Getting Started with Frappe Operator

This guide walks you through installing the Frappe Operator by Vyogo Technologies and deploying your first Frappe/ERPNext site in 5 minutes.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, ensure you have:

Kubernetes Cluster (v1.22+) or OpenShift (4.10+)
- KIND or Minikube for local development
- OpenShift Local (CRC), Red Hat OpenShift on AWS (ROSA), or public cloud (EKS, GKE, AKS)
kubectl or oc CLI configured to access your cluster
Helm 3.x installed

1. Database Backend (Choose One)

The Frappe Operator features a polymorphic database architecture supporting multiple database engines:

Engine	Recommended Provider	Documentation
PostgreSQL (Default)	StackGres Operator or Percona PG Operator	PostgreSQL Integration Guide
MariaDB	MariaDB Operator	MariaDB Integration Guide
External Database	AWS RDS, Google Cloud SQL, Azure Database, or on-premise	External Resources

For quick testing with PostgreSQL via StackGres:

# Add StackGres Helm repo and install operator
helm repo add stackgres https://stackgres.io/downloads/stackgres-k8s/stackgres/helm
helm repo update
helm install stackgres-operator stackgres/stackgres-operator \
  --namespace stackgres --create-namespace

2. Install Frappe Operator

Install the operator using the official Vyogo Technologies Helm repository:

# Add the official Vyogo Helm repository
helm repo add frappe-operator https://vyogotech.github.io/frappe-operator/helm-repo
helm repo update

# Install the operator into frappe-operator-system namespace
helm install frappe-operator frappe-operator/frappe-operator \
  --namespace frappe-operator-system \
  --create-namespace

Verify Installation

Verify that the controller manager pod is running:

kubectl get pods -n frappe-operator-system

Verify that the CRDs are registered:

kubectl get crd | grep vyogo.tech

The operator registers all 24 vyogo.tech/v1 Custom Resource Definitions, including:

frappebenches.vyogo.tech
frappesites.vyogo.tech
sitedomains.vyogo.tech
siteapps.vyogo.tech
sitebackups.vyogo.tech
sitejobs.vyogo.tech

3. Deploy Your First Bench and Site

Step 3.1: Deploy the FrappeBench (Shared Infrastructure)

The FrappeBench represents shared infrastructure (Nginx, Gunicorn, Redis Cache/Queue, SocketIO, Scheduler, and background workers):

apiVersion: vyogo.tech/v1
kind: FrappeBench
metadata:
  name: prod-bench
  namespace: default
spec:
  frappeVersion: "version-15"
  imageConfig:
    repository: ghcr.io/vyogotech/erpnext-for-operator
    tag: version-15
    pullPolicy: IfNotPresent
  apps:
    - name: erpnext

Apply the manifest:

kubectl apply -f prod-bench.yaml
kubectl wait --for=condition=Ready frappebench/prod-bench --timeout=300s

Step 3.2: Deploy the FrappeSite (Tenant Site)

Create a dedicated PostgreSQL tenant site using StackGres:

apiVersion: vyogo.tech/v1
kind: FrappeSite
metadata:
  name: my-first-site
  namespace: default
spec:
  benchRef:
    name: prod-bench
  siteName: my-first-site.example.com
  dbConfig:
    provider: postgres
    mode: dedicated
    postgresEngine: stackgres
  deletionPolicy: Delete

Apply the manifest:

kubectl apply -f my-first-site.yaml
kubectl wait --for=condition=Ready frappesite/my-first-site --timeout=300s

4. Accessing Your Site

OpenShift

On OpenShift, an OpenShift Route (<site-name>-route) is automatically provisioned with edge TLS termination and HTTP-to-HTTPS redirect (tls.insecureEdgeTerminationPolicy: Redirect):

oc get routes -l site=my-first-site

Kubernetes (Port-Forward for Local Development)

# Forward traffic to the bench nginx service
kubectl port-forward svc/prod-bench-nginx 8080:8080

# Add host entry in /etc/hosts:
# 127.0.0.1 my-first-site.example.com

# Access in browser:
# http://my-first-site.example.com:8080

5. Security & OpenShift Compliance

Frappe Operator is engineered for strict enterprise compliance:

OpenShift restricted-v2 SCC: Default configurations use dynamic non-root UIDs allocated by OpenShift (runAsUser: nil), dynamic filesystem groups, and drop all Linux capabilities (drop: ["ALL"]). No cluster-admin or root privileges are required.
HTTPS Enforcement: Ingresses and OpenShift Routes strictly enforce HTTPS redirection.
Database Credential Isolation: Site credentials and passwords are automatically generated and mounted via Kubernetes Secrets.

Next Steps

Comprehensive Guide: Explore high-availability production configurations.
PostgreSQL Integration Guide: Sizing, pooling, and StackGres/Percona features.
Operations Guide: Site backups, autoscaling with HPA/KEDA, and rolling updates.