How to run loxilb-ingress

In Kubernetes, there is usually a lot of overlap between network load-balancer and an Ingress functionality. This creates a lot of confusion. Overall, the differences between an Ingress and a load-balancer service can be categorized as follows:

Feature	Ingress	Load-balancer
Protocol	HTTP(s) level - Layer7	Network Layer4
Additional Features	Ingress Rules, Resource-Backends,	Based on L4 Session Params
	Path-Types, HostName
Yaml Manifest	apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v2	type: LoadBalancer

When using Ingress, the clients connect to one of the pods through Ingress. The clients first perform a DNS lookup which returns IP address of the ingress. This IP address is usually funnelled through a L4 Load-balancer. The client sends a HTTP(s) request to Ingress specifying URL, hostname and other HTTP headers. Based on the HTTP payload, the ingress finds an associated Service and its EndPoint Objects. The Ingress then forwards the client's request to appopriate pod. It can also serve as HTTS termination point or as a mTLS hub.

With Kubernetes ingress, we can expose multiple paths with the same service IP. This might be helpful if one is using public cloud, where one has to pay for managed LB services. Hence, creating a single service and exposing mulitple URL paths might be optimal in such use-cases.

loxilb-ingress is optimized for cases which require long-lived connections and https termination with eBPF.

Getting Started

The following getting started example is based on K3s as the kubernetes platform but should work on any kubernetes implementation or distribution like EKS, GKE etc but should work well with any. We will use K3s as the kubernetes platform.

Install K3s

curl -sfL https://get.k3s.io | INSTALL_K3S_EXEC="--disable traefik,servicelb" K3S_KUBECONFIG_MODE="644" sh -

Install loxilb as a L4 service LB

Follow any of the loxilb getting started guides as per requirement. In this example, we will run loxilb-lb in external mode. Check all the pods are up and running as expected :

$ kubectl get pods -A
NAMESPACE     NAME                                     READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
kube-system   coredns-6799fbcd5-cp5lv                  1/1     Running   0          3h26m
kube-system   kube-loxilb-755f6fb85-gbg7f              1/1     Running   0          3h26m
kube-system   local-path-provisioner-6f5d79df6-47n2b   1/1     Running   0          3h26m
kube-system   metrics-server-54fd9b65b-b6c6x           1/1     Running   0          3h26m

Prepare TLS/SSL certificates for Ingress

Self-signed TLS/SSL certificates and private keys can be built using various tools like OpenSSL or Minica. Basically, one will need to have two files - server.crt and server.key for loxilb-ingress usage. Once these files are in place, a Kubernetes secret can be created using the following yaml:

apiVersion: v1
data:
  server.crt: LS0tLS1CRUdJTiBDRVJUSUZJQ0FURS0tLS0tCk1JSUI3RENDQVhPZ0F3SUJBZ0lJU.....
  server.key: LS0tLS1CRUdJTiBQUklWQVRFIEtFWS0tLS0tCk1JRzJBZ0VBTUJBR0J5cUdTTTQ5Q.....
kind: Secret
metadata:
  creationTimestamp: null
  name: loxilb-ssl
  namespace: kube-system
type: Opaque

The above values are just dummy values but it is important to note that they need to be in base64 format not in pem format. How do we get the base64 values from server.crt and server.key files ?

$ base64 server.crt
LS0tLS1CRUdJTiBDRVJUSUZJQ0FURS0tLS0tCk1JSUI3RENDQVhPZ0F3SUJBZ0lJU.....
$ base64 server.key
LS0tLS1CRUdJTiBQUklWQVRFIEtFWS0tLS0tCk1JRzJBZ0VBTUJBR0J5cUdTTTQ5Q.....

Now, after applying the yaml, we can check the created secret :

$ kubectl get secret -n kube-system loxilb-ssl
NAME         TYPE     DATA   AGE
loxilb-ssl   Opaque   2      106m

In the subsequent steps, this secret loxilb-ssl will be used throughout.

