Chapter 6. opm CLI

The opm CLI tool is provided by the Operator Framework for use with the Operator bundle format. This tool allows you to create and maintain catalogs of Operators from a list of bundles, called an index, that are similar to software repositories. The result is a container image, called an index image, which can be stored in a container registry and then installed on a cluster.

An index contains a database of pointers to Operator manifest content that can be queried through an included API that is served when the container image is run. On OpenShift Container Platform, Operator Lifecycle Manager (OLM) can use the index image as a catalog by referencing it in a CatalogSource object, which polls the image at regular intervals to enable frequent updates to installed Operators on the cluster.

You can install the opm CLI tool on your Linux, macOS, or Windows workstation.