operator-framework / operator-framework/java-operator-sdk

Corner Case: Clenup Processing for Delete Event Without Finalizer

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feature
Dominant language
Java
Stars
944
Forks
242
Avg merge
1d 4h
Merged PRs (30d)
43

Description

If Cleaner interface is implemented by a reconciler a finalizer is automatically added to the custom resource, and cleaner is called before it gets removed.
There is however a corner case when it makes sense to do cleanup event finalizer is not used. In case there is an in memory data held for a custom resource, so when a custom resource deleted, related indexed or in memory objects needs to be cleaned up. In this case a finalizer is not needed, since if the operator is down and the delete event is missed it's not a problem, since the cleanup is just for in memory data.

To support this we could add a feature flag to @ControllerConfiguration to don't add finalizer for cleanup: addFinalizerForCleaner.

Note that this is not a priority issue, we should probably implement it only if some requests it. Also having a finalizer in those cases would not be a big issues.

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First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start with the @ControllerConfiguration annotation and trace how Cleaner implementations trigger finalizer handling during custom-resource deletion. Confirm where the delete event is processed and how cleanup is invoked. Done means the proposed configuration controls whether a cleaner adds a finalizer without changing cleanup behavior, with the relevant behavior covered by tests.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
java, kubernetes
Domain
infrastructure
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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