Operator doesn't install in air-gapped network

Problem

Lots of users operate GitLab in restricted networks, especially government and financial services, where there is no Internet connection available. RedHat provides utilities and instructions for exporting operators from their Internet registries and importing them into a disconnected mirror registry.

I tried this with the GitLab runner and it fails. The problem is that Red Hat requires image pulls to use digests in the tags. Example: https://gitlab.com/search?search=gitlab-runner-operator-bundle&project_id=22848448&group_id=7983076&nav_source=navbar

In the code, the environment variables would evaluate to something like "amd64-v14.3.2" for the bundle image. OpenShift won't map that to the image on your disconnected mirror registry. OpenShift needs a digest (SHA) value.

Please refer to this excellent article that spells out how to make an operator work in a restricted network: https://cloud.redhat.com/blog/is-your-operator-air-gap-friendly

For now I guess I'll have to stick with using a Helm chart (and adjusting it to pull from my mirror registry). This approach loses quite a lot; the operator would have been so much better...

Proposal

Update the GitLab Runner Operator to meet Red Hat's Air-Gap requirements.