Creating a Kubernetes Ingress Resource with a Static IP Address on GCP or GKE

This tutorial will walk you through creating a nginx deployment and expose it using a Kubernetes Ingress Resource associated with a static IP address on GKE. The use cases for doing this:

You want to configure DNS before exposing your application to the outside world.
Because you can.

This tutorial only works on GCP or GKE.

TLDR;

Set the kubernetes.io/ingress.global-static-ip-name annontation on the Ingress config to the name of a Google Cloud Platform (GCP) global IP address as created with the gcloud compute addresses create command.

Example:

Create a global IP address:

gcloud compute addresses create kubernetes-ingress --global

Set the kubernetes.io/ingress.global-static-ip-name annotation on the Ingress config:

kind: Ingress
metadata:
  name: nginx
  annotations:
    kubernetes.io/ingress.global-static-ip-name: "kubernetes-ingress"
spec:
  backend:
    serviceName: nginx
    servicePort: 80

The kubernetes.io/ingress.global-static-ip-name only works on GCP or GKE.

Tutorial

Create a global IP address named kubernetes-ingress:

gcloud compute addresses create kubernetes-ingress --global

Create the nginx deployment:

kubectl run nginx --image nginx:1.11 --port 80 --replicas=3

Expose the nginx deployment using a NodePort service:

kubectl expose deployment nginx --type NodePort

The service must be type NodePort to ensure the Ingress can perform health checks on the Pod.

Create the nginx ingress resource. Save the nginx ingress config to a file named nginx-ing.yaml:

cat > nginx-ing.yaml << EOF
apiVersion: extensions/v1beta1
kind: Ingress
metadata:
  name: nginx
  annotations:
    kubernetes.io/ingress.global-static-ip-name: "kubernetes-ingress"
spec:
  backend:
    serviceName: nginx
    servicePort: 80
EOF

Create the nginx ingress resource:

kubectl create -f nginx-ing.yaml

After about 1 minute the nginx ingress resource should be ready for use and associated with the kubernetes-ingress global IP address created earlier. View the details of the nginx ingress resource:

kubectl get ing nginx

NAME      HOSTS     ADDRESS          PORTS     AGE
nginx     *         130.211.XX.XXX   80        59s

The nginx ingress address should match the kubernetes-ingress global IP address. Get the kubernetes-ingress IP address and compare it with the nginx ingress IP:

gcloud compute addresses \
  describe kubernetes-ingress --global \
  --format='value(address)'

130.211.XX.XXX

At this point you should be able to hit one of the nginx Pods via the kubernetes-ingress IP address. Store the kubernetes-ingress IP address in an environment variable:

export INGRESS_IP_ADDRESS=$(gcloud compute addresses \
  describe kubernetes-ingress --global \
  --format='value(address)')

Visit the http://${INGRESS_IP_ADDRESS} url:

curl http://${INGRESS_IP_ADDRESS}

HTTP Response:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Welcome to nginx!</title>
<style>
    body {
        width: 35em;
        margin: 0 auto;
        font-family: Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif;
    }
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Welcome to nginx!</h1>
<p>If you see this page, the nginx web server is successfully installed and
working. Further configuration is required.</p>

<p>For online documentation and support please refer to
<a href="http://nginx.org/">nginx.org</a>.<br/>
Commercial support is available at
<a href="http://nginx.com/">nginx.com</a>.</p>

<p><em>Thank you for using nginx.</em></p>
</body>
</html>

petervandenabeele/ingress-with-static-ip

Creating a Kubernetes Ingress Resource with a Static IP Address on GCP or GKE

TLDR;

Tutorial