Preparing a namespace for the operator

Create or select a namespace for the operator deployment on your Kubernetes cluster.

About this task

Use this topic to create a namespace or select an existing namespace for the operator deployment.

Create the namespace or project before you install the operator if you do not plan to use the deploy_operator.py script, or if you want to create the namespace manually before you run the script.

Procedure

Open a terminal or command prompt and log in to the target cluster as the <cluster-admin> user.
Create or select the namespace for the operator deployment.

Tip: If your deployment includes both the Content operator and the Content Cortex AI Services operator, install them in the same namespace. The Usage Metering Service (UMS) operator can also be installed in the same namespace as the Content or AI Services operator. Each namespace that contains a service or operator requires one UMS operator instance to collect usage metrics. The License Service operator should be installed in the ibm-licensing namespace.
- For OpenShift® deployments
  You can use an existing namespace in the cluster or create a new namespace. You can create a namespace in the OpenShift console or by running the following command on the OpenShift CLI.
```
oc new-project <project_name> --description="<description>" --display-name="<display_name>"
```
  If you create a namespace, change the scope in the OpenShift cluster to the new namespace, for example fncm-project.
```
oc project <project_name>
```
- For CNCF deployments
  You can use an existing namespace in the cluster or create a new namespace. You can create a namespace in the Kubernetes console or by running the following command on the Kubernetes CLI.
```
kubectl create namespace <namespace_name>
```
  You can save the namespace that you created for all subsequent kubectl commands in the same context by running the following command:
```
kubectl config set-context --current --namespace=<namespace_name>
```
  To validate the current context, run the following command:
```
kubectl config view --minify | grep namespace:
```

What to do next

You can now check that you have access to the container images. For more information, see Getting access to images from the public IBM entitled registry.