charts/bitnami/grafana-k6-operator

Grafana k6 Operator

Grafana k6 Operator is a Kubernetes operator that enables running distributed k6 load tests in a cluster, automating test execution and scaling for performance validation.

Overview of Grafana k6 Operator

Trademarks: This software listing is packaged by Bitnami. The respective trademarks mentioned in the offering are owned by the respective companies, and use of them does not imply any affiliation or endorsement.

TL;DR

helm install my-release oci://registry-1.docker.io/bitnamicharts/grafana-k6-operator

Looking to use Grafana k6 Operator in production? Try VMware Tanzu Application Catalog, the commercial edition of the Bitnami catalog.

⚠️ Important Notice: Upcoming changes to the Bitnami Catalog

Beginning August 28th, 2025, Bitnami will evolve its public catalog to offer a curated set of hardened, security-focused images under the new Bitnami Secure Images initiative. As part of this transition:

• Granting community users access for the first time to security-optimized versions of popular container images.
• Bitnami will begin deprecating support for non-hardened, Debian-based software images in its free tier and will gradually remove non-latest tags from the public catalog. As a result, community users will have access to a reduced number of hardened images. These images are published only under the “latest” tag and are intended for development purposes
• Starting August 28th, over two weeks, all existing container images, including older or versioned tags (e.g., 2.50.0, 10.6), will be migrated from the public catalog (docker.io/bitnami) to the “Bitnami Legacy” repository (docker.io/bitnamilegacy), where they will no longer receive updates.
• For production workloads and long-term support, users are encouraged to adopt Bitnami Secure Images, which include hardened containers, smaller attack surfaces, CVE transparency (via VEX/KEV), SBOMs, and enterprise support.

These changes aim to improve the security posture of all Bitnami users by promoting best practices for software supply chain integrity and up-to-date deployments. For more details, visit the Bitnami Secure Images announcement.

Introduction

This chart bootstraps a Grafana k6 Operator deployment on a Kubernetes cluster using the Helm package manager.

Prerequisites

• Kubernetes 1.23+
• Helm 3.8.0+

Installing the Chart

To install the chart with the release name my-release:

helm install my-release REGISTRY_NAME/REPOSITORY_NAME/grafana-k6-operator

Note: You need to substitute the placeholders REGISTRY_NAME and REPOSITORY_NAME with a reference to your Helm chart registry and repository. For example, in the case of Bitnami, you need to use REGISTRY_NAME=registry-1.docker.io and REPOSITORY_NAME=bitnamicharts.

The command deploys Grafana k6 Operator on the Kubernetes cluster in the default configuration. The Parameters section lists the parameters that can be configured during installation.

Tip

: List all releases using helm list

Configuration and installation details

Rolling VS Immutable tags

It is strongly recommended to use immutable tags in a production environment. This ensures your deployment does not change automatically if the same tag is updated with a different image.

Bitnami will release a new chart updating its containers if a new version of the main container, significant changes, or critical vulnerabilities exist.

Resource requests and limits

Bitnami charts allow setting resource requests and limits for all containers inside the chart deployment. These are inside the resources value (check parameter table). Setting requests is essential for production workloads and these should be adapted to your specific use case.

To make this process easier, the chart contains the resourcesPreset values, which automatically sets the resources section according to different presets. Check these presets in the bitnami/common chart. However, in production workloads using resourcesPreset is discouraged as it may not fully adapt to your specific needs. Find more information on container resource management in the official Kubernetes documentation.

Prometheus metrics

This chart can be integrated with Prometheus by setting metrics.enabled to true. This will expose the Grafana k6 Operator native Prometheus endpoint in a metrics service, which can be configured under the metrics.service section. It will have the necessary annotations to be automatically scraped by Prometheus.

It is possible to set RBAC-based authentication to this endpoint by setting authProxy.enabled=true, this will deploy a sidecar with kube-rbac-proxy and only the authorized ServiceAccounts will be able to access the metrics.

Prometheus requirements

It is necessary to have a working installation of Prometheus or Prometheus Operator for the integration to work. Install the Bitnami Prometheus helm chart or the Bitnami Kube Prometheus helm chart to easily have a working Prometheus in your cluster.

