Ingress

Ingress

Make your HTTP (or HTTPS) network service available using a protocol-aware configuration mechanism, that understands web concepts like URIs, hostnames, paths, and more. The Ingress concept lets you map traffic to different backends based on rules you define via the Kubernetes API.

FEATURE STATE: Kubernetes v1.19 [stable]

An API object that manages external access to the services in a cluster, typically HTTP.

Ingress may provide load balancing, SSL termination and name-based virtual hosting.

Terminology

For clarity, this guide defines the following terms:

  • Node: A worker machine in Kubernetes, part of a cluster.
  • Cluster: A set of Nodes that run containerized applications managed by Kubernetes. For this example, and in most common Kubernetes deployments, nodes in the cluster are not part of the public internet.
  • Edge router: A router that enforces the firewall policy for your cluster. This could be a gateway managed by a cloud provider or a physical piece of hardware.
  • Cluster network: A set of links, logical or physical, that facilitate communication within a cluster according to the Kubernetes networking model.
  • Service: A Kubernetes Service that identifies a set of Pods using label selectors. Unless mentioned otherwise, Services are assumed to have virtual IPs only routable within the cluster network.

What is Ingress?

Ingress exposes HTTP and HTTPS routes from outside the cluster to
services within the cluster.
Traffic routing is controlled by rules defined on the Ingress resource.

Here is a simple example where an Ingress sends all its traffic to one Service:

ingress-diagram

Figure. Ingress

An Ingress may be configured to give Services externally-reachable URLs, load balance traffic, terminate SSL / TLS, and offer name-based virtual hosting. An Ingress controller is responsible for fulfilling the Ingress, usually with a load balancer, though it may also configure your edge router or additional frontends to help handle the traffic.

An Ingress does not expose arbitrary ports or protocols. Exposing services other than HTTP and HTTPS to the internet typically
uses a service of type Service.Type=NodePort or
Service.Type=LoadBalancer.

Prerequisites

You must have an Ingress controller to satisfy an Ingress. Only creating an Ingress resource has no effect.

You may need to deploy an Ingress controller such as ingress-nginx. You can choose from a number of
Ingress controllers.

Ideally, all Ingress controllers should fit the reference specification. In reality, the various Ingress
controllers operate slightly differently.

Note: Make sure you review your Ingress controller’s documentation to understand the caveats of choosing it.

The Ingress resource

A minimal Ingress resource example:

service/networking/minimal-ingress.yaml

apiVersion

:

networking.k8s.io/v1

kind

:

Ingress

metadata

:

name

:

minimal-ingress

annotations

:

nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/rewrite-target

:

/

spec

:

ingressClassName

:

nginx-example

rules

:

-

http

:

paths

:

-

path

:

/testpath

pathType

:

Prefix

backend

:

service

:

name

:

test

port

:

number

:

80

An Ingress needs apiVersion, kind, metadata and spec fields.
The name of an Ingress object must be a valid
DNS subdomain name.
For general information about working with config files, see deploying applications, configuring containers, managing resources.
Ingress frequently uses annotations to configure some options depending on the Ingress controller, an example of which
is the rewrite-target annotation.
Different Ingress controllers support different annotations. Review the documentation for
your choice of Ingress controller to learn which annotations are supported.

The Ingress spec
has all the information needed to configure a load balancer or proxy server. Most importantly, it
contains a list of rules matched against all incoming requests. Ingress resource only supports rules
for directing HTTP(S) traffic.

If the ingressClassName is omitted, a default Ingress class
should be defined.

There are some ingress controllers, that work without the definition of a
default IngressClass. For example, the Ingress-NGINX controller can be
configured with a flag
--watch-ingress-without-class. It is recommended though, to specify the
default IngressClass as shown below.

