environment variables from.

When this pod is run, the pod logs will include the following output:

SPECIAL_LEVEL_KEY=very
log_level=INFO

note

SPECIAL_TYPE_KEY=charm is not listed in the example output because optional: true is set.

Set command-line arguments for container commands with config maps

You can use config maps to set the value of the commands or arguments in a container by using the Kubernetes substitution syntax $(VAR_NAME).

As an example, consider the following config map:

apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
  name: special-config
  namespace: default
data:
  special.how: very
  special.type: charm

Procedure

To inject values into a command in a container, you must consume the keys you want to use as environment variables. Then you can refer to them in a container’s command using the $(VAR_NAME) syntax.

Sample pod specification configured to inject specific environment variables
apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  name: dapi-test-pod
spec:
  securityContext:
    runAsNonRoot: true
    seccompProfile:
      type: RuntimeDefault
  containers:
    - name: test-container
      image: gcr.io/google_containers/busybox
      command: [ "/bin/sh", "-c", "echo $(SPECIAL_LEVEL_KEY) $(SPECIAL_TYPE_KEY)" ]
      env:
        - name: SPECIAL_LEVEL_KEY
          valueFrom:
            configMapKeyRef:
              name: special-config
              key: special.how
        - name: SPECIAL_TYPE_KEY
          valueFrom:
            configMapKeyRef:
              name: special-config
              key: special.type
      securityContext:
        allowPrivilegeEscalation: false
        capabilities:
          drop: [ALL]
  restartPolicy: Never

where:

spec.containers.command: Specifies values to inject into a command in a container by using the keys you want to use as environment variables.

When this pod is run, the output from the echo command run in the test-container container is as follows:

very charm

Inject content into a volume by using config maps

You can use config maps to inject content into a volume.

The following example ConfigMap custom resource (CR) contains two environment variables:

apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
  name: special-config
  namespace: default
data:
  special.how: very
  special.type: charm

The following procedure describes options for injecting content into a volume by using config maps.

Procedure

The most basic way to inject content into a volume by using a config map is to populate the volume with files where the key is the file name and the content of the file is the value of the key:

apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  name: dapi-test-pod
spec:
  securityContext:
    runAsNonRoot: true
    seccompProfile:
      type: RuntimeDefault
  containers:
    - name: test-container
      image: gcr.io/google_containers/busybox
      command: [ "/bin/sh", "-c", "cat", "/etc/config/special.how" ]
      volumeMounts:
      - name: config-volume
        mountPath: /etc/config
      securityContext:
        allowPrivilegeEscalation: false
        capabilities:
          drop: [ALL]
  volumes:
    - name: config-volume
      configMap:
        name: special-config
  restartPolicy: Never

where:

spec.volumes.configMap.name: Specifies a file containing key. When this pod is run, the output of the cat command will be:

very

You can also control the paths within the volume where config map keys are projected:

apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  name: dapi-test-pod
spec:
  securityContext:
    runAsNonRoot: true
    seccompProfile:
      type: RuntimeDefault
  containers:
    - name: test-container
      image: gcr.io/google_containers/busybox
      command: [ "/bin/sh", "-c", "cat", "/etc/config/path/to/special-key" ]
      volumeMounts:
      - name: config-volume
        mountPath: /etc/config
      securityContext:
        allowPrivilegeEscalation: false
        capabilities:
          drop: [ALL]
  volumes:
    - name: config-volume
      configMap:
        name: special-config
        items:
        - key: special.how
          path: path/to/special-key
  restartPolicy: Never

where:

spec.volumes.configMap.items.path: Specifies the path to config map key.

When this pod is run, the output of the cat command is very.

Understand config maps​

Config map restrictions​

Creating a config map in the OpenShift Container Platform web console​

Create a config map by using the CLI​

Creating a config map from a directory​

Creating a config map from a file​

Creating a config map from literal values​

Populate environment variables in containers by using config maps​

Set command-line arguments for container commands with config maps​

Inject content into a volume by using config maps​

Understand config maps

Config map restrictions

Creating a config map in the OpenShift Container Platform web console

Create a config map by using the CLI

Creating a config map from a directory

Creating a config map from a file

Creating a config map from literal values

Populate environment variables in containers by using config maps

Set command-line arguments for container commands with config maps

Inject content into a volume by using config maps