Integration with Prometheus Operator

The chart can deploy ServiceMonitor objects for integration with Prometheus Operator installations. To do so, set the value metrics.serviceMonitor.enabled=true. Ensure that the Prometheus Operator CustomResourceDefinitions are installed in the cluster or it will fail with the following error:

no matches for kind "ServiceMonitor" in version "monitoring.coreos.com/v1"

Install the Bitnami Kube Prometheus helm chart for having the necessary CRDs and the Prometheus Operator.

Sidecars

If additional containers are needed in the same pod as grafana-k6-operator (such as additional metrics or logging exporters), they can be defined using the sidecars parameter:

sidecars:
- name: your-image-name
  image: your-image
  imagePullPolicy: Always
  ports:
  - name: portname
    containerPort: 1234

If these sidecars export extra ports, extra port definitions can be added using the service.extraPorts parameter (where available), as shown in the example below:

service:
  extraPorts:
  - name: extraPort
    port: 11311
    targetPort: 11311

If additional init containers are needed in the same pod, they can be defined using the initContainers parameter. Here is an example:

initContainers:
  - name: your-image-name
    image: your-image
    imagePullPolicy: Always
    ports:
      - name: portname
        containerPort: 1234

Learn more about sidecar containers and init containers.

Deploying extra resources

Apart from the Operator, you may want to deploy TestRun objects. For covering this case, the chart allows adding the full specification of other objects using the extraDeploy parameter. The following example creates a TestRun object with a ConfigMap with the testing code:

extraDeploy:
- apiVersion: k6.io/v1alpha1
  kind: TestRun
  metadata:
    name: testrun-sample
  spec:
    parallelism: 2
    script:
      configMap:
        name: k6-test
        file: test.js
- apiVersion: v1
  kind: ConfigMap
  metadata:
    name: k6-test
  data:
    test.js: |
      import http from 'k6/http';
      import { Rate } from 'k6/metrics';
      import { check, sleep } from 'k6';

      const failRate = new Rate('failed_requests');

      export let options = {
        stages: [
          { target: 200, duration: '30s' },
          { target: 0, duration: '30s' },
        ],
        thresholds: {
          failed_requests: ['rate<=0'],
          http_req_duration: ['p(95)<500'],
        },
      };

      export default function () {
        const result = http.get('https://quickpizza.grafana.com');
        check(result, {
          'http response status code is 200': result.status === 200,
        });
        failRate.add(result.status !== 200);
        sleep(1);
      }

Check the Grafana k6 Operator official documentation for the list of available objects.

Pod affinity

This chart allows you to set your custom affinity using the affinity parameter. Find more information about Pod affinity in the kubernetes documentation.

As an alternative, use one of the preset configurations for pod affinity, pod anti-affinity, and node affinity available at the bitnami/common chart. To do so, set the podAffinityPreset, podAntiAffinityPreset, or nodeAffinityPreset parameters inside the operator, apiserver and cluster sections.

Parameters

Global parameters

Name	Description	Value
global.imageRegistry	Global Docker image registry	""
global.imagePullSecrets	Global Docker registry secret names as an array	[]
global.defaultStorageClass	Global default StorageClass for Persistent Volume(s)	""
global.security.allowInsecureImages	Allows skipping image verification	false
global.compatibility.openshift.adaptSecurityContext	Adapt the securityContext sections of the deployment to make them compatible with Openshift restricted-v2 SCC: remove runAsUser, runAsGroup and fsGroup and let the platform use their allowed default IDs. Possible values: auto (apply if the detected running cluster is Openshift), force (perform the adaptation always), disabled (do not perform adaptation)	auto

