Understanding Kubernetes ConfigMap with examples

ConfigMaps are objects that help us to store non-confidential data in key-value pairs in order to separate configuration from application.
They should not be used to store sensitive data for such tasks you should use Secrets, also they are not designed to store large amount of data they cannot exceed 1 MiB.
In this article, we will discuss how to create ConfigMaps, but also how to consume them in a Pod.
There are multiple methods that ConfigMaps can be injected in a Pod, we will cover the first three in this post, in all three cases the ConfigMap and Pod needs to run in the same namespace.

Methods:
Command and args
Environment variables
Mounted in the container via a read-only volume
Kubernetes API to read a ConfigMap via own code (not covered)

Resources
Kubernetes documentation

Command and args

We will create a ConfigMap and Pod in the default namespace named command-and-args-configmap and command-and-args-pod.

Create the ConfigMap, we have defined two keys, “message” and “sleep”.

apiVersion: v1
data:
  message: "Hello from ConfigMap"
  sleep: "10"
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
  creationTimestamp: null
  name: command-and-args-configmap

Create the Pod, the container will use the two keys “message” and “sleep” loaded from the ConfigMap as args.
The “message” key will be used to print “Hello from ConfigMap” in a loop, while the “sleep” value will be used to sleep for 10 seconds between the messages.

apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  creationTimestamp: null
  labels:
    run: command-and-args-pod
  name: command-and-args-pod
spec:
  containers:
  - image: busybox
    command: ["/bin/sh"]
    args: ["-c", "while true; do echo $(date) $(MESSAGE); echo 'Sleeping for $(SLEEP)'; sleep $(SLEEP); done"]
    env:
    - name: MESSAGE
      valueFrom:
        configMapKeyRef:
          name: command-and-args-configmap
          key: message
    - name: SLEEP
      valueFrom:
        configMapKeyRef:
          name: command-and-args-configmap
          key: sleep
    name: command-and-args-pod
    resources: {}
  dnsPolicy: ClusterFirst
  restartPolicy: Always
status: {}

Create the ConfigMap and Pod

Check the results

Sun Oct 3 15:59:52 UTC 2021 Hello from ConfigMap
Sleeping for 10
Sun Oct 3 16:00:02 UTC 2021 Hello from ConfigMap
Sleeping for 10
Sun Oct 3 16:00:12 UTC 2021 Hello from ConfigMap
Sleeping for 10
Sun Oct 3 16:00:22 UTC 2021 Hello from ConfigMap
Sleeping for 10

Environment variables

Create the ConfigMap with an example of connection information.

apiVersion: v1
data:
  db_host: "192.168.0.100"
  db_port: "6432"
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
  creationTimestamp: null
  name: environment-variables-variable-configmap

Create the Pod, simpler but similar to the previous and we will do a different test.

apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  creationTimestamp: null
  labels:
    run: environment-variables-variable-pod
  name: environment-variables-variable-pod
spec:
  containers:
  - image: busybox
    command: ["sleep", "3600"]
    env:
    - name: DB_HOST
      valueFrom:
        configMapKeyRef:
          name: environment-variables-variable-configmap
          key: db_host
    - name: DB_PORT
      valueFrom:
        configMapKeyRef:
          name: environment-variables-variable-configmap
          key: db_port
    name: environment-variables-variable-pod
    resources: {}
  dnsPolicy: ClusterFirst
  restartPolicy: Always
status: {}

Create the ConfigMap and Pod

Test, let’s check the environment variables of our container.

DB_HOST=192.168.0.100
DB_PORT=6432

Mount a read-only volume in the container

Create the ConfigMap, we have defined two keys, “description” and “certificate”.

apiVersion: v1
data:
  certificate: |
    "This is my
    test certificate"
  description: |
    "This is my 
    test description"
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
  creationTimestamp: null
  name: volume-mounts-configmap

Create the Pod, the “/config” folder will be mounted and two files will be created, “description” and “certificate” each one containing the values that we have defined.

apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  creationTimestamp: null
  labels:
    run: volume-mounts-pod
  name: volume-mounts-pod
spec:
  containers:
  - image: busybox
    command: ["sleep", "3600"]
    name: volume-mounts-pod
    volumeMounts:
      - name: config
        mountPath: "/config"
        readOnly: true
    resources: {}
  volumes:
    - name: config
      configMap:
        name: volume-mounts-configmap
  dnsPolicy: ClusterFirst
  restartPolicy: Always
status: {}

Create the ConfigMap and Pod

Test, let’s check the mounted directory and the two files created.

total 0
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root            18 Oct  3 18:19 certificate -> ..data/certificate
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root            18 Oct  3 18:19 description -> ..data/description

"This is my
test certificate"

"This is my 
test description"

The ConfigMap changes are detected by kubelet and can be customized via configMapAndSecretChangeDetectionStrategy option.