Ingress rules

Each HTTP rule contains the following information:

  • An optional host. In this example, no host is specified, so the rule applies to all inbound
    HTTP traffic through the IP address specified. If a host is provided (for example,
    foo.bar.com), the rules apply to that host.
  • A list of paths (for example, /testpath), each of which has an associated
    backend defined with a service.name and a service.port.name or
    service.port.number. Both the host and path must match the content of an
    incoming request before the load balancer directs traffic to the referenced
    Service.
  • A backend is a combination of Service and port names as described in the
    Service doc or a custom resource backend by way of a CRD. HTTP (and HTTPS) requests to the
    Ingress that match the host and path of the rule are sent to the listed backend.

A defaultBackend is often configured in an Ingress controller to service any requests that do not
match a path in the spec.

DefaultBackend

An Ingress with no rules sends all traffic to a single default backend and .spec.defaultBackend
is the backend that should handle requests in that case.
The defaultBackend is conventionally a configuration option of the
Ingress controller and
is not specified in your Ingress resources.
If no .spec.rules are specified, .spec.defaultBackend must be specified.
If defaultBackend is not set, the handling of requests that do not match any of the rules will be up to the
ingress controller (consult the documentation for your ingress controller to find out how it handles this case).

If none of the hosts or paths match the HTTP request in the Ingress objects, the traffic is
routed to your default backend.

Resource backends

A Resource backend is an ObjectRef to another Kubernetes resource within the
same namespace as the Ingress object. A Resource is a mutually exclusive
setting with Service, and will fail validation if both are specified. A common
usage for a Resource backend is to ingress data to an object storage backend
with static assets.

service/networking/ingress-resource-backend.yaml

apiVersion

:

networking.k8s.io/v1

kind

:

Ingress

metadata

:

name

:

ingress-resource-backend

spec

:

defaultBackend

:

resource

:

apiGroup

:

k8s.example.com

kind

:

StorageBucket

name

:

static-assets

rules

:

-

http

:

paths

:

-

path

:

/icons

pathType

:

ImplementationSpecific

backend

:

resource

:

apiGroup

:

k8s.example.com

kind

:

StorageBucket

name

:

icon-assets

After creating the Ingress above, you can view it with the following command:

kubectl describe ingress ingress-resource-backend

Name:             ingress-resource-backend
Namespace:        default
Address:
Default backend:  APIGroup: k8s.example.com, Kind: StorageBucket, Name: static-assets
Rules:
  Host        Path  Backends
  ----        ----  --------
  *
              /icons   APIGroup: k8s.example.com, Kind: StorageBucket, Name: icon-assets
Annotations:  <none>
Events:       <none>

Path types

Each path in an Ingress is required to have a corresponding path type. Paths
that do not include an explicit pathType will fail validation. There are three
supported path types:

  • ImplementationSpecific: With this path type, matching is up to the
    IngressClass. Implementations can treat this as a separate pathType or treat
    it identically to Prefix or Exact path types.

  • Exact: Matches the URL path exactly and with case sensitivity.

  • Prefix: Matches based on a URL path prefix split by /. Matching is case
    sensitive and done on a path element by element basis. A path element refers
    to the list of labels in the path split by the / separator. A request is a
    match for path p if every p is an element-wise prefix of p of the
    request path.

    Note: If the last element of the path is a substring of the last
    element in request path, it is not a match (for example: /foo/bar
    matches /foo/bar/baz, but does not match /foo/barbaz).

Examples

KindPath(s)Request path(s)Matches?Prefix/(all paths)YesExact/foo/fooYesExact/foo/barNoExact/foo/foo/NoExact/foo//fooNoPrefix/foo/foo, /foo/YesPrefix/foo//foo, /foo/YesPrefix/aaa/bb/aaa/bbbNoPrefix/aaa/bbb/aaa/bbbYesPrefix/aaa/bbb//aaa/bbbYes, ignores trailing slashPrefix/aaa/bbb/aaa/bbb/Yes, matches trailing slashPrefix/aaa/bbb/aaa/bbb/cccYes, matches subpathPrefix/aaa/bbb/aaa/bbbxyzNo, does not match string prefixPrefix/, /aaa/aaa/cccYes, matches /aaa prefixPrefix/, /aaa, /aaa/bbb/aaa/bbbYes, matches /aaa/bbb prefixPrefix/, /aaa, /aaa/bbb/cccYes, matches / prefixPrefix/aaa/cccNo, uses default backendMixed/foo (Prefix), /foo (Exact)/fooYes, prefers Exact

Multiple matches

In some cases, multiple paths within an Ingress will match a request. In those
cases precedence will be given first to the longest matching path. If two paths
are still equally matched, precedence will be given to paths with an exact path
type over prefix path type.

