OCPBUGS-66334: remove version check from guard precheck

[tjungblu]

This was inadvertently deleting guard pods during upgrades, which caused etcd quorum loss while another component drained a node during a static pod rollout.

[openshift-ci-robot]

@tjungblu: This pull request references Jira Issue OCPBUGS-66334, which is invalid:

• expected the bug to target the "4.21.0" version, but no target version was set

Comment /jira refresh to re-evaluate validity if changes to the Jira bug are made, or edit the title of this pull request to link to a different bug.

The bug has been updated to refer to the pull request using the external bug tracker.

Details

In response to this:

This was inadvertently deleting guard pods during upgrades, which caused etcd quorum loss while another component drained a node during a static pod rollout.

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[coderabbitai]

Walkthrough

Removed version alignment and synchronization checks from the guardRolloutPreCheck logic in the operator starter. The pre-check now only validates non-SNO topology using NewIsSingleNodePlatformFn, eliminating operator-version gating and etcd clusteroperator status synchronization waits.

Changes

Cohort / File(s)	Summary
Operator startup pre-check logic pkg/operator/starter.go	Removed etcd clusteroperator/operator version alignment verification, Status.Versions extraction, expected version comparison, and related synchronization/mismatch error handling from guardRolloutPreCheck. Simplified to only determine non-SNO topology.

Estimated code review effort

🎯 3 (Moderate) | ⏱️ ~30 minutes

• Verify removal impact: Ensure no downstream code depends on the removed version alignment checks or synchronization waits during operator startup.
• Operator initialization flow: Confirm the simplified pre-check (topology-only) doesn't bypass critical version compatibility validations elsewhere.
• Error handling: Review whether elimination of not-synced and mismatch error scenarios could mask version inconsistencies in SNO/non-SNO deployments.

✨ Finishing touches

• 📝 Generate docstrings

🧪 Generate unit tests (beta)

• Create PR with unit tests
• Post copyable unit tests in a comment

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📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between 57c4cb5 and a703d01.

📒 Files selected for processing (1)

• pkg/operator/starter.go (0 hunks)

💤 Files with no reviewable changes (1)

• pkg/operator/starter.go

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[dusk125]

/retest-required

[openshift-ci]

@tjungblu: all tests passed!

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Details

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[dusk125]

/lgtm

[openshift-ci]

[APPROVALNOTIFIER] This PR is APPROVED

This pull-request has been approved by: dusk125, tjungblu

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[tjungblu]

Thanks @dusk125 - I'm going to leave this here until the critical fix label is lifted again