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CassandraOpsRequest

What is CassandraOpsRequest

CassandraOpsRequest is a Kubernetes Custom Resource Definitions (CRD). It provides a declarative configuration for Cassandra administrative operations like database version updating, horizontal scaling, vertical scaling etc. in a Kubernetes native way.

CassandraOpsRequest CRD Specifications

Like any official Kubernetes resource, a CassandraOpsRequest has TypeMeta, ObjectMeta, Spec and Status sections.

Here, some sample CassandraOpsRequest CRs for different administrative operations is given below:

Sample CassandraOpsRequest for updating database:

apiVersion: ops.kubedb.com/v1alpha1
kind: CassandraOpsRequest
metadata:
  name: update-version
  namespace: demo
spec:
  type: UpdateVersion
  databaseRef:
    name: cassandra-prod
  updateVersion:
    targetVersion: 5.0.3
status:
  conditions:
    - lastTransitionTime: "2025-07-25T18:22:38Z"
      message: Successfully completed the modification process
      observedGeneration: 1
      reason: Successful
      status: "True"
      type: Successful
  observedGeneration: 1
  phase: Successful

Sample CassandraOpsRequest Objects for Horizontal Scaling of different component of the database:

apiVersion: ops.kubedb.com/v1alpha1
kind: CassandraOpsRequest
metadata:
  name: casops-hscale-down
  namespace: demo
spec:
  type: HorizontalScaling
  databaseRef:
    name: cassandra-prod
  horizontalScaling:
    node: 4
status:
  conditions:
    - lastTransitionTime: "2025-07-25T18:22:38Z"
      message: Successfully completed the modification process
      observedGeneration: 1
      reason: Successful
      status: "True"
      type: Successful
  observedGeneration: 1
  phase: Successful

Sample CassandraOpsRequest Objects for Vertical Scaling of different component of the database:

apiVersion: ops.kubedb.com/v1alpha1
kind: CassandraOpsRequest
metadata:
  name: casops-vscale
  namespace: demo
spec:
  type: VerticalScaling
  databaseRef:
    name: cassandra-prod
  verticalScaling:
    node:
      resources:
        requests:
          memory: "2Gi"
          cpu: "1"
        limits:
          memory: "4Gi"
          cpu: "3"
status:
  conditions:
    - lastTransitionTime: "2025-07-25T18:22:38Z"
      message: Successfully completed the modification process
      observedGeneration: 1
      reason: Successful
      status: "True"
      type: Successful
  observedGeneration: 1
  phase: Successful

Sample CassandraOpsRequest Objects for Reconfiguring different cassandra mode:

apiVersion: ops.kubedb.com/v1alpha1
kind: CassandraOpsRequest
metadata:
  name: casops-reconfiugre
  namespace: demo
spec:
  type: Reconfigure
  databaseRef:
    name: cassandra-prod
  configuration:
    applyConfig:
      cassandra.yaml: |
        authenticator: PasswordAuthenticator        
status:
  conditions:
    - lastTransitionTime: "2025-07-25T18:22:38Z"
      message: Successfully completed the modification process
      observedGeneration: 1
      reason: Successful
      status: "True"
      type: Successful
  observedGeneration: 1
  phase: Successful

apiVersion: ops.kubedb.com/v1alpha1
kind: CassandraOpsRequest
metadata:
  name: casops-reconfiugre
  namespace: demo
spec:
  type: Reconfigure
  databaseRef:
    name: cassandra-prod
  configuration:
    configSecret:
      name: new-configsecret
status:
  conditions:
    - lastTransitionTime: "2025-07-25T18:22:38Z"
      message: Successfully completed the modification process
      observedGeneration: 1
      reason: Successful
      status: "True"
      type: Successful
  observedGeneration: 1
  phase: Successful

Sample CassandraOpsRequest Objects for Volume Expansion of different database components:

apiVersion: ops.kubedb.com/v1alpha1
kind: CassandraOpsRequest
metadata:
  name: casops-volume-exp
  namespace: demo
spec:
  type: VolumeExpansion
  databaseRef:
    name: cassandra-prod
  volumeExpansion:
    mode: "Online"
    node: 2Gi
status:
  conditions:
    - lastTransitionTime: "2025-07-25T18:22:38Z"
      message: Successfully completed the modification process
      observedGeneration: 1
      reason: Successful
      status: "True"
      type: Successful
  observedGeneration: 1
  phase: Successful

Sample CassandraOpsRequest Objects for Reconfiguring TLS of the database:

apiVersion: ops.kubedb.com/v1alpha1
kind: CassandraOpsRequest
metadata:
  name: casops-add-tls
  namespace: demo
spec:
  type: ReconfigureTLS
  databaseRef:
    name: cassandra-prod
  tls:
    issuerRef:
      name: cas-issuer
      kind: Issuer
      apiGroup: "cert-manager.io"
    certificates:
      - alias: client
        emailAddresses:
          - [email protected]

apiVersion: ops.kubedb.com/v1alpha1
kind: CassandraOpsRequest
metadata:
  name: casops-rotate
  namespace: demo
spec:
  type: ReconfigureTLS
  databaseRef:
    name: cassandra-dev
  tls:
    rotateCertificates: true

apiVersion: ops.kubedb.com/v1alpha1
kind: CassandraOpsRequest
metadata:
  name: casops-change-issuer
  namespace: demo
spec:
  type: ReconfigureTLS
  databaseRef:
    name: cassandra-prod
  tls:
    issuerRef:
      name: cas-new-issuer
      kind: Issuer
      apiGroup: "cert-manager.io"

apiVersion: ops.kubedb.com/v1alpha1
kind: CassandraOpsRequest
metadata:
  name: casops-remove
  namespace: demo
spec:
  type: ReconfigureTLS
  databaseRef:
    name: cassandra-prod
  tls:
    remove: true

Here, we are going to describe the various sections of a CassandraOpsRequest crd.

