Upgrade AKO on Red Hat OpenShift

Aerospike Kubernetes Operator (AKO) is a Red Hat Marketplace certified operator. It is available through the Red Hat certified operators catalog.

Upgrade AKO on your OpenShift cluster using the web console or command line:

Web Console

OpenShift Web Console

Use the following procedure to upgrade AKO installed on Red Hat OpenShift to the latest version using the web console.

Verify version availability

1. Launch the OpenShift web console.

2. Using the Administrator view, navigate to Operators > OperatorHub.

3. Search for Aerospike.

4. Select the Marketplace version of the Aerospike Kubernetes Operator as shown in the following image.

   

5. In the Marketplace Operator page, verify that 4.1.2 is the latest version.

   

Upgrade AKO

Based on the installPlanApproval mode, the AKO upgrade is either:

• Automatic: The default when installing AKO from Red Hat Marketplace.
• Manual: If the Operator subscription has been edited to use Manual approval.

Automatic

The standard install procedure sets up Automatic upgrade approval for the operator. In this case, OpenShift automatically installs the latest version. You do not need to perform any manual steps to upgrade, only to check that the upgrade was successful.

Using the Administrator view, go to Operators > OperatorHub.

Search for Aerospike.

You should see that AKO has been upgraded to version 4.1.2, as shown in the image:

Skip ahead to configuring the CLI.

Manual

If the AKO subscription is set for Manual approval, follow these steps to manually approve the upgrade.

1. In the OpenShift web console, go to the Administrator view.

2. Go to Operators > Installed Operators.

3. Search for Aerospike. You will see that the new AKO version is available:

   

4. Click Upgrade Available to review the details of the InstallPlan. The name of the InstallPlan is generated automatically and may be different from what is displayed in the following examples.

   

5. Click Preview InstallPlan to display the details of the InstallPlan:

   

6. Click Approve to approve and start the upgrade. The following message appears after a successful upgrade:

   

7. Select View Operator to verify AKO details.

   

Verify CLI tools

From a terminal, log in to the OpenShift cluster and ensure that the oc or kubectl CLI tool connects to the correct OpenShift cluster. Run get pods with either tool to make sure your pods are visible.

Command Line

OpenShift command line

Use the following procedure to upgrade AKO installed on Red Hat OpenShift to the latest version using the command line.

Verify CLI tools

This section shows how to use kubectl to upgrade the AKO version. You can also use the same commands with oc, the OpenShift command line tool, instead of kubectl. The syntax of each command is the same with oc and kubectl. Run get pods with either command to make sure your pods are visible.

Verify version availability

Verify that the following command lists 4.1.2 as the current CSV version:

kubectl get packagemanifests -l catalog=redhat-marketplace,provider=Aerospike -o yaml | grep currentCSV:

Expected output

- currentCSV: aerospike-kubernetes-operator.v2.5.0
- currentCSV: aerospike-kubernetes-operator.v4.1.2

Upgrade AKO

Based on the installPlanApproval mode, the AKO upgrade is either:

• Automatic: The default when installing AKO from Red Hat Marketplace.
• Manual: If the Operator subscription has been edited to use Manual approval.

Automatic

The standard install procedure sets up Automatic upgrade approval for AKO. In this case OLM automatically installs AKO version 4.1.2. You do not need to perform any manual steps to upgrade AKO.

You can skip ahead to verification.

Manual

If the OperatorHub.io subscription has been edited to use manual approval, you need to approve the upgrade as follows:

Verify that the InstallPlan for version 4.1.2 has been created.

kubectl get installplan -n openshift-operators | grep aerospike

Expected output

Sample output with an InstallPlan for version 4.1.2:

NAME            CSV                                    APPROVAL   APPROVED
install-2tg7p   aerospike-kubernetes-operator.v4.1.2   Manual     false

In this example, the upgrade is not applied since the APPROVED status is false.

To approve the upgrade, set the approved field in the InstallPlan to true:

kubectl patch installplan -n openshift-operators --type merge --patch '{"spec":{"approved":true}}'  $(kubectl get installplan -n openshift-operators | grep "aerospike-kubernetes-operator.v4.0.1" | cut -f 1 -d " ")

Check AKO logs

After you upgrade succesfully, you can check the AKO logs.

AKO runs as two replicas by default for higher availability. Run the following command to follow the logs for the AKO pods.

kubectl -n openshift-operators logs -f deployments/aerospike-operator-controller-manager manager

Sample output:

