Nginx Ingress Controller

Nginx Ingress controller pods accept and demultiplex HTTP, HTTPS, TCP, or UDP traffic to backend services. Ingress controllers watch the Kubernetes API for Ingress resources and update their configuration accordingly. Ingress resources for HTTP(S) applications support virtual hosts (FQDNs), path rules, TLS termination, and SNI.

AWS

On AWS, a network load balancer (NLB) distributes TCP traffic across two target groups (port 80 and 443) of worker nodes running an Ingress controller deployment. Security groups rules allow traffic to ports 80 and 443. Health checks ensure only workers with a healthy Ingress controller receive traffic.

Create the Ingress controller deployment, service, RBAC roles, RBAC bindings, and namespace.

kubectl apply -R -f addons/nginx-ingress/aws

For each application, add a DNS CNAME resolving to the NLB's DNS record.

app1.example.com -> tempest-ingress.123456.us-west2.elb.amazonaws.com
app2.example.com -> tempest-ingress.123456.us-west2.elb.amazonaws.com
app3.example.com -> tempest-ingress.123456.us-west2.elb.amazonaws.com

Find the NLB's DNS name through the console or use the Typhoon module's output ingress_dns_name. For example, you might use Terraform to manage a Google Cloud DNS record:

resource "google_dns_record_set" "some-application" {
  # DNS zone name
  managed_zone = "example-zone"

  # DNS record
  name    = "app.example.com."
  type    = "CNAME"
  ttl     = 300
  rrdatas = ["${module.tempest.ingress_dns_name}."]
}

Azure

On Azure, an Azure Load Balancer distributes IPv4/IPv6 traffic across backend address pools of worker nodes running an Ingress controller deployment. Security group rules allow traffic to ports 80 and 443. Health probes ensure only workers with a healthy Ingress controller receive traffic.

Create the Ingress controller deployment, service, RBAC roles, RBAC bindings, and namespace.

kubectl apply -R -f addons/nginx-ingress/azure

For each application, add a DNS record resolving to the load balancer's IPv4 address.

app1.example.com -> 11.22.33.44
app2.example.com -> 11.22.33.44
app3.example.com -> 11.22.33.44

Find the load balancer's addresses with the Azure console or use the Typhoon module's outputs ingress_static_ipv4 or ingress_static_ipv6. For example, you might use Terraform to manage a Google Cloud DNS record:

resource "google_dns_record_set" "app-record-a" {
  # DNS zone name
  managed_zone = "example-zone"

  # DNS record
  name    = "app.example.com."
  type    = "A"
  ttl     = 300
  rrdatas = [module.ramius.ingress_static_ipv4]
}

resource "google_dns_record_set" "app-record-aaaa" {
  # DNS zone name
  managed_zone = "example-zone"

  # DNS record
  name    = "app.example.com."
  type    = "AAAA"
  ttl     = 300
  rrdatas = [module.ramius.ingress_static_ipv6]
}

Bare-Metal

On bare-metal, routing traffic to Ingress controller pods can be done in number of ways.

Equal-Cost Multi-Path

Create the Ingress controller deployment, service, RBAC roles, and RBAC bindings. The service should use a fixed ClusterIP (e.g. 10.3.0.12) in the Kubernetes service IPv4 CIDR range.

kubectl apply -R -f addons/nginx-ingress/bare-metal

There is no need for pods to use host networking or for the ingress service to use NodePort or LoadBalancer. Nodes already proxy packets destined for the service's ClusterIP to node(s) with a pod endpoint.

Configure the network router or load balancer with a static route for the Kubernetes service range and set the next hop to a node. Repeat for each node, as desired, and set the metric (i.e. cost) of each. Finally, DNAT traffic destined for the WAN on ports 80 or 443 to the service's fixed ClusterIP.

For each application, add a DNS record resolving to the WAN(s).

resource "google_dns_record_set" "some-application" {
  # Managed DNS Zone name
  managed_zone = "zone-name"

  # Name of the DNS record
  name    = "app.example.com."
  type    = "A"
  ttl     = 300
  rrdatas = ["SOME-WAN-IP"]
}

Digital Ocean

On DigitalOcean, DNS A and AAAA records (e.g. FQDN nemo-workers.example.com) resolve to each worker¹ running an Ingress controller DaemonSet on host ports 80 and 443. Firewall rules allow IPv4 and IPv6 traffic to ports 80 and 443.

Create the Ingress controller daemonset, service, RBAC roles, RBAC bindings, and namespace.

kubectl apply -R -f addons/nginx-ingress/digital-ocean

For each application, add a CNAME record resolving to the worker(s) DNS record. Use the Typhoon module's output workers_dns to find the worker DNS value. For example, you might use Terraform to manage a Google Cloud DNS record:

resource "google_dns_record_set" "some-application" {
  # DNS zone name
  managed_zone = "example-zone"

  # DNS record
  name    = "app.example.com."
  type    = "CNAME"
  ttl     = 300
  rrdatas = ["${module.nemo.workers_dns}."]
}

Note

Hosting IPv6 apps is possible, but requires editing the nginx-ingress addon to use hostNetwork: true.

Google Cloud

On Google Cloud, a TCP Proxy load balancer distributes IPv4 and IPv6 TCP traffic across a backend service of worker nodes running an Ingress controller deployment. Firewall rules allow traffic to ports 80 and 443. Health check rules ensure only workers with a healthy Ingress controller receive traffic.

Create the Ingress controller deployment, service, RBAC roles, RBAC bindings, and namespace.

kubectl apply -R -f addons/nginx-ingress/google-cloud

For each application, add DNS A records resolving to the load balancer's IPv4 address and DNS AAAA records resolving to the load balancer's IPv6 address.

app1.example.com -> 11.22.33.44
app2.example.com -> 11.22.33.44
app3.example.com -> 11.22.33.44

Find the IPv4 address with gcloud compute addresses list or use the Typhoon module's outputs ingress_static_ipv4 and ingress_static_ipv6. For example, you might use Terraform to manage a Google Cloud DNS record:

resource "google_dns_record_set" "app-record-a" {
  # DNS zone name
  managed_zone = "example-zone"

  # DNS record
  name    = "app.example.com."
  type    = "A"
  ttl     = 300
  rrdatas = [module.yavin.ingress_static_ipv4]
}

resource "google_dns_record_set" "app-record-aaaa" {
  # DNS zone name
  managed_zone = "example-zone"

  # DNS record
  name    = "app.example.com."
  type    = "AAAA"
  ttl     = 300
  rrdatas = [module.yavin.ingress_static_ipv6]
}

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1. DigitalOcean does offer load balancers. We've opted not to use them to keep the DigitalOcean cluster cheap for developers. ↩