Get started with K8sGateway

Get started with K8sGateway, a cloud-native Layer 7 proxy that is based on the Envoy and Kubernetes Gateway API projects.

In this quickstart guide, you install K8sGateway in a Kubernetes cluster, set up an API gateway, deploy a sample app, and access that app through the API gateway.

The guide includes steps to install K8sGateway in three ways.

Before you begin

Install K8sGateway

Install the open source K8sGateway project in your Kubernetes cluster.

Set up an API gateway

1. Create a gateway resource and configure an HTTP listener. The following gateway can serve HTTP resources from all namespaces.

   kubectl apply -n gloo-system -f- <<EOF
   kind: Gateway
   apiVersion: gateway.networking.k8s.io/v1
   metadata:
     name: http
   spec:
     gatewayClassName: gloo-gateway
     listeners:
     - protocol: HTTP
       port: 8080
       name: http
       allowedRoutes:
         namespaces:
           from: All
   EOF

2. Verify that the gateway is created successfully. You can also review the external address that is assigned to the gateway. Note that depending on your environment it might take a few minutes for the load balancer service to be assigned an external address.

   kubectl get gateway http -n gloo-system

   Example output:

   NAME   CLASS          ADDRESS                                                                  PROGRAMMED   AGE
   http   gloo-gateway   a3a6c06e2f4154185bf3f8af46abf22e-139567718.us-east-2.elb.amazonaws.com   True         93s

Deploy a sample app

1. Create the httpbin namespace.

   kubectl create ns httpbin

2. Deploy the httpbin app.

   kubectl -n httpbin apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/solo-io/gloo-mesh-use-cases/main/policy-demo/httpbin.yaml

3. Verify that the httpbin app is running.

   kubectl -n httpbin get pods

   Example output:

   NAME                      READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
   httpbin-d57c95548-nz98t   3/3     Running   0          18s

Expose the app on the gateway

1. Create an HTTPRoute resource to expose the httpbin app on the gateway. The following example exposes the app on the wwww.example.com domain.

   kubectl apply -f- <<EOF
   apiVersion: gateway.networking.k8s.io/v1beta1
   kind: HTTPRoute
   metadata:
     name: httpbin
     namespace: httpbin
     labels:
       example: httpbin-route
   spec:
     parentRefs:
       - name: http
         namespace: gloo-system
     hostnames:
       - "www.example.com"
     rules:
       - backendRefs:
           - name: httpbin
             port: 8000
   EOF

   Setting	Description
   spec.parentRefs	The name and namespace of the gateway resource that serves the route. In this example, you use the HTTP gateway that you created earlier.
   spec.hostnames	A list of hostnames that the route is exposed on.
   spec.rules.backendRefs	The Kubernetes service that serves the incoming request. In this example, requests to www.example.com are forwarded to the httpbin app on port 9000. Note that you must create the HTTP route in the same namespace as the service that serves that route. To create the HTTP route resource in a different namespace, you must create a ReferenceGrant resource to allow the HTTP route to forward requests to a service in a different namespace. For more information, see the Kubernetes API Gateway documentation.

2. Verify that the HTTPRoute is applied successfully.

   kubectl get -n httpbin httproute/httpbin -o yaml

3. Send a request to the httpbin app.

   Cloud Provider LoadBalancerPort-forward for local testing

   1. Get the external address of the gateway and save it in an environment variable.

      export INGRESS_GW_ADDRESS=$(kubectl get svc -n gloo-system gloo-proxy-http -o=jsonpath="{.status.loadBalancer.ingress[0]['hostname','ip']}")
      echo $INGRESS_GW_ADDRESS

   2. Send a request to the httpbin app and verify that you get back a 200 HTTP response code. Note that it might take a few seconds for the load balancer service to become fully ready and accept traffic.

      curl -i http://$INGRESS_GW_ADDRESS:8080/headers -H "host: www.example.com:8080"

      Example output:

      HTTP/1.1 200 OK
      server: envoy
      date: Wed, 17 Jan 2024 17:32:21 GMT
      content-type: application/json
      content-length: 211
      access-control-allow-origin: *
      access-control-allow-credentials: true
      x-envoy-upstream-service-time: 2

   1. Port-forward the gloo-proxy-http pod on port 8080.

      kubectl port-forward deployment/gloo-proxy-http -n gloo-system 8080:8080

   2. Send a request to the httpbin app and verify that you get back a 200 HTTP response code.

      curl -i localhost:8080/headers -H "host: www.example.com"

      Example output:

      HTTP/1.1 200 OK
      server: envoy
      date: Wed, 17 Jan 2024 17:32:21 GMT
      content-type: application/json
      content-length: 211
      access-control-allow-origin: *
      access-control-allow-credentials: true
      x-envoy-upstream-service-time: 2

Next steps

Now that you have K8sGateway set up and running, check out the following guides to expand your API gateway capabilities.

• Learn more about K8sGateway, its features and benefits.
• Add routing capabilities to your httpbin route by using the Traffic management guides.
• Explore ways to make your routes more resilient by using the Resiliency guides.
• Secure your routes with external authentication and rate limiting policies by using the Security guides.

Cleanup