Install Calico with Operator

2 minutes read

Installing Calico Using the Tigera Operator 🔗

Let’s install the Tigera operator, which is the recommended method for managing the lifecycle of Calico and its components.

The operator simplifies the process of installing, upgrading, and configuring Calico and your Cluster networking.

kubectl create -f 
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/projectcalico/calico/v3.30.0/manifests/operator-crds.yaml
kubectl create -f 
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/projectcalico/calico/v3.30.0/manifests/tigera-operator.yaml

Verify the operator installation:

kubectl rollout status -n tigera-operator deployment/tigera-operator

Next, let’s apply an Installation Custom Resource (CR) to configure Calico for our specific EKS environment. This CR defines how Calico should be deployed. For EKS, we specify the AmazonVPC CNI plugin and explicitly disable BGP since the underlying AWS infrastructure handles networking.

Instruct the operator on how to install Calico in our environment using the following command:

kubectl create -f - <<EOF
kind: Installation
apiVersion: operator.tigera.io/v1
metadata:
  name: default
spec:
  kubeletVolumePluginPath: None
  kubernetesProvider: EKS
  cni:
    type: AmazonVPC
  calicoNetwork:
    bgp: Disabled
EOF

The setup process starts with applying the Custom Resource Definitions (CRDs) required by the Tigera operator, followed by deploying the operator itself. Once the operator is running, the Installation CR tells it how to tailor Calico to the environment, ensuring it integrates smoothly with the EKS network.

kubectl get tigerastatus

You should see an output similar to the following:

NAME         AVAILABLE   PROGRESSING   DEGRADED   SINCE
calico       True        False         False      4d10h
ippools      True        False         False      4d10h