Chapter 21. ConfigMaps

Consider a directory with some files that already contain the data with which you want to populate a ConfigMap:

$ ls example-files
game.properties
ui.properties

$ cat example-files/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

$ cat example-files/ui.properties
color.good=purple
color.bad=yellow
allow.textmode=true
how.nice.to.look=fairlyNice

You can use the following command to create a ConfigMap holding the content of each file in this directory:

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

When the --from-file option points to a directory, each file directly in that directory is used to populate a key in the ConfigMap, 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 above command creates the following ConfigMap:

$ oc describe configmaps game-config
Name:           game-config
Namespace:      default
Labels:         <none>
Annotations:    <none>

Data

game.properties:        121 bytes
ui.properties:          83 bytes

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

If you want to see the values of the keys, you can oc get the object with the -o option:

$ oc get configmaps game-config -o yaml

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

You can also pass the --from-file option with a specific file, and pass it multiple times to the CLI. The following yields equivalent results to the Creating from Directories example:

You can also set the key to use for an individual file with the --from-file option by passing an expression of key=value. For example:

You can also supply literal values for a ConfigMap. The --from-literal option takes a key=value syntax that allows literal values to be supplied directly on the command line:

ConfigMaps can be used to populate individual environment variables or can populate environment variables from all keys that form valid environment variable names. As an example, consider the following ConfigMaps:

apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
  name: special-config 1
  namespace: default
data:
  special.how: very 2
  special.type: charm 3

apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
  name: env-config 1
  namespace: default
data:
  log_level: INFO 2

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

apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  name: dapi-test-pod
spec:
  containers:
    - name: test-container
      image: gcr.io/google_containers/busybox
      command: [ "/bin/sh", "-c", "env" ]
      env: 1
        - name: SPECIAL_LEVEL_KEY
          valueFrom:
            configMapKeyRef:
              name: special-config 2
              key: special.how 3
        - name: SPECIAL_TYPE_KEY
          valueFrom:
            configMapKeyRef:
              name: special-config 4
              key: special.type 5
              optional: true 6
      envFrom: 7
        - configMapRef:
            name: env-config 8
  restartPolicy: Never

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

SPECIAL_LEVEL_KEY=very
log_level=INFO

A ConfigMap can also be used to set the value of the command or arguments in a container. This is accomplished using the Kubernetes substitution syntax $(VAR_NAME). Consider the following ConfigMaps:

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

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

apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  name: dapi-test-pod
spec:
  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
  restartPolicy: Never

When this pod is run, the output from the test-container container will be:

very charm

A ConfigMap can also be consumed in volumes. Returning again to the following example ConfigMap:

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

You have a couple different options for consuming this ConfigMap in a volume. The most basic way 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:
  containers:
    - name: test-container
      image: gcr.io/google_containers/busybox
      command: [ "/bin/sh", "cat", "/etc/config/special.how" ]
      volumeMounts:
      - name: config-volume
        mountPath: /etc/config
  volumes:
    - name: config-volume
      configMap:
        name: special-config
  restartPolicy: Never

When this pod is run, the output will be:

very

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

apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  name: dapi-test-pod
spec:
  containers:
    - name: test-container
      image: gcr.io/google_containers/busybox
      command: [ "/bin/sh", "cat", "/etc/config/path/to/special-key" ]
      volumeMounts:
      - name: config-volume
        mountPath: /etc/config
  volumes:
    - name: config-volume
      configMap:
        name: special-config
        items:
        - key: special.how
          path: path/to/special-key
  restartPolicy: Never

When this pod is run, the output will be:

very