The CockroachDB operator provides abstractions that simplify cluster deployment and node initialization:
- A default pod specification is used for the CockroachDB Kubernetes pod.
- The
values.yamlconfiguration maps to a subset ofcockroach startflags when CockroachDB is initialized.
This page describes configuration options that allow advanced users to manually override the pod template and cockroach start flags as needed for deployment.
The CockroachDB operator is in Preview.
This page describes advanced configurations that override the supported default templates used by the CockroachDB operator. Cockroach Labs strongly recommends testing these configurations in a non-production environment first.
Override the default pod
The cockroachdb.crdbCluster.podTemplate field allows you to override the default pod metadata and specification configured by the CockroachDB operator. The values in this field are merged with the default pod specification, where settings in podTemplate override any values in the default.
cockroachdb:
crdbCluster:
podTemplate:
# metadata captures the pod metadata for CockroachDB pods.
metadata: {}
# spec captures the pod specification for CockroachDB pods.
spec:
# initContainers captures the list of init containers for CockroachDB pods.
initContainers:
- name : cockroachdb-init
image: us-docker.pkg.dev/cockroach-cloud-images/data-plane/init-container@sha256:c3e4ba851802a429c7f76c639a64b9152d206cebb31162c1760f05e98f7c4254
# containers captures the list of containers for CockroachDB pods.
containers:
- name: cockroachdb
image: cockroachdb/cockroach:v25.2.2
# imagePullSecrets captures the secrets for fetching images from private registries.
imagePullSecrets: []
At least one value for containers must be specified if any part of podTemplate is being modified. For example, the following podTemplate configuration overrides pod anti-affinity behavior and specifies a default cockroachdb/cockroach:v25.2.2 container image:
cockroachdb:
crdbCluster:
podTemplate:
spec:
affinity:
podAntiAffinity:
preferredDuringSchedulingIgnoredDuringExecution:
- weight: 100
podAffinityTerm:
labelSelector:
matchExpressions:
- key: app.kubernetes.io/component
operator: In
values:
- cockroachdb
topologyKey: kubernetes.io/hostname
containers:
- name: cockroachdb
image: cockroachdb/cockroach:v25.2.2
Override the default cockroach start flags
The cockroachdb.crdbCluster.startFlags field allows you to customize the cockroach start flags used when initializing the CockroachDB cluster.
Within this field, you can specify flags to upsert and flags to omit:
- Upserted flags are added to the
cockroach startcommand, their values overriding any matching flags in the command. - Omitted flags are removed from the
cockroach startcommand if they were present.
cockroachdb:
crdbCluster:
startFlags:
# upsert captures a set of flags that are given higher precedence in the start command.
upsert:
- "--cache=30%"
# omit defines a set of flags which will be omitted from the start command.
omit:
- "--max-sql-memory"
