Kubernetes Hacks and Tricks – #2 Optional ConfigMaps and Secrets in Pods

In some applications, the application configurations are set by default in the codebase (hard-coded). If you want to override them, you can provide your override values through environment variables. Sometimes and for some configurations, it doesn’t matter if the override values exist. However, you want to make sure the application runs without any issues. If ConfigMaps/Secrets are available, use them and override default values, and if there are no ConfigMaps/Secrets for the application, run the application with its default configuration. In such a case, Kubernetes provides us optional field for using ConfigMaps/Secrets as environment variables in Pods.

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If you run the pod with a regular manifest and the ConfigMap/Secret does not exist, it will face the following CreateContainerConfigError error.

apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  name: optional-configmap-secret
spec:
  containers:
    - name: registry
      image: registry:latest
      envFrom:
        - configMapRef:
            name: registry-config
        - secretRef:
            name: registry-secret

Now we can use the optional field to run the pod even if ConfigMap/Secret is not available to be used by the pod container without that error.

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