title: Is it possible to do a rolling update and retain same version in Kubernetes?
body: <p><strong>Background:</strong></p>
  
  <p>We're currently using a continuous delivery pipeline and at the end of the pipeline we deploy the generated Docker image to some server(s) together with the latest application configuration (set as environment variables when starting the Docker container). The continuous delivery build number is used as version for the Docker image and it's currently also this version that gets deployed to the server(s). </p>
  
  <p>Sometimes though we need to update the application configuration (environment variables) and reuse an existing Docker image. Today we simply deploy an existing Docker image with an updated configuration.</p>
  
  <p>Now we're thinking of switching to Kubernetes instead of our home-built solution. Thus it would be nice for us if the version number generated by our continuous delivery pipeline is reflected as the pod version in Kubernetes as well (even if we deploy the same version of the Docker image that is currently deployed but with different environment variables).</p>
  
  <p><strong>Question:</strong></p>
  
  <p>I've read the documentation of <a href="https://cloud.google.com/container-engine/docs/kubectl/rolling-update?hl=en" rel="nofollow">rolling-update</a> but it doesn't indicate that you can do a rolling-update and <em>only</em> change the environment variables associated with a pod without changing its version. </p>
  
  <ol>
  <li>Is this possible? </li>
  <li>Is there a workaround?</li>
  <li>Is this something we should avoid altogether and use a different approach that is more "Kubernetes friendly"?</li>
  </ol>