Common parameters

Name	Description	Value
kubeVersion	Override Kubernetes version	""
apiVersions	Override Kubernetes API versions reported by .Capabilities	[]
nameOverride	String to partially override common.names.name	""
fullnameOverride	String to fully override common.names.fullname	""
namespaceOverride	String to fully override common.names.namespace	""
commonLabels	Labels to add to all deployed objects	{}
commonAnnotations	Annotations to add to all deployed objects	{}
clusterDomain	Kubernetes cluster domain name	cluster.local
extraDeploy	Array of extra objects to deploy with the release	[]
image.registry	Grafana k6 Operator image registry	REGISTRY_NAME
image.repository	Grafana k6 Operator image repository	REPOSITORY_NAME/grafana-k6-operator
image.digest	Grafana k6 Operator image digest in the way sha256:aa.... Please note this parameter, if set, will override the tag image tag (immutable tags are recommended)	""
image.pullPolicy	Grafana k6 Operator image pull policy	IfNotPresent
image.pullSecrets	Grafana k6 Operator image pull secrets	[]
starterImage.registry	os-shell image registry	REGISTRY_NAME
starterImage.repository	os-shell image repository	REPOSITORY_NAME/os-shell
starterImage.digest	os-shell image digest in the way sha256:aa.... Please note this parameter, if set, will override the tag image tag (immutable tags are recommended)	""
runnerImage.registry	Grafana k6 image registry	REGISTRY_NAME
runnerImage.repository	Grafana k6 image repository	REPOSITORY_NAME/grafana-k6
runnerImage.digest	Grafana k6 image digest in the way sha256:aa.... Please note this parameter, if set, will override the tag	""
replicaCount	Number of Grafana k6 Operator replicas to deploy	1
containerPorts.metrics	Metrics container port	8080
containerPorts.health	Health container port	8081
livenessProbe.enabled	Enable livenessProbe on Grafana k6 Operator containers	true
livenessProbe.initialDelaySeconds	Initial delay seconds for livenessProbe	5
livenessProbe.periodSeconds	Period seconds for livenessProbe	10
livenessProbe.timeoutSeconds	Timeout seconds for livenessProbe	5
livenessProbe.failureThreshold	Failure threshold for livenessProbe	5
livenessProbe.successThreshold	Success threshold for livenessProbe	1
readinessProbe.enabled	Enable readinessProbe on Grafana k6 Operator containers	true
readinessProbe.initialDelaySeconds	Initial delay seconds for readinessProbe	5
readinessProbe.periodSeconds	Period seconds for readinessProbe	10
readinessProbe.timeoutSeconds	Timeout seconds for readinessProbe	5
readinessProbe.failureThreshold	Failure threshold for readinessProbe	5
readinessProbe.successThreshold	Success threshold for readinessProbe	1
startupProbe.enabled	Enable startupProbe on Grafana k6 Operator containers	false
startupProbe.initialDelaySeconds	Initial delay seconds for startupProbe	5
startupProbe.periodSeconds	Period seconds for startupProbe	10
startupProbe.timeoutSeconds	Timeout seconds for startupProbe	5
startupProbe.failureThreshold	Failure threshold for startupProbe	5
startupProbe.successThreshold	Success threshold for startupProbe	1
customLivenessProbe	Custom livenessProbe that overrides the default one	{}
customReadinessProbe	Custom readinessProbe that overrides the default one	{}
customStartupProbe	Custom startupProbe that overrides the default one	{}
watchAllNamespaces	Watch for Grafana k6 Operator resources in all namespaces	true
resourcesPreset	Set container resources according to one common preset (allowed values: none, nano, micro, small, medium, large, xlarge, 2xlarge). This is ignored if resources is set (resources is recommended for production).	nano
resources	Set container requests and limits for different resources like CPU or memory (essential for production workloads)	{}
podSecurityContext.enabled	Enabled Grafana k6 Operator pods' Security Context	true
podSecurityContext.fsGroupChangePolicy	Set filesystem group change policy	Always
podSecurityContext.sysctls	Set kernel settings using the sysctl interface	[]
podSecurityContext.supplementalGroups	Set filesystem extra groups	[]
podSecurityContext.fsGroup	Set Grafana k6 Operator pod's Security Context fsGroup	1001
containerSecurityContext.enabled	Enabled containers' Security Context	true
containerSecurityContext.seLinuxOptions	Set SELinux options in container	{}
containerSecurityContext.runAsUser	Set containers' Security Context runAsUser	1001
