Unable to reference an existing Jenkins CR in a different namespace

[valenca]

Describe the bug
When setting the jenkins.enabled configuration to false (i.e. telling the operator to look at an existing Jenkins CR, as opposed to creating a new one from the values), we can no longer set the namespace, as it will read the operator's metadata to compute the Jenkins namespace.

To Reproduce
Create a Jenkins CR in namespace "jenkins"
Install the jenkins operator in the namespace operators, with jenkins.enabled = false and jenkins.namespace = jenkins. It will not be able to find the Jenkins CR in the jenkins ns, and will idle waiting for one in the operator namespace.

Additional information
It was introduced by this commit, specifically:
1b6e944

Kubernetes version:
Jenkins Operator version:
0.8.0

Workaround:
Since we are deploying the operator with kustomize, we can do a post-render step to change the WATCH_NAMESPACE operator env var:

  postRenderers:
  - kustomize:
      patchesStrategicMerge:
        - kind: Deployment
          apiVersion: apps/v1
          metadata:
            name: jenkins-jenkins-operator
          spec:
            template:
              spec:
                containers:
                  - name: jenkins-operator
                    env:
                      - name: WATCH_NAMESPACE
                        $patch: delete
        - kind: Deployment
          apiVersion: apps/v1
          metadata:
            name: jenkins-jenkins-operator
          spec:
            template:
              spec:
                containers:
                  - name: jenkins-operator
                    env:
                      - name: WATCH_NAMESPACE
                        value: jenkins

It's always possible to change the deployment directly, but as far as we tried, it wasn't possible to do it within the values.yaml file.

[brokenpip3]

yeah make sense, should be an easy helm chart fix, do you want to try to make a PR?

[brokenpip3]

(this commit 1b6e944 is necessary for the kubectl apply manifest installation option that we have)

[valenca]

I'd be happy to help, I'm just not sure of all the ramifications. I assume that just removing the {{- if .Values.jenkins.enabled }} will have ill effects on some cases, like the kubectl apply manifest you mention.

What would be the approach here? Add a new parameter to the operator CRD that reads from there instead?

[brokenpip3]

No I think that this should be resolved at helm chart level only, something like adding a watched-namespace key here:

kubernetes-operator/chart/jenkins-operator/values.yaml

Line 293 in 3682468

operator:

and adding the proper if logic in the operator deployment, wdyt?

[valenca]

Ah right. I don't know why I mentioned the CRD, I meant exactly that, the operator object in the values. I'll see what I can do.

[valenca]

#923 Here we go. I'm not entirely sure if I can manage any test implementation nor if the PR text is as expected. It's been a while since I contributed to open source :P