Application Listing

To better manage Operators and Charts provided by enterprises or platforms through the platform’s Operator Hub and App Store, the application listing feature supports you in independently publishing Operators or Charts to the App Store, enabling quick completion of application listing, upgrading, and delisting operations. You can use the violet tool in advance to complete the application packaging and listing process.

Application Listing Process

1. Development and Artifact Storage: Developers develop applications and store the application artifacts in an image repository.

2. Packaging with Violet Tool: Developers use the violet tool to package the application, generating a tgz file.

3. Submission to Platform Administrator: Developers provide the tgz file to the platform administrator and request for listing.

4. One-Click Listing with Violet Tool: The platform administrator uses the violet tool to list the application on the platform’s App Store with a single click.

5. Deployment and Usage: Developers or other users deploy and use the application utilizing features such as Operators, Catalog, etc.

Developing Applications

Based on technical documentation and development specifications, developers can custom-develop applications, including three types: operator, chart, and cluster plugin.

Developers can also directly acquire operator and chart artifacts from open-source communities or third-party vendors and list these artifacts on the App Store for use.

Vendor Type Specification

To ensure accurate display of vendor types on the page, the vendor type needs to be set in the artifacts in advance.

Notes:

• If provider-type is empty or not one of the standard fields listed above, it will display as User Uploaded.

• If provider is empty, it will display as -.

• If provider-url is empty, no redirection is supported. To redirect to the provider’s official website, please fill in provider-url.

Configuration Examples

• Chart

  The provider type needs to be set in the annotations section of the Chart.yaml file.

  apiVersion: v2
  name: nginx
  description: A Helm chart for Kubernetes
  type: application
  version: 0.1.0
  appVersion: "1.16.0"
  annotations:
    provider-type: certified       # Provider Type
    provider: '{"zh" : "pingtai","en" : "platform"}'     # Provider Name    
    provider-url: http://provider-url      # Provider Link (optional)

• Operator

  The provider type needs to be set in the metadata.annotations section of the Operator CSV file.

  apiVersion: operators.coreos.com/v1alpha1
  kind: ClusterServiceVersion
  metadata:
    annotations:
      provider: '{"zh" : "pingtai","en" : "platform"}'    # Provider Name
      provider-type: certified    # Provider Type
      provider-url: http://provider-url   # Provider Link (optional)
    name: PostgreSQL-operator.vX.Y.Z
    namespace: placeholder
  spec: {}

Application Packaging & Listing

Refer to the Violet Tool User Guide for developers to complete application packaging and for platform administrators to list the applications.

After an application is listed, you can view and deploy it from the Catalog page. Platform administrators can also perform operations such as listing and unlisting application versions through functionalities.

• For operator-type applications, after listing, you can view and deploy them in Catalog > Operators. The listing and unlisting of application versions can be controlled from the Application Listing page.

• For Chart-type applications, after listing, you can view and deploy them in Catalog. The listing and unlisting of application versions can be controlled from the Application Listing page.

• For cluster plugin-type applications, after listing, you can view, deploy, and uninstall plugins in Catalog > Cluster Plugins.

Subsequent Application Management

Listing/Unlisting Applications

This function controls whether an application can be viewed and deployed from the app store. When an application contains multiple versions, the Listing/Unlisting function can be used to adjust the available application versions for users.

• An unlisted operator application or version cannot be viewed or deployed from Operators.

• An unlisted chart application or version cannot be viewed or deployed from Template Repository and Catalog.

• Listing/Unlisting is not supported for cluster plugins. Only Deployment and Uninstallation are available. For unlisting or deleting a cluster plugin, please contact technical support.

Operation Steps

1. In the left navigation bar, click Catalog > Application Listing.

2. Click on the corresponding application name.

3. In the Version Management area, click the > List/Unlist on the right side of the version to be listed/unlisted.

Cross-Cluster Synchronization for Operator-Type Applications

Operator-type applications are cluster-level applications, and the target cluster needs to be specified during listing. After listing, if you need to expand the application’s cluster usage scope, you can quickly replicate the application to a new cluster through the Cross-Cluster Synchronization function.

• This function is not available for Chart-type and Cluster Plugin-type applications.

Operation Steps

1. In the left navigation bar, click Catalog > Application Listing.

2. Click on the corresponding application name.

3. In the upper-right corner of the Version Management area, click Cross-Cluster Synchronization. Enter the parameters as prompted by the UI and click OK.

   Parameter	Description
   Sync Version	Select the version you want to synchronize. Only non-builtin versions are supported. Builtin versions are automatically synchronized to all clusters and do not require manual synchronization.
   Target Cluster	Select the target cluster you want to synchronize to. If the same operator version already exists in the selected target cluster, the synchronization process will automatically skip it.

Note: The Listed/Unlisted status of the version after synchronization remains the same as before migration.