Hostname wildcards

Hosts can be precise matches (for example “foo.bar.com”) or a wildcard (for
example “*.foo.com”). Precise matches require that the HTTP host header
matches the host field. Wildcard matches require the HTTP host header is
equal to the suffix of the wildcard rule.

HostHost headerMatch?*.foo.combar.foo.comMatches based on shared suffix*.foo.combaz.bar.foo.comNo match, wildcard only covers a single DNS label*.foo.comfoo.comNo match, wildcard only covers a single DNS labelservice/networking/ingress-wildcard-host.yaml

apiVersion

:

networking.k8s.io/v1

kind

:

Ingress

metadata

:

name

:

ingress-wildcard-host

spec

:

rules

:

-

host

:

"foo.bar.com"

http

:

paths

:

-

pathType

:

Prefix

path

:

"/bar"

backend

:

service

:

name

:

service1

port

:

number

:

80

-

host

:

"*.foo.com"

http

:

paths

:

-

pathType

:

Prefix

path

:

"/foo"

backend

:

service

:

name

:

service2

port

:

number

:

80

Ingress class

Ingresses can be implemented by different controllers, often with different
configuration. Each Ingress should specify a class, a reference to an
IngressClass resource that contains additional configuration including the name
of the controller that should implement the class.

service/networking/external-lb.yaml

apiVersion

:

networking.k8s.io/v1

kind

:

IngressClass

metadata

:

name

:

external-lb

spec

:

controller

:

example.com/ingress-controller

parameters

:

apiGroup

:

k8s.example.com

kind

:

IngressParameters

name

:

external-lb

The .spec.parameters field of an IngressClass lets you reference another
resource that provides configuration related to that IngressClass.

The specific type of parameters to use depends on the ingress controller
that you specify in the .spec.controller field of the IngressClass.

IngressClass scope

Depending on your ingress controller, you may be able to use parameters
that you set cluster-wide, or just for one namespace.

The default scope for IngressClass parameters is cluster-wide.

If you set the .spec.parameters field and don’t set
.spec.parameters.scope, or if you set .spec.parameters.scope to
Cluster, then the IngressClass refers to a cluster-scoped resource.
The kind (in combination the apiGroup) of the parameters
refers to a cluster-scoped API (possibly a custom resource), and
the name of the parameters identifies a specific cluster scoped
resource for that API.

For example:

---

apiVersion

:

networking.k8s.io/v1

kind

:

IngressClass

metadata

:

name

:

external-lb-1

spec

:

controller

:

example.com/ingress-controller

parameters

:

# The parameters for this IngressClass are specified in a

# ClusterIngressParameter (API group k8s.example.net) named

# "external-config-1". This definition tells Kubernetes to

# look for a cluster-scoped parameter resource.

scope

:

Cluster

apiGroup

:

k8s.example.net

kind

:

ClusterIngressParameter

name

:

external-config-1

FEATURE STATE: Kubernetes v1.23 [stable]

If you set the .spec.parameters field and set
.spec.parameters.scope to Namespace, then the IngressClass refers
to a namespaced-scoped resource. You must also set the namespace
field within .spec.parameters to the namespace that contains
the parameters you want to use.

The kind (in combination the apiGroup) of the parameters
refers to a namespaced API (for example: ConfigMap), and
the name of the parameters identifies a specific resource
in the namespace you specified in namespace.

