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Run ProxySQL with Custom PodTemplate

KubeDB supports providing custom configuration for ProxySQL via PodTemplate. This tutorial will show you how to use KubeDB to run a ProxySQL server with custom configuration using PodTemplate.

Before You Begin

• At first, you need to have a Kubernetes cluster, and the kubectl command-line tool must be configured to communicate with your cluster. If you do not already have a cluster, you can create one by using kind.

• Now, install KubeDB cli on your workstation and KubeDB operator in your cluster following the steps here.

• To keep things isolated, this tutorial uses a separate namespace called demo throughout this tutorial.

  $ kubectl create ns demo
  namespace/demo created
  

Note: YAML files used in this tutorial are stored in here folder in GitHub repository kubedb/docs.

Prepare MySQL Backend

ProxySQL needs a backend server to proxy. We will use a 3 node MySQL Group Replication cluster set up with KubeDB.

apiVersion: kubedb.com/v1
kind: MySQL
metadata:
  name: mysql-server
  namespace: demo
spec:
  version: "8.4.3"
  replicas: 3
  topology:
    mode: GroupReplication
  storageType: Durable
  storage:
    storageClassName: "standard"
    accessModes:
      - ReadWriteOnce
    resources:
      requests:
        storage: 1Gi
  deletionPolicy: WipeOut

$ kubectl apply -f https://github.com/kubedb/docs/raw/v2026.4.27/docs/guides/proxysql/backends/mysqlgrp/examples/sample-mysql.yaml
mysql.kubedb.com/mysql-server created

Wait for the MySQL cluster to be Ready.

$ kubectl get my -n demo
NAME           VERSION   STATUS   AGE
mysql-server   8.4.3     Ready    7m6s

You can use MariaDB or Percona XtraDB as a backend as well. Have a look at the other ProxySQL backend examples.

Overview

KubeDB allows providing a template for the ProxySQL pod through .spec.podTemplate. KubeDB operator will pass the information provided in .spec.podTemplate to the PetSet created for ProxySQL.

KubeDB accepts the following fields to set in .spec.podTemplate:

• metadata:
  • annotations (pod’s annotation)
• controller:
  • annotations (petset’s annotation)
• spec:
  • containers
  • env
  • resources
  • initContainers
  • imagePullSecrets
  • nodeSelector
  • schedulerName
  • tolerations
  • priorityClassName
  • priority
  • securityContext
  • serviceAccountName

Read about the fields in detail in PodTemplate concept.

CRD Configuration

Below is the YAML for the ProxySQL used in this example. Here, spec.podTemplate.metadata.annotations adds a custom annotation to the pod and spec.podTemplate.spec.containers[].resources requests compute resources for the proxysql container.

apiVersion: kubedb.com/v1
kind: ProxySQL
metadata:
  name: sample-proxysql
  namespace: demo
spec:
  version: "2.7.3-debian"
  replicas: 1
  backend:
    name: mysql-server
  podTemplate:
    metadata:
      annotations:
        passMe: ToProxySQLPod
    spec:
      containers:
      - name: proxysql
        resources:
          requests:
            memory: "256Mi"
            cpu: "250m"
  deletionPolicy: WipeOut

$ kubectl create -f https://github.com/kubedb/docs/raw/v2026.4.27/docs/guides/proxysql/configuration/using-pod-template/examples/proxysql-misc-config.yaml
proxysql.kubedb.com/sample-proxysql created

Now, wait a few minutes. KubeDB operator will create necessary petset, services, secret etc. If everything goes well, we will see that a pod with the name sample-proxysql-0 has been created.

Check that the petset’s pod is running

$ kubectl get pod -n demo
NAME                READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
sample-proxysql-0   1/1     Running   0          45s

Now, we will check if the pod has started with the custom configuration we have provided.

Check that the annotation has been set on the pod.

$ kubectl get pod -n demo sample-proxysql-0 -o jsonpath='{.metadata.annotations}'
{"passMe":"ToProxySQLPod"}⏎   

Check that the resource requests have been set on the proxysql container.

$ kubectl get pod -n demo sample-proxysql-0 -o jsonpath='{.spec.containers[?(@.name=="proxysql")].resources}'
{"limits":{"memory":"256Mi"},"requests":{"cpu":"250m","memory":"256Mi"}}

We can see that both the annotation and the resource requests we provided through spec.podTemplate have been applied to the pod.

Cleaning up

To cleanup the Kubernetes resources created by this tutorial, run:

$ kubectl delete proxysql -n demo sample-proxysql
proxysql.kubedb.com "sample-proxysql" deleted
$ kubectl delete mysql -n demo mysql-server
mysql.kubedb.com "mysql-server" deleted
$ kubectl delete ns demo
namespace "demo" deleted