Passing long configuration file to Kubernetes

The error you are seeing is not about the size of the actual ConfigMap contents, but about the size of the last-applied-configuration annotation that kubectl apply automatically creates on each apply. If you use kubectl create -f foo.yaml instead of kubectl apply -f foo.yaml, it should work.

Please note that in doing this you will lose the ability to use kubectl diff and do incremental updates (without replacing the whole object) with kubectl apply.

Since 1.18 you can use server-side apply to circumvent the problem.

kubectl apply --server-side=true -f foo.yml

where server-side=true runs the apply command on the server instead of the client.

This will properly show conflicts with other actors, including client-side apply and thus fail:

Apply failed with 4 conflicts: conflicts with "kubectl-client-side-apply" using apiextensions.k8s.io/v1:
- .status.conditions
- .status.storedVersions
- .status.acceptedNames.kind
- .status.acceptedNames.plural
Please review the fields above--they currently have other managers. Here
are the ways you can resolve this warning:
* If you intend to manage all of these fields, please re-run the apply
  command with the `--force-conflicts` flag.
* If you do not intend to manage all of the fields, please edit your
  manifest to remove references to the fields that should keep their
  current managers.
* You may co-own fields by updating your manifest to match the existing
  value; in this case, you'll become the manager if the other manager(s)
  stop managing the field (remove it from their configuration).
See http://k8s.io/docs/reference/using-api/api-concepts/#conflicts

If the changes are intended you can simple use the first option:

kubectl apply --server-side=true -force-conflicts -f foo.yml

You can use an init container for this. Essentially, put the .sql files on GitHub or S3 or really any location you can read from and populate a directory with it. The semantics of the init container guarantee that the Liquibase container will only be launched after the config files have been downloaded.