Configure startup containers for Collab deployment

[danc094codetogether]

Description

A customer is requesting to add the ability to configure startup containers for the Collab deployment within the helm chart.

The customer has indicated this is not a high priority but a very nice to have.

[danc094codetogether]

Default behavior (initContainers not used)

• Goal: Confirm backward compatibility when initContainers is empty (default).

Deploy collab without overriding initContainers (leave it as default []):

helm upgrade --install collab ./chart-path -f values.yaml

Verify the pod has no initContainers:

kubectl get pods
kubectl describe pod -l app.kubernetes.io/instance=collab | sed -n '/Init Containers:/,/Containers:/p'

• Expected: Init Containers: is absent or empty.
• Verify rollout succeeds and pod becomes Ready:

kubectl rollout status deploy/collab
kubectl get pods

• Expected: Pod is Running and Ready.

Wait for dependency (using the values.yaml example)

• Goal: Confirm the initContainer blocks collab startup until the dependency is reachable.
• Create an override file qa-values.yaml with the same example from values.yaml:

# Useful to wait for dependencies or run startup checks before Collab starts.
initContainers:
  - name: wait-for-intel
    image: busybox:1.36
    command: ["sh", "-c"]
    args:
      - >
        until nc -z your-intel-host 443;
        do echo "Waiting for Intel..."; sleep 2; done

• Install/upgrade collab with the override:

helm upgrade --install collab ./chart-path -f qa-values.yaml

• Verify the initContainer is present:

kubectl describe pod -l app.kubernetes.io/instance=collab | sed -n '/Init Containers:/,/Containers:/p'

• Expected: You see wait-for-intel under Init Containers.
• Observe pod behavior while dependency is NOT reachable:

kubectl get pods -w

• Expected: Pod stays in an init phase (e.g., Init:0/1) and the main Collab container does not start.
• Check initContainer logs:

POD=$(kubectl get pod  -l app.kubernetes.io/instance=collab -o jsonpath='{.items[0].metadata.name}')
kubectl logs "$POD" -c wait-for-intel

• Expected: Repeated lines like Waiting for Intel...
• Make the dependency reachable (use whatever method matches the QA environment):
• Start/scale Intel up, or
  Fix DNS/service/ingress so your-intel-host:443 becomes reachable.
• Verify Collab starts after Intel is reachable:

kubectl rollout status deploy/collab
kubectl get pods

• Expected: InitContainer completes, Collab container starts, pod becomes Running and Ready.

Negative path (dependency never becomes reachable)

• Goal: Confirm Collab does not start if the initContainer cannot complete.
• Keep dependency down/unreachable (or deploy in an environment where that DNS/Service does not exist).
• Deploy using the same qa-values.yaml from Test Case 2.
• Verify:

kubectl get pods
kubectl describe pod -l app.kubernetes.io/instance=collab
kubectl logs "$POD" -c wait-for-intel

• Expected: Pod remains in init state indefinitely, with logs continuing to print Waiting for Intel....

@DavidRS13

[DavidRS13]

Tested ✅