Namespace-scoped parameters help the cluster operator delegate control over the
configuration (for example: load balancer settings, API gateway definition)
that is used for a workload. If you used a cluster-scoped parameter then either:

  • the cluster operator team needs to approve a different team’s changes every
    time there’s a new configuration change being applied.
  • the cluster operator must define specific access controls, such as
    RBAC roles and bindings, that let
    the application team make changes to the cluster-scoped parameters resource.

The IngressClass API itself is always cluster-scoped.

Here is an example of an IngressClass that refers to parameters that are
namespaced:

---

apiVersion

:

networking.k8s.io/v1

kind

:

IngressClass

metadata

:

name

:

external-lb-2

spec

:

controller

:

example.com/ingress-controller

parameters

:

# The parameters for this IngressClass are specified in an

# IngressParameter (API group k8s.example.com) named "external-config",

# that's in the "external-configuration" namespace.

scope

:

Namespace

apiGroup

:

k8s.example.com

kind

:

IngressParameter

namespace

:

external-configuration

name

:

external-config

Deprecated annotation

Before the IngressClass resource and ingressClassName field were added in
Kubernetes 1.18, Ingress classes were specified with a
kubernetes.io/ingress.class annotation on the Ingress. This annotation was
never formally defined, but was widely supported by Ingress controllers.

The newer ingressClassName field on Ingresses is a replacement for that
annotation, but is not a direct equivalent. While the annotation was generally
used to reference the name of the Ingress controller that should implement the
Ingress, the field is a reference to an IngressClass resource that contains
additional Ingress configuration, including the name of the Ingress controller.

Default IngressClass

You can mark a particular IngressClass as default for your cluster. Setting the
ingressclass.kubernetes.io/is-default-class annotation to true on an
IngressClass resource will ensure that new Ingresses without an
ingressClassName field specified will be assigned this default IngressClass.

Caution: If you have more than one IngressClass marked as the default for your cluster,
the admission controller prevents creating new Ingress objects that don’t have
an ingressClassName specified. You can resolve this by ensuring that at most 1
IngressClass is marked as default in your cluster.

There are some ingress controllers, that work without the definition of a
default IngressClass. For example, the Ingress-NGINX controller can be
configured with a flag
--watch-ingress-without-class. It is recommended though, to specify the
default IngressClass:

service/networking/default-ingressclass.yaml

apiVersion

:

networking.k8s.io/v1

kind

:

IngressClass

metadata

:

labels

:

app.kubernetes.io/component

:

controller

name

:

nginx-example

annotations

:

ingressclass.kubernetes.io/is-default-class

:

"true"

spec

:

controller

:

k8s.io/ingress-nginx

Types of Ingress

Ingress backed by a single Service

There are existing Kubernetes concepts that allow you to expose a single Service
(see alternatives). You can also do this with an Ingress by specifying a
default backend with no rules.

service/networking/test-ingress.yaml

apiVersion

:

networking.k8s.io/v1

kind

:

Ingress

metadata

:

name

:

test-ingress

spec

:

defaultBackend

:

service

:

name

:

test

port

:

number

:

80

If you create it using kubectl apply -f you should be able to view the state
of the Ingress you added:

kubectl get ingress test-ingress

NAME           CLASS         HOSTS   ADDRESS         PORTS   AGE
test-ingress   external-lb   *       203.0.113.123   80      59s

Where 203.0.113.123 is the IP allocated by the Ingress controller to satisfy
this Ingress.

Note: Ingress controllers and load balancers may take a minute or two to allocate an IP address.
Until that time, you often see the address listed as <pending>.

