Bootstrap

OpenShift - List deployment environment variables

by Jeremy Canfield | Updated: February 07 2026 | OpenShift articles

A deployment is used to manage the pods that are created to run an application. The deployment ensures that the desired number of pod replicas are running and can handle updates to the application by rolling out new versions of the pods. The deployment creates and manages a replica set, which in turn manages the pods.

flowchart TB subgraph Project["OpenShift Project/Namespace"] Deployment[Deployment] Replica_Set[Replica Set] subgraph Pods["Pod Replicas"] Pod1[Pod 1
Container] Pod2[Pod 2
Container] Pod3[Pod 3
Container] end end Deployment -->|Creates/Manages| Replica_Set Replica_Set -->|Manages| Pod1 Replica_Set -->|Manages| Pod2 Replica_Set -->|Manages| Pod3 style Deployment fill:#90CAF9 style Replica_Set fill:#FFE082 style Pods fill:#FFCCBC

It is also noteworthy that a route provides a URL that can be used to access the application from outside the OpenShift cluster. For example, if the route is configured to use the hostname myapp.mydomain.com, then users can access the application by navigating to http://myapp.mydomain.com. The route will forward the request to the service, which will then forward the request to one of the pods that are running the application.

flowchart LR subgraph Project["OpenShift Project/Namespace"] subgraph Pods["Pod Replicas"] Pod1[Pod 1
Container] Pod2[Pod 2
Container] Pod3[Pod 3
Container] end SVC[Service] Route[Route] end USER[External User] --> Route --> SVC SVC --> Pod1 SVC --> Pod2 SVC --> Pod3 style SVC fill:#A5D6A7 style Pods fill:#FFCCBC style USER fill:#CE93D8

If you are not familiar with the oc command, refer to OpenShift - Getting Started with the oc command.

There are different ways to configure a container with environment variables.

The oc get deployments command can be used to display the deployments in a project.

~]$ oc get deployments
NAME      READY   UP-TO-DATE   AVAILABLE   AGE
my-app    1/1     1            1           125d

The oc describe deployment command can be used to display the environment variables being used by the deployment. In this example, there is a single variable name "FOO" that contains a value of "bar".

~]$ oc describe deployment my-app
Pod Template:
  Containers:
   my-container:
    Environment:
      FOO:  bar

Or the oc get deployments with the --output yaml or --output json option can be used.

~]$ oc get deployment my-app --output yaml
spec:
  template:
    spec:
      containers:
      - env:
        - name: FOO
          value: "bar"

Or the oc set env replicaset --list command can be used.

~]$ oc set env replicaset --list
FOO: bar

Did you find this article helpful?

If so, consider buying me a coffee over at

Did you find this article helpful?

Comments

Add a Comment