containerSecurityContext.runAsGroup	Set containers' Security Context runAsGroup	1001
containerSecurityContext.runAsNonRoot	Set container's Security Context runAsNonRoot	true
containerSecurityContext.privileged	Set container's Security Context privileged	false
containerSecurityContext.readOnlyRootFilesystem	Set container's Security Context readOnlyRootFilesystem	true
containerSecurityContext.allowPrivilegeEscalation	Set container's Security Context allowPrivilegeEscalation	false
containerSecurityContext.capabilities.drop	List of capabilities to be dropped	["ALL"]
containerSecurityContext.seccompProfile.type	Set container's Security Context seccomp profile	RuntimeDefault
command	Override default container command (useful when using custom images)	[]
args	Override default container args (useful when using custom images)	[]
extraArgs	Add extra arguments to the default command	[]
automountServiceAccountToken	Mount Service Account token in pod	true
hostAliases	Grafana k6 Operator pods host aliases	[]
podLabels	Extra labels for Grafana k6 Operator pods	{}
podAnnotations	Annotations for Grafana k6 Operator pods	{}
deploymentLabels	Add extra labels to the Deployment object	{}
deploymentAnnotations	Add extra annotations to the Deployment object	{}
extraContainerPorts	Optionally specify extra list of additional container ports	[]
podAffinityPreset	Pod affinity preset. Ignored if affinity is set. Allowed values: soft or hard	""
podAntiAffinityPreset	Pod anti-affinity preset. Ignored if affinity is set. Allowed values: soft or hard	soft
pdb.create	Enable/disable a Pod Disruption Budget creation	true
pdb.minAvailable	Minimum number/percentage of pods that should remain scheduled	""
pdb.maxUnavailable	Maximum number/percentage of pods that may be made unavailable	""
nodeAffinityPreset.type	Node affinity preset type. Ignored if affinity is set. Allowed values: soft or hard	""
nodeAffinityPreset.key	Node label key to match. Ignored if affinity is set	""
nodeAffinityPreset.values	Node label values to match. Ignored if affinity is set	[]
affinity	Affinity for Grafana k6 Operator pods assignment	{}
nodeSelector	Node labels for Grafana k6 Operator pods assignment	{}
tolerations	Tolerations for Grafana k6 Operator pods assignment	[]
updateStrategy.type	Grafana k6 Operator deployment strategy type	RollingUpdate
priorityClassName	Grafana k6 Operator pods' priorityClassName	""
topologySpreadConstraints	Topology Spread Constraints for pod assignment spread across your cluster among failure-domains. Evaluated as a template	[]
schedulerName	Name of the k8s scheduler (other than default) for Grafana k6 Operator pods	""
terminationGracePeriodSeconds	Seconds Grafana k6 Operator pod needs to terminate gracefully	""
lifecycleHooks	for the Grafana k6 Operator container(s) to automate configuration before or after startup	{}
extraEnvVars	Array with extra environment variables to add to Grafana k6 Operator nodes	[]
extraEnvVarsCM	Name of existing ConfigMap containing extra env vars for Grafana k6 Operator nodes	""
extraEnvVarsSecret	Name of existing Secret containing extra env vars for Grafana k6 Operator nodes	""
extraVolumes	Optionally specify extra list of additional volumes for the Grafana k6 Operator pod(s)	[]
extraVolumeMounts	Optionally specify extra list of additional volumeMounts for the Grafana k6 Operator container(s)	[]
sidecars	Add additional sidecar containers to the Grafana k6 Operator pod(s)	[]
initContainers	Add additional init containers to the Grafana k6 Operator pod(s)	[]
autoscaling.vpa.enabled	Enable VPA	false
autoscaling.vpa.annotations	Annotations for VPA resource	{}
autoscaling.vpa.controlledResources	VPA List of resources that the vertical pod autoscaler can control. Defaults to cpu and memory	[]
autoscaling.vpa.maxAllowed	VPA Max allowed resources for the pod	{}
autoscaling.vpa.minAllowed	VPA Min allowed resources for the pod	{}
autoscaling.vpa.updatePolicy.updateMode	Autoscaling update policy Specifies whether recommended updates are applied when a Pod is started and whether recommended updates are applied during the life of a Pod	Auto
autoscaling.hpa.enabled	Enable autoscaling for operator	false
autoscaling.hpa.minReplicas	Minimum number of operator replicas	""
autoscaling.hpa.maxReplicas	Maximum number of operator replicas	""
autoscaling.hpa.targetCPU	Target CPU utilization percentage	""
autoscaling.hpa.targetMemory	Target Memory utilization percentage	""

