Manage Inbound Traffic for Kubernetes Workloads using Azure Ingress Controller

Overview

This blog will discuss the Native Ingress controller of Azure Cloud Platform. An ingress controller is a software that provides reverse proxy, configurable traffic routing, and TLS termination for Kubernetes services.

Introduction

As businesses migrate their workloads to the cloud, they need a dependable and secure way to direct traffic from external clients to their cloud-based applications.

Ingress controllers are useful in situations like these. Managing incoming traffic and directing it to the appropriate service within a cluster is the responsibility of an Ingress controller, a crucial Kubernetes component.

Microsoft’s cloud computing platform Azure provides an Azure native Ingress controller, making it simpler to manage inbound traffic for Kubernetes workloads running on Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS). This blog will look at the native Azure Ingress controller’s features.

What is an Azure Ingress controller?

• A Kubernetes resource called an Azure native Ingress controller routes traffic from external clients to the appropriate service within a Kubernetes cluster.
• It runs as a component of the AKS control plane and is deployed as a Kubernetes pod.
• The Azure native Ingress controller is built on the open-source NGINX web server, a popular reverse proxy and load balancer.

Features of Azure Ingress controller

1. TLS Termination.

• Azure load balancer is a layer 3 and layer 4 load balancer that does not support the TLS termination.
• We must use the Ingress controller for the TLS termination and the Azure Load Balancer.
• Another option is to use the application gateway, layer 7 load balancer, which will take care of the TLS termination.

2. Single IP address is used to route the traffic to multiple services.

• Traffic Routing:
  1. Path Based Routing: If we have a domain named app.com. We have two applications named app1 and app2. If we want to route to app1, we use app.com/app1. For app2, app.com/app2.
  2. Host based Routing: If we are using app1.project.com and app2.project.com. Then the routing will be done based on the name of the host.

3. Automatic SSL/TLS certificate management:

• The Azure native Ingress controller automatically manages SSL/TLS certificates to ensure secure communication between external clients and Kubernetes services.
• Without any manual intervention, the controller can request and renew certificates from Let’s Encrypt, a free and open certificate authority

4. Path-based routing:

• The Azure native Ingress controller supports path-based routing, which allows different paths to be mapped to different services within a Kubernetes cluster.
• This is useful when multiple services need to be exposed through a single IP address.

5. Load balancing:

• NGINX is used as a reverse proxy and load balancer by the Azure native Ingress controller to ensure that traffic is evenly distributed across multiple service instances.
• This contributes to increased availability and scalability of Kubernetes workloads.

6. URL rewriting:

• URL rewriting is supported by the Azure native Ingress controller, which allows URLs to be rewritten or redirected to a different path or domain.
• This is beneficial when migrating legacy applications to Kubernetes or integrating with third-party services.

7. Custom annotations:

• Custom annotations are supported by the Azure native Ingress controller and can be used to add additional configuration options or to customize the controller’s behavior.
• This provides flexibility to meet specific requirements.

Steps to Deploy an Azure Ingress Controller

To deploy an Azure native Ingress controller, you need an AKS cluster running Kubernetes version 1.19 or later. You can deploy the controller using the following steps:

Step 1: Execute the below commands to get the Nodes

Execute the below commands to create an Ingress controller in a different namespace:

Once the execution is completed, the Ingress controller will be deployed as a Kubernetes pod within the ingress-nginx namespace.

You can create Ingress resources to define the routing rules for your Kubernetes services.

Step 2:  Run the below command to deploy one sample nginx pod

Step 3: Create a file named nginx_ingress.yaml and copy the code below.

Execute the below command to create nginx Pod and Services

kubectl get ingress

Copy the IP address put into the browser with the /nginx route

You will get the page

Conclusion

An Azure native Ingress controller is a powerful tool for managing inbound traffic for Kubernetes workloads running on AKS. It provides automatic SSL/TLS certificate management, path-based routing, load balancing, URL rewriting, and custom annotations. By deploying an Azure native Ingress controller, organizations can simplify the inbound traffic management and improve the availability and scalability of their Kubernetes workloads.

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