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Release Notes for MongoDB Controllers for Kubernetes Operator

Released 10 July 2025

  • OpenID Connect (OIDC) user authentication
  • New ClusterMongoDBRole CRD
    • Adds new ClusterMongoDBRole CRD to support reusable roles across multiple MongoDB clusters. This allows users to define roles once and reuse them in multiple MongoDB or MongoDBMultiCluster resources.

    • You can reference this role using the spec.security.roleRefs field. Note that only one of spec.security.roles and spec.security.roleRefs can be used at a time.

    • The operator treats ClusterMongoDBRole resources as custom role templates that are only used when referenced by the database resources.

    • The operator watches the new resource by default. This means that the operator requires you to create a new ClusterRole and ClusterRoleBinding. The helm chart or the kubectl mongodb plugin create these ClusterRole and ClusterRoleBinding by default. You must create them manually if you use a different installation method.

    • To disable this behavior in the helm chart, set the operator.enableClusterMongoDBRoles value to false. This disables the creation of the necessary RBAC resources for the ClusterMongoDBRole resource, as well as disables the watch for this resource.

    • To skip installing necessary ClusterRole and ClusterRoleBinding with the kubectl mongodb plugin, set the --create-mongodb-roles-cluster-role to false.

    • The new ClusterMongoDBRole resource is designed to be read-only, meaning it can be used by MongoDB deployments managed by different operators.

    • You can delete the ClusterMongoDBRole resource at any time, but the operator does not delete any roles that were created using this resource. To properly remove access, you must manually remove the reference to the ClusterMongoDBRole in the MongoDB or MongoDBMultiCluster resources.

    • The reference documentation for this resource can be found in the ClusterMongoDBRole Resource Specification.

  • Fixes an issue where moving a MongoDBMultiCluster resource to a new project (or a new Ops Manager instance) would leave the deployment in a failed state.

Released 23 May 2025

  • MongoDBSearch (Community Private Preview)
    • Adds support for deploying MongoDB Search (Community Private Preview Edition).

    • Enables full-text and vector search capabilities for MongoDBCommunity deployments.

    • Adds new MongoDB CRD which is watched by default by the Kubernetes Operator. For more information see the Quick Start.

    • MongoDBSearch Private Preview phase comes with the following limitations
      • Minimum MongoDB Community version: 8.0.

      • TLS must be disabled in MongoDB (communication between mongot and mongod is in plaintext for now).

Released 13 May 2025

  • Adds missing MongoDB Agent images in the Kubernetes Operator bundle in the OpenShift catalog and the operatorhub.io catalog.

  • Adds the missing mongodbcommunity CRD from the watched list in the Helm chart.

Released 9 May 2025

MongoDB is unifying its Kubernetes offerings with the introduction of Kubernetes Operator. This new operator is an open-source project and represents a merge of the previous MongoDB Community Operator and the MongoDB Enterprise Kubernetes Operator. This makes it easier to manage, scale, and upgrade your deployments. Future changes will build on this to more closely align how Community and Enterprise are managed in Kubernetes, to offer an even more seamless and streamlined experience.

As an open-source project, it now allows for community contributions, helping drive quicker bug fixes and ongoing innovation.

Users with contracts that allowed use of the Enterprise Operator can still leverage the new replacement, allowing customers to adopt it without contract changes. Kubernetes Operator itself is licensed under the Apache 2.0 license, and a license file included in the repository provides further detail.

License entitlements for all other MongoDB products and tools, such as MongoDB Enterprise Server and Ops Manager, remain unchanged. If you have licensing questions regarding these products or tools, please contact your MongoDB account team.

Migration from the Community Kubernetes Operator and the Enterprise Kubernetes Operator to Kubernetes Operator is seamless: your MongoDB deployments are not impacted by the upgrade and require no changes. Simply follow the instructions in the migration guide.

We will continue best-effort support of the Community Kubernetes Operator for 6 months, until November, 2025. Each Enterprise Kubernetes Operator release will remain supported according to the current guidance.

All future bug fixes and improvements will be released in new versions of Kubernetes Operator. We encourage all users to plan their migration to Kubernetes Operator within these timelines.

To see the release notes for the MongoDB Enterprise Kubernetes Operator, see the MongoDB Enterprise Kubernetes Operator documentation.