A CassandraOpsRequest object has the following fields in the spec section.

spec.databaseRef

spec.databaseRef is a required field that point to the Cassandra object for which the administrative operations will be performed. This field consists of the following sub-field:

• spec.databaseRef.name : specifies the name of the Cassandra object.

spec.type

spec.type specifies the kind of operation that will be applied to the database. Currently, the following types of operations are allowed in CassandraOpsRequest.

• UpdateVersion
• HorizontalScaling
• VerticalScaling
• VolumeExpansion
• Reconfigure
• ReconfigureTLS
• Restart

You can perform only one type of operation on a single CassandraOpsRequest CR. For example, if you want to update your database and scale up its replica then you have to create two separate CassandraOpsRequest. At first, you have to create a CassandraOpsRequest for updating. Once it is completed, then you can create another CassandraOpsRequest for scaling.

spec.updateVersion

If you want to update you Cassandra version, you have to specify the spec.updateVersion section that specifies the desired version information. This field consists of the following sub-field:

• spec.updateVersion.targetVersion refers to a CassandraVersion CR that contains the Cassandra version information where you want to update.

You can only update between Cassandra versions. KubeDB does not support downgrade for Cassandra.

spec.horizontalScaling.node

If you want to scale-up or scale-down your Cassandra cluster or different components of it, you have to specify spec.horizontalScaling.node section.

spec.verticalScaling.node

spec.verticalScaling.node is a required field specifying the information of Cassandra resources like cpu, memory etc that will be scaled. this has the below structure:

requests:
  memory: "200Mi"
  cpu: "0.1"
limits:
  memory: "300Mi"
  cpu: "0.2"

Here, when you specify the resource request, the scheduler uses this information to decide which node to place the container of the Pod on and when you specify a resource limit for the container, the kubelet enforces those limits so that the running container is not allowed to use more of that resource than the limit you set. You can found more details from here.

spec.volumeExpansion

To use the volume expansion feature the storage class must support volume expansion

If you want to expand the volume of your Cassandra cluster or different components of it, you have to specify spec.volumeExpansion section. This field consists of the following sub-field:

• spec.mode specifies the volume expansion mode. Supported values are Online & Offline. The default is Online.
• spec.volumeExpansion.node indicates the desired size for the persistent volume for a Cassandra cluster.

All of them refer to Quantity types of Kubernetes.

Example usage of this field is given below:

spec:
  volumeExpansion:
    node: "2Gi"

This will expand the volume size of all the combined nodes to 2 GB.

spec.configuration

If you want to reconfigure your Running Cassandra cluster or different components of it with new custom configuration, you have to specify spec.configuration section. This field consists of the following sub-field:

• spec.configuration.configSecret points to a secret in the same namespace of a Cassandra resource, which contains the new custom configurations. If there are any configSecret set before in the database, this secret will replace it.

• applyConfig is a map where key supports 3 values, namely server.properties, broker.properties, controller.properties. And value represents the corresponding configurations.

  applyConfig:
    cassandra.yaml: |
      authenticator: PasswordAuthenticator      

• removeCustomConfig is a boolean field. Specify this field to true if you want to remove all the custom configuration from the deployed cassandra cluster.

spec.tls

If you want to reconfigure the TLS configuration of your Cassandra i.e. add TLS, remove TLS, update issuer/cluster issuer or Certificates and rotate the certificates, you have to specify spec.tls section. This field consists of the following sub-field:

• spec.tls.issuerRef specifies the issuer name, kind and api group.
• spec.tls.certificates specifies the certificates. You can learn more about this field from here.
• spec.tls.rotateCertificates specifies that we want to rotate the certificate of this cassandra.
• spec.tls.remove specifies that we want to remove tls from this cassandra.

spec.timeout

As we internally retry the ops request steps multiple times, This timeout field helps the users to specify the timeout for those steps of the ops request (in second). If a step doesn’t finish within the specified timeout, the ops request will result in failure.

spec.apply

This field controls the execution of obsRequest depending on the database state. It has two supported values: Always & IfReady. Use IfReady, if you want to process the opsRequest only when the database is Ready. And use Always, if you want to process the execution of opsReq irrespective of the Database state.

CassandraOpsRequest Status

.status describes the current state and progress of a CassandraOpsRequest operation. It has the following fields:

status.phase

status.phase indicates the overall phase of the operation for this CassandraOpsRequest. It can have the following three values:

Important: Ops-manager Operator can skip an opsRequest, only if its execution has not been started yet & there is a newer opsRequest applied in the cluster. spec.type has to be same as the skipped one, in this case.

status.observedGeneration

status.observedGeneration shows the most recent generation observed by the CassandraOpsRequest controller.

status.conditions

status.conditions is an array that specifies the conditions of different steps of CassandraOpsRequest processing. Each condition entry has the following fields:

• types specifies the type of the condition. CassandraOpsRequest has the following types of conditions:

• The status field is a string, with possible values True, False, and Unknown.
  • status will be True if the current transition succeeded.
  • status will be False if the current transition failed.
  • status will be Unknown if the current transition was denied.
• The message field is a human-readable message indicating details about the condition.
• The reason field is a unique, one-word, CamelCase reason for the condition’s last transition.
• The lastTransitionTime field provides a timestamp for when the operation last transitioned from one state to another.
• The observedGeneration shows the most recent condition transition generation observed by the controller.