CFK 3.3.0 - FlinkEnvironment is never reconciled, operator logs cmfDay2OpsEnabled=false

Stream Processing
1

Hi everyone,

I’m evaluating Confluent Manager for Apache Flink (CMF) together with Confluent for Kubernetes (CFK) on OpenShift.

I’m encountering an issue where a FlinkEnvironment resource is created successfully but is never reconciled. After investigation, I still cannot determine whether this is expected behavior, a missing configuration, or a bug.

I would appreciate any guidance.

Environment

  • OpenShift
  • Namespace: ssc3
  • Confluent for Kubernetes Certified Operator 3.3.0 (installed from OperatorHub)
  • Kafka image: cp-server:7.9.7
  • Confluent Manager for Apache Flink Helm Chart 2.4.1
  • Flink Kubernetes Operator installed successfully

What is working

Kafka is running correctly.

CMF UI is accessible.

The CMF REST API is working.

GET /cmf/api/v1/environments

returns:

ssc3-env

The Kubernetes cluster is also connected and visible in CMF as:

default-k8s-cluster

CMFRestClass

apiVersion: platform.confluent.io/v1beta1

kind: CMFRestClass

metadata:

name: default

spec:

cmfRest:

endpoint: http://cmf-service

FlinkEnvironment

apiVersion: platform.confluent.io/v1beta1

kind: FlinkEnvironment

metadata:

name: ssc3-lab-environment

spec:

kubernetesClusterName: default-k8s-cluster

kubernetesNamespace: ssc3

cmfRestClassRef:

name: default

The resource is created successfully.

However:

  • no Status
  • no Events
  • no reconciliation
  • no logs related to FlinkEnvironment

Operator startup log

Every time the operator starts I see:

Flink controller registration

cmfDay2OpsEnabled=false

flinkSQLControllersEnabled=false

After this message there are no Flink reconciliation logs.

Investigation performed

I checked the operator Deployment.

There are no feature flags such as:

ENABLE_CMF_DAY2_OPS

DEFAULT_DAY2_WORKER

The Deployment simply starts the operator with:

--debug=false

I also checked the Subscription.

There is no spec.config or any configuration that appears to enable Flink Day-2 functionality.

Binary inspection

I extracted the operator binary and inspected it using strings.

The binary clearly contains Flink Day-2 related code, including:

main.isCMFDay2OpsEnabled

main.isFlinkSQLControllersEnabled

internal/controller/platform.(*FlinkEnvironmentReconciler).SetupWithManager

internal/controller/platform.(*FlinkApplicationReconciler).SetupWithManager

pkg/transformers/day2/flinkenvironment

pkg/transformers/day2/flinkapplication

ENABLE_CMF_DAY2_OPS

DEFAULT_DAY2_WORKER

This suggests that the Flink controller implementation exists in the binary.

However, at runtime the operator reports:

cmfDay2OpsEnabled=false

flinkSQLControllersEnabled=false

and the Flink controllers never appear to reconcile any resources.

My question

At this point I don’t know whether these log messages are related to the issue, so I’d like to understand:

  1. What determines the values of:

cmfDay2OpsEnabled

flinkSQLControllersEnabled

  1. Under what conditions are these feature gates enabled?
  2. Are there additional configuration steps required to enable Flink Day-2 operations?
  3. Is this functionality supported in the CFK Certified Operator 3.3.0, or only in another edition/version?

Any clarification would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!