Simple fanout

A fanout configuration routes traffic from a single IP address to more than one Service,
based on the HTTP URI being requested. An Ingress allows you to keep the number of load balancers
down to a minimum. For example, a setup like:

ingress-fanout-diagram

Figure. Ingress Fan Out

would require an Ingress such as:

service/networking/simple-fanout-example.yaml

apiVersion

:

networking.k8s.io/v1

kind

:

Ingress

metadata

:

name

:

simple-fanout-example

spec

:

rules

:

-

host

:

foo.bar.com

http

:

paths

:

-

path

:

/foo

pathType

:

Prefix

backend

:

service

:

name

:

service1

port

:

number

:

4200

-

path

:

/bar

pathType

:

Prefix

backend

:

service

:

name

:

service2

port

:

number

:

8080

When you create the Ingress with kubectl apply -f:

kubectl describe ingress simple-fanout-example

Name:             simple-fanout-example
Namespace:        default
Address:          178.91.123.132
Default backend:  default-http-backend:80 (10.8.2.3:8080)
Rules:
  Host         Path  Backends
  ----         ----  --------
  foo.bar.com
               /foo   service1:4200 (10.8.0.90:4200)
               /bar   service2:8080 (10.8.0.91:8080)
Events:
  Type     Reason  Age                From                     Message
  ----     ------  ----               ----                     -------
  Normal   ADD     22s                loadbalancer-controller  default/test

The Ingress controller provisions an implementation-specific load balancer
that satisfies the Ingress, as long as the Services (service1, service2) exist.
When it has done so, you can see the address of the load balancer at the
Address field.

Note: Depending on the

Depending on the Ingress controller you are using, you may need to create a default-http-backend Service

Name based virtual hosting

Name-based virtual hosts support routing HTTP traffic to multiple host names at the same IP address.

ingress-namebase-diagram

Figure. Ingress Name Based Virtual hosting

The following Ingress tells the backing load balancer to route requests based on
the Host header.

service/networking/name-virtual-host-ingress.yaml

apiVersion

:

networking.k8s.io/v1

kind

:

Ingress

metadata

:

name

:

name-virtual-host-ingress

spec

:

rules

:

-

host

:

foo.bar.com

http

:

paths

:

-

pathType

:

Prefix

path

:

"/"

backend

:

service

:

name

:

service1

port

:

number

:

80

-

host

:

bar.foo.com

http

:

paths

:

-

pathType

:

Prefix

path

:

"/"

backend

:

service

:

name

:

service2

port

:

number

:

80

If you create an Ingress resource without any hosts defined in the rules, then any
web traffic to the IP address of your Ingress controller can be matched without a name based
virtual host being required.

For example, the following Ingress routes traffic
requested for first.bar.com to service1, second.bar.com to service2, and any traffic whose request host header doesn’t match first.bar.com and second.bar.com to service3.

service/networking/name-virtual-host-ingress-no-third-host.yaml

apiVersion

:

networking.k8s.io/v1

kind

:

Ingress

metadata

:

name

:

name-virtual-host-ingress-no-third-host

spec

:

rules

:

-

host

:

first.bar.com

http

:

paths

:

-

pathType

:

Prefix

path

:

"/"

backend

:

service

:

name

:

service1

port

:

number

:

80

-

host

:

second.bar.com

http

:

paths

:

-

pathType

:

Prefix

path

:

"/"

backend

:

service

:

name

:

service2

port

:

number

:

80

-

http

:

paths

:

-

pathType

:

Prefix

path

:

"/"

backend

:

service

:

name

:

service3

port

:

number

:

80

TLS

You can secure an Ingress by specifying a Secret
that contains a TLS private key and certificate. The Ingress resource only
supports a single TLS port, 443, and assumes TLS termination at the ingress point
(traffic to the Service and its Pods is in plaintext).
If the TLS configuration section in an Ingress specifies different hosts, they are
multiplexed on the same port according to the hostname specified through the
SNI TLS extension (provided the Ingress controller supports SNI). The TLS secret
must contain keys named tls.crt and tls.key that contain the certificate
and private key to use for TLS. For example:

apiVersion

:

v1

kind

:

Secret

metadata

:

name

:

testsecret-tls

namespace

:

default

data

:

tls.crt

:

base64 encoded cert

tls.key

:

base64 encoded key

type

:

kubernetes.io/tls

Referencing this secret in an Ingress tells the Ingress controller to
secure the channel from the client to the load balancer using TLS. You need to make
sure the TLS secret you created came from a certificate that contains a Common
Name (CN), also known as a Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) for https-example.foo.com.

