Try the 25.2 Beta of the Redpanda Operator

beta

Deploy the 25.2 beta release of the Redpanda Operator. This version of the Redpanda Operator is cluster scope so a single instance of the Operator can manage multiple Redpanda resources in different namespaces.

This beta version is available for testing and feedback. It is not supported by Redpanda and should not be used in production environments. To give feedback on beta releases, reach out to the Redpanda team in Redpanda Community Slack.

Prerequisites

Make sure that your Kubernetes cluster meets the requirements.

Install Redpanda Operator v25.2.1-beta1

  1. Make sure that you have permission to install custom resource definitions (CRDs):

    kubectl auth can-i create CustomResourceDefinition --all-namespaces

    You should see yes in the output.

    You need these cluster-level permissions to install cert-manager and Redpanda Operator CRDs in the next steps.

  2. Install cert-manager:

    helm repo add jetstack https://charts.jetstack.io
helm repo update
helm install cert-manager jetstack/cert-manager \
  --set crds.enabled=true \
  --namespace cert-manager \
  --create-namespace

    TLS is enabled by default and cert-manager is used to manage TLS certificates.

  3. Deploy the Redpanda Operator.

    helm repo add redpanda https://charts.redpanda.com
helm upgrade --install redpanda-controller redpanda/operator \
  --namespace <namespace> \
  --create-namespace \
  --version v25.2.1-beta1 \
  --set crds.enabled=true

  4. Ensure that the Deployment is successfully rolled out:

    kubectl --namespace <namespace> rollout status --watch deployment/redpanda-controller-operator
    deployment "redpanda-controller-operator" successfully rolled out

  5. Install a Redpanda custom resource to deploy a Redpanda cluster.

    redpanda-cluster.yaml
    apiVersion: cluster.redpanda.com/v1alpha2
kind: Redpanda
metadata:
  name: redpanda

  6. If you want to use enterprise features in Redpanda, add the details of a Secret that stores your Enterprise Edition license key.

    redpanda-cluster.yaml
    apiVersion: cluster.redpanda.com/v1alpha2
kind: Redpanda
metadata:
  name: redpanda
spec:
  clusterSpec:
    enterprise:
      licenseSecretRef:
        name: <secret-name>
        key: <secret-key>

    For details, see Add an Enterprise Edition License to Redpanda in Kubernetes.

  7. Apply the Redpanda resource:

    kubectl apply -f redpanda-cluster.yaml --namespace <namespace>

  8. Wait for the Redpanda Operator to deploy the cluster:

    kubectl get redpanda --namespace <namespace> --watch
    NAME       READY   STATUS
redpanda   True    Redpanda reconciliation succeeded

    This step may take a few minutes. You can watch for new Pods to make sure that the deployment is progressing:

    kubectl get pod --namespace <namespace>

    If it’s taking too long, see Troubleshooting.

Uninstall Redpanda

When you finish testing Redpanda, you can uninstall it from your Kubernetes cluster. The steps depend on how you installed Redpanda: using the Redpanda Operator or the Redpanda Helm chart.

  • Operator

  • Helm

Follow the steps in exact order to avoid race conditions between the Redpanda Operator’s reconciliation loop and Kubernetes garbage collection.

  1. Delete all Redpanda-related custom resources:

    kubectl delete users      --namespace <namespace> --all
kubectl delete topics     --namespace <namespace> --all
kubectl delete schemas    --namespace <namespace> --all
kubectl delete redpanda   --namespace <namespace> --all

  2. Make sure requests for those resources return no results. For example, if you had a Redpanda cluster named redpanda in the namespace <namespace>, run:

    kubectl get redpanda --namespace <namespace>

  3. Uninstall the Redpanda Operator Helm release:

    helm uninstall redpanda-controller --namespace <namespace>

    Helm does not uninstall CRDs by default when using helm uninstall to avoid accidentally deleting existing custom resources.

  4. Remove the CRDs.

    1. List all Redpanda CRDs installed by the operator:

      kubectl api-resources --api-group='cluster.redpanda.com'

      This command displays all CRDs defined by the Redpanda Operator. For example:

      NAME        SHORTNAMES   APIVERSION                      NAMESPACED   KIND
redpandas   rp           cluster.redpanda.com/v1alpha2   true         Redpanda
schemas     sc           cluster.redpanda.com/v1alpha2   true         Schema
topics                   cluster.redpanda.com/v1alpha2   true         Topic
users       rpu          cluster.redpanda.com/v1alpha2   true         User

    2. Delete the CRDs:

      kubectl get crds -o name | grep cluster.redpanda.com | xargs kubectl delete

      This command lists all CRDs with the cluster.redpanda.com domain suffix and deletes them, ensuring only Redpanda CRDs are removed. Helm does not delete CRDs automatically to prevent data loss, so you must run this step manually.

  5. (Optional) Delete any leftover PVCs or Secrets in the namespace:

    The following command deletes all PVCs and Secrets in the namespace, which may remove unrelated resources if the namespace is shared with other applications. 
    kubectl delete pvc,secret --all --namespace <namespace>

If you deployed Redpanda with the Redpanda Helm chart, follow these steps to uninstall it:

  1. Uninstall the Helm release:

    helm uninstall redpanda --namespace <namespace>

  2. (Optional) Delete any leftover PVCs or Secrets in the namespace:

    The following command deletes all PVCs and Secrets in the namespace, which may remove unrelated resources if the namespace is shared with other applications. 
    kubectl delete pvc,secret --all --namespace <namespace>

Next steps

To give feedback about this beta version, reach out to the Redpanda team in Redpanda Community Slack.