Multiline values in kustomize environment source file - kubernetes

Question

I'm trying to set multiline values (contents of a ca certificate file) to kustomize environment file for a particular key as displayed in the code below.
Is there a way to achieve this?
Note: Adding quotes to the value in some_params.env isn't working.
kustomize.yaml
apiVersion: kustomize.config.k8s.io/v1beta1
kind: Kustomization
commonLabels:
role: authentication
bases:
- ./somebase
configMapGenerator:
- name: some-parameters
env: some_params.env
vars:
- name: ca_contents
objref:
kind: ConfigMap
name: some-parameters
apiVersion: v1
fieldref:
fieldpath: data.ca_contents
configurations:
- some_params.yaml
some_params.yaml
varReference:
- path: data/ca.pem
kind: ConfigMap
some_params.env
ca_contents= |
-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
YOUR CA CERTIFICATE CONTENTS
-----END CERTIFICATE-----
Running the following command:
kustomize build base
Returns:
Error: NewResMapFromConfigMapArgs: NewResMapFromConfigMapArgs: env source file: some_params.env: "-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----" is not a valid key name: a valid environment variable name must consist of alphabetic characters, digits, '_', '-', or '.', and must not start with a digit (e.g. 'my.env-name', or 'MY_ENV.NAME', or 'MyEnvName1', regex used for validation is '[-._a-zA-Z][-._a-zA-Z0-9]*')

Answer 1

So it looks like you're creating ConfigMaps using Generators in Kustomize. And in doing so you're attempting to pass the contents of the desired ConfigMap to it directly in your kustomization.yml file.
Better practice would be to instead save the contents of these configuration files to disk and maintain them in the same location as your manifests. Then import them from file into your generators in Kustomize. For example:
configMapGenerator:
- name: ca_contents
files:
- ca.crt
This will produce a ConfigMap with the name ca.crt with the contents of the file.
However, if you wanted, you can do the same thing with the literals operator and use multiline configuration directly in your kustomization.yml. For example:
configMapGenerator:
- name: ca_contents
literals:
- ca.crt=|
CERT_CONTENTS
EACH_NEWLINE_IS_INDENTED_ANOTHER_TIME
You_Can_Add_Additional_literals
- ca.key=>
AND_EVEN
CONCATENATE_THEM
_ONTO_ONE_LINE_WITH_OTHER_OPERATORS_LIKE_>
- cert.crt="You can even mix literals with files in generators."
files:
- cert.key
Let me know if this makes sense. I advise you keep your configuration in files and import them into generators but either solution should work. Feel free to reach out if you need any other help. Kustomize is a really cool project!