2025-08-06T08:42:37Z    INFO    setup   Initializing webhook certificate watcher using provided certificates    {"webhook-cert-path": "/tmp/k8s-webhook-server/serving-certs", "webhook-cert-name": "tls.crt", "webhook-cert-key": "tls.key"}
2025-08-06T08:42:37Z    INFO    controller-runtime.certwatcher  Updated current TLS certificate
2025-08-06T08:42:37Z    INFO    setup   Init aerospike-server config schemas
2025-08-06T08:42:37Z    DEBUG   setup   Config schema added     {"version": "6.0.0"}
2025-08-06T08:42:37Z    DEBUG   setup   Config schema added     {"version": "6.3.0"}
2025-08-06T08:42:37Z    DEBUG   setup   Config schema added     {"version": "7.1.0"}
2025-08-06T08:42:37Z    DEBUG   setup   Config schema added     {"version": "8.0.0"}
2025-08-06T08:42:37Z    DEBUG   setup   Config schema added     {"version": "8.1.0"}
2025-08-06T08:42:37Z    DEBUG   setup   Config schema added     {"version": "6.1.0"}
2025-08-06T08:42:37Z    DEBUG   setup   Config schema added     {"version": "6.2.0"}
2025-08-06T08:42:37Z    DEBUG   setup   Config schema added     {"version": "6.4.0"}
2025-08-06T08:42:37Z    DEBUG   setup   Config schema added     {"version": "7.0.0"}
2025-08-06T08:42:37Z    DEBUG   setup   Config schema added     {"version": "7.2.0"}
2025-08-06T08:42:37Z    INFO    controller-runtime.builder      Registering a mutating webhook  {"GVK": "asdb.aerospike.com/v1, Kind=AerospikeCluster", "path": "/mutate-asdb-aerospike-com-v1-aerospikecluster"}
2025-08-06T08:42:37Z    INFO    controller-runtime.webhook      Registering webhook     {"path": "/mutate-asdb-aerospike-com-v1-aerospikecluster"}
2025-08-06T08:42:37Z    INFO    controller-runtime.builder      Registering a validating webhook        {"GVK": "asdb.aerospike.com/v1, Kind=AerospikeCluster", "path": "/validate-asdb-aerospike-com-v1-aerospikecluster"}
2025-08-06T08:42:37Z    INFO    controller-runtime.webhook      Registering webhook     {"path": "/validate-asdb-aerospike-com-v1-aerospikecluster"}
2025-08-06T08:42:37Z    INFO    controller-runtime.builder      Registering a mutating webhook  {"GVK": "asdb.aerospike.com/v1beta1, Kind=AerospikeBackupService", "path": "/mutate-asdb-aerospike-com-v1beta1-aerospikebackupservice"}
2025-08-06T08:42:37Z    INFO    controller-runtime.webhook      Registering webhook     {"path": "/mutate-asdb-aerospike-com-v1beta1-aerospikebackupservice"}
2025-08-06T08:42:37Z    INFO    controller-runtime.builder      Registering a validating webhook        {"GVK": "asdb.aerospike.com/v1beta1, Kind=AerospikeBackupService", "path": "/validate-asdb-aerospike-com-v1beta1-aerospikebackupservice"}
2025-08-06T08:42:37Z    INFO    controller-runtime.webhook      Registering webhook     {"path": "/validate-asdb-aerospike-com-v1beta1-aerospikebackupservice"}
2025-08-06T08:42:37Z    INFO    controller-runtime.builder      Registering a mutating webhook  {"GVK": "asdb.aerospike.com/v1beta1, Kind=AerospikeBackup", "path": "/mutate-asdb-aerospike-com-v1beta1-aerospikebackup"}
2025-08-06T08:42:37Z    INFO    controller-runtime.webhook      Registering webhook     {"path": "/mutate-asdb-aerospike-com-v1beta1-aerospikebackup"}
2025-08-06T08:42:37Z    INFO    controller-runtime.builder      Registering a validating webhook        {"GVK": "asdb.aerospike.com/v1beta1, Kind=AerospikeBackup", "path": "/validate-asdb-aerospike-com-v1beta1-aerospikebackup"}
2025-08-06T08:42:37Z    INFO    controller-runtime.webhook      Registering webhook     {"path": "/validate-asdb-aerospike-com-v1beta1-aerospikebackup"}
2025-08-06T08:42:37Z    INFO    controller-runtime.builder      Registering a mutating webhook  {"GVK": "asdb.aerospike.com/v1beta1, Kind=AerospikeRestore", "path": "/mutate-asdb-aerospike-com-v1beta1-aerospikerestore"}
2025-08-06T08:42:37Z    INFO    controller-runtime.webhook      Registering webhook     {"path": "/mutate-asdb-aerospike-com-v1beta1-aerospikerestore"}
2025-08-06T08:42:37Z    INFO    controller-runtime.builder      Registering a validating webhook        {"GVK": "asdb.aerospike.com/v1beta1, Kind=AerospikeRestore", "path": "/validate-asdb-aerospike-com-v1beta1-aerospikerestore"}
2025-08-06T08:42:37Z    INFO    controller-runtime.webhook      Registering webhook     {"path": "/validate-asdb-aerospike-com-v1beta1-aerospikerestore"}
2025-08-06T08:42:37Z    INFO    setup   Adding webhook certificate watcher to manager
2025-08-06T08:42:37Z    INFO    setup   Starting manager
2025-08-06T08:42:37Z    INFO    controller-runtime.metrics      Starting metrics server
2025-08-06T08:42:37Z    INFO    starting server {"name": "health probe", "addr": "[::]:8081"}
2025-08-06T08:42:37Z    INFO    setup   disabling http/2
2025-08-06T08:42:37Z    INFO    controller-runtime.webhook      Starting webhook server
2025-08-06T08:42:37Z    INFO    setup   disabling http/2
2025-08-06T08:42:37Z    INFO    controller-runtime.webhook      Serving webhook server  {"host": "", "port": 9443}