Note: Keep in mind that TLS will not work on the default rule because the
certificates would have to be issued for all the possible sub-domains. Therefore,
hosts in the tls section need to explicitly match the host in the rules
section.

service/networking/tls-example-ingress.yaml

apiVersion

:

networking.k8s.io/v1

kind

:

Ingress

metadata

:

name

:

tls-example-ingress

spec

:

tls

:

-

hosts

:

- https-example.foo.com

secretName

:

testsecret-tls

rules

:

-

host

:

https-example.foo.com

http

:

paths

:

-

path

:

/

pathType

:

Prefix

backend

:

service

:

name

:

service1

port

:

number

:

80

Note: There is a gap between TLS features supported by various Ingress
controllers. Please refer to documentation on

There is a gap between TLS features supported by various Ingress controllers. Please refer to documentation on nginx GCE , or any other platform specific Ingress controller to understand how TLS works in your environment.

Load balancing

An Ingress controller is bootstrapped with some load balancing policy settings
that it applies to all Ingress, such as the load balancing algorithm, backend
weight scheme, and others. More advanced load balancing concepts
(e.g. persistent sessions, dynamic weights) are not yet exposed through the
Ingress. You can instead get these features through the load balancer used for
a Service.

It’s also worth noting that even though health checks are not exposed directly
through the Ingress, there exist parallel concepts in Kubernetes such as
readiness probes
that allow you to achieve the same end result. Please review the controller
specific documentation to see how they handle health checks (for example:
nginx, or
GCE).

Updating an Ingress

To update an existing Ingress to add a new Host, you can update it by editing the resource:

kubectl describe ingress

test

Name:             test
Namespace:        default
Address:          178.91.123.132
Default backend:  default-http-backend:80 (10.8.2.3:8080)
Rules:
  Host         Path  Backends
  ----         ----  --------
  foo.bar.com
               /foo   service1:80 (10.8.0.90:80)
Annotations:
  nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/rewrite-target:  /
Events:
  Type     Reason  Age                From                     Message
  ----     ------  ----               ----                     -------
  Normal   ADD     35s                loadbalancer-controller  default/test

kubectl edit ingress

test

This pops up an editor with the existing configuration in YAML format.
Modify it to include the new Host:

spec

:

rules

:

-

host

:

foo.bar.com

http

:

paths

:

-

backend

:

service

:

name

:

service1

port

:

number

:

80

path

:

/foo

pathType

:

Prefix

-

host

:

bar.baz.com

http

:

paths

:

-

backend

:

service

:

name

:

service2

port

:

number

:

80

path

:

/foo

pathType

:

Prefix

..

After you save your changes, kubectl updates the resource in the API server, which tells the
Ingress controller to reconfigure the load balancer.

Verify this:

kubectl describe ingress

test

Name:             test
Namespace:        default
Address:          178.91.123.132
Default backend:  default-http-backend:80 (10.8.2.3:8080)
Rules:
  Host         Path  Backends
  ----         ----  --------
  foo.bar.com
               /foo   service1:80 (10.8.0.90:80)
  bar.baz.com
               /foo   service2:80 (10.8.0.91:80)
Annotations:
  nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/rewrite-target:  /
Events:
  Type     Reason  Age                From                     Message
  ----     ------  ----               ----                     -------
  Normal   ADD     45s                loadbalancer-controller  default/test

You can achieve the same outcome by invoking kubectl replace -f on a modified Ingress YAML file.

Failing across availability zones

Techniques for spreading traffic across failure domains differ between cloud providers.
Please check the documentation of the relevant Ingress controller for details.

Alternatives

You can expose a Service in multiple ways that don’t directly involve the Ingress resource:

What’s next