Grafana k6 Operator Traffic Exposure Parameters

Name	Description	Value
networkPolicy.enabled	Specifies whether a NetworkPolicy should be created	true
networkPolicy.kubeAPIServerPorts	List of possible endpoints to kube-apiserver (limit to your cluster settings to increase security)	[]
networkPolicy.allowExternal	Don't require server label for connections	true
networkPolicy.allowExternalEgress	Allow the pod to access any range of port and all destinations.	true
networkPolicy.addExternalClientAccess	Allow access from pods with client label set to "true". Ignored if compactor.networkPolicy.allowExternal is true.	true
networkPolicy.extraIngress	Add extra ingress rules to the NetworkPolicy	[]
networkPolicy.extraEgress	Add extra ingress rules to the NetworkPolicy	[]
networkPolicy.ingressNSMatchLabels	Labels to match to allow traffic from other namespaces	{}
networkPolicy.ingressNSPodMatchLabels	Pod labels to match to allow traffic from other namespaces	{}

Grafana k6 Operator RBAC Parameters

Name	Description	Value
rbac.create	Specifies whether RBAC resources should be created	true
rbac.rules	Custom RBAC rules to set	[]
serviceAccount.create	Specifies whether a ServiceAccount should be created	true
serviceAccount.name	The name of the ServiceAccount to use.	""
serviceAccount.annotations	Additional Service Account annotations (evaluated as a template)	{}
serviceAccount.automountServiceAccountToken	Automount service account token for the server service account	false

Prometheus metrics parameters

Name	Description	Value
metrics.enabled	Enable the export of Prometheus metrics	false
metrics.service.ports.metrics	kube-auth-proxy service port	443
metrics.service.clusterIP	Static clusterIP or None for headless services	""
metrics.service.sessionAffinity	Control where client requests go, to the same pod or round-robin	None
metrics.service.labels	labels for the metrics service	{}
metrics.service.annotations	Annotations for the metrics service	{}
metrics.serviceMonitor.enabled	if true, creates a Prometheus Operator ServiceMonitor (also requires metrics.enabled to be true)	false
metrics.serviceMonitor.namespace	Namespace in which Prometheus is running	""
metrics.serviceMonitor.annotations	Additional custom annotations for the ServiceMonitor	{}
metrics.serviceMonitor.labels	Extra labels for the ServiceMonitor	{}
metrics.serviceMonitor.jobLabel	The name of the label on the target service to use as the job name in Prometheus	""
metrics.serviceMonitor.honorLabels	honorLabels chooses the metric's labels on collisions with target labels	false
metrics.serviceMonitor.interval	Interval at which metrics should be scraped.	""
metrics.serviceMonitor.scrapeTimeout	Timeout after which the scrape is ended	""
metrics.serviceMonitor.metricRelabelings	Specify additional relabeling of metrics	[]
metrics.serviceMonitor.relabelings	Specify general relabeling	[]
metrics.serviceMonitor.selector	Prometheus instance selector labels	{}

The above parameters map to the env variables defined in bitnami/grafana-k6-operator. For more information please refer to the bitnami/grafana-k6-operator image documentation.

Specify each parameter using the --set key=value[,key=value] argument to helm install. For example,

helm install my-release \
  --set apiserver.enabled=true \
    REGISTRY_NAME/REPOSITORY_NAME/grafana-k6-operator

The above command enables the Grafana k6 Operator API Server.

NOTE: Once this chart is deployed, it is not possible to change the application's access credentials, such as usernames or passwords, using Helm. To change these application credentials after deployment, delete any persistent volumes (PVs) used by the chart and re-deploy it, or use the application's built-in administrative tools if available.

Alternatively, a YAML file that specifies the values for the above parameters can be provided while installing the chart. For example,

helm install my-release -f values.yaml REGISTRY_NAME/REPOSITORY_NAME/grafana-k6-operator

Note: You need to substitute the placeholders REGISTRY_NAME and REPOSITORY_NAME with a reference to your Helm chart registry and repository. For example, in the case of Bitnami, you need to use REGISTRY_NAME=registry-1.docker.io and REPOSITORY_NAME=bitnamicharts. Tip: You can use the default values.yaml

Troubleshooting

Find more information about how to deal with common errors related to Bitnami's Helm charts in this troubleshooting guide.

Upgrading

To 1.0.0

This major release introduces some breaking changes, including the removal of the kube-rbac-proxy image. Section metrics.authProxy has been removed accordingly. Find more details in the release notes.

License

Copyright © 2025 Broadcom. The term "Broadcom" refers to Broadcom Inc. and/or its subsidiaries.

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at

http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.