External Resource Support

The Frappe Operator supports connecting to externally managed MariaDB and Redis instances. This is useful for production environments using managed services like AWS RDS, ElastiCache, or on-premise shared clusters.

External MariaDB

To use an external MariaDB instance, configure the dbConfig section in your FrappeSite custom resource.

Configuration

Set provider to external and provide the connection details.

dbConfig:
  provider: external
  mode: private
  host: mariadb.external.svc.cluster.local
  port: "3306"
  connectionSecretRef:
    name: external-mariadb-creds

The connectionSecretRef must point to a secret containing:

• username: The database user.
• password: The user’s password.
• database: (Optional) The database name (defaults to site name).
• host: (Optional, if not in spec).
• port: (Optional, if not in spec).

How it Works

When provider is external, the operator:

1. Skips automated provisioning of a MariaDB instance via the MariaDB Operator.
2. Resolves connection details from the spec and the secret.
3. Injects these credentials into the site initialization job and the final site_config.json.
4. Note: The bench version must support the configured username. If the bench version uses the database name as the username, ensure both are set identical in the external provider.

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External Redis

To use an external Redis instance, configure the redisConfig section in your FrappeBench custom resource.

Configuration

Set external to true and provide the host and port.

redisConfig:
  external: true
  host: redis-external.frappe.svc.cluster.local
  port: 6379
  connectionSecretRef:
    name: external-redis-creds

The connectionSecretRef (optional) should contain:

• password: The Redis password.

How it Works

When external is true, the operator:

1. Skips creation of the internal Redis StatefulSets (redis-cache and redis-queue).
2. Resolves the full Redis URL, including authentication if a secret is provided (redis://:password@host:port).
3. Injects this URL into common_site_config.json via the bench init job.
4. Configures KEDA ScaledObjects (if used) with the authenticated address to monitor background queues.
5. Injects the URL into each site’s site_config.json during initialization.

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Troubleshooting

• Connectivity: Ensure the external service is reachable from the worker nodes where Frappe pods are running.
• Permissions: Verify that the provided database user has ALL PRIVILEGES on the specified database.
• Auth Failures: Check that the secret keys (username, password, database) match the expected names exactly.