Install loxilb-ingress

kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/loxilb-io/loxilb-ingress/main/manifests/loxilb-ingress-deploy.yml

Check status of running pods :

$ kubectl get pods -A
NAMESPACE       NAME                                        READY   STATUS      RESTARTS   AGE
kube-system   coredns-6799fbcd5-cp5lv                  1/1     Running   0          3h26m
kube-system   kube-loxilb-755f6fb85-gbg7f              1/1     Running   0          3h26m
kube-system   local-path-provisioner-6f5d79df6-47n2b   1/1     Running   0          3h26m
kube-system   loxilb-ingress-hn5ld                     1/1     Running   0          61m
kube-system   metrics-server-54fd9b65b-b6c6x           1/1     Running   0          3h26m

Install service, backend app and ingress rules

Create a LB service for exposing ingress ports

apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: loxilb-ingress-manager
  namespace: kube-system
  annotations:
    loxilb.io/lbmode: "onearm"
spec:
  externalTrafficPolicy: Local
  loadBalancerClass: loxilb.io/loxilb
  selector:
    app.kubernetes.io/instance: loxilb-ingress
    app.kubernetes.io/name: loxilb-ingress
  ports:
    - name: http
      port: 80
      protocol: TCP
      targetPort: 80
    - name: https
      port: 443
      protocol: TCP
      targetPort: 443
  type: LoadBalancer

Check the services created :

$ kubectl get svc -A
NAMESPACE     NAME                     TYPE           CLUSTER-IP     EXTERNAL-IP        PORT(S)                      AGE
default       kubernetes               ClusterIP      10.43.0.1      <none>             443/TCP                      3h28m
kube-system   kube-dns                 ClusterIP      10.43.0.10     <none>             53/UDP,53/TCP,9153/TCP       3h28m
kube-system   loxilb-ingress-manager   LoadBalancer   10.43.136.1    llb-192.168.80.9   80:31686/TCP,443:31994/TCP   62m
kube-system   metrics-server           ClusterIP      10.43.236.60   <none>             443/TCP                      3h28m

At this point of time, all services exposed via ingress can be accessed via "192.168.80.9". This IP could be different as per use-case and scenario. This IP can then be associated with DNS for name based access.

Create backend apps for domain1.loxilb.io and configure ingress rules with the following yaml :

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: site
spec:
  replicas: 1
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      name: site-handler
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        name: site-handler
    spec:
      containers:
        - name: blog
          image: ghcr.io/loxilb-io/nginx:stable
          imagePullPolicy: Always
          ports:
            - containerPort: 80
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: site-handler-service
spec:
  ports:
    - name: http
      port: 80
      protocol: TCP
      targetPort: 80
  selector:
    name: site-handler
---
apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: Ingress
metadata:
  name: site-loxilb-ingress
spec:
  ingressClassName: loxilb
  tls:
  - hosts:
    - domain1.loxilb.io
    secretName: loxilb-ssl
  rules:
  - host: domain1.loxilb.io
    http:
      paths:
        - path: /
          pathType: Prefix
          backend:
            service:
              name: site-handler-service
              port:
                number: 80

Double check status of pods, services and ingress:

$ kubectl get pods -A
NAMESPACE     NAME                                     READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
default       site-869fd54548-t82bq                    1/1     Running   0          64m
kube-system   coredns-6799fbcd5-cp5lv                  1/1     Running   0          3h31m
kube-system   kube-loxilb-755f6fb85-gbg7f              1/1     Running   0          3h31m
kube-system   local-path-provisioner-6f5d79df6-47n2b   1/1     Running   0          3h31m
kube-system   loxilb-ingress-hn5ld                     1/1     Running   0          66m
kube-system   metrics-server-54fd9b65b-b6c6x           1/1     Running   0          3h31m

$ kubectl get svc -A
NAMESPACE     NAME                     TYPE           CLUSTER-IP     EXTERNAL-IP        PORT(S)                      AGE
default       kubernetes               ClusterIP      10.43.0.1      <none>             443/TCP                      3h31m
default       site-handler-service     ClusterIP      10.43.101.77   <none>             80/TCP                       64m
kube-system   kube-dns                 ClusterIP      10.43.0.10     <none>             53/UDP,53/TCP,9153/TCP       3h31m
kube-system   loxilb-ingress-manager   LoadBalancer   10.43.136.1    llb-192.168.80.9   80:31686/TCP,443:31994/TCP   65m
kube-system   metrics-server           ClusterIP      10.43.236.60   <none>             443/TCP                      3h31m


$ kubectl get ingress -A
NAMESPACE   NAME                  CLASS    HOSTS               ADDRESS   PORTS     AGE
default     site-loxilb-ingress   <none>   domain1.loxilb.io             80, 443   65m

We can for the above example and create backend apps for other hostnames e.g. domain2.loxilb.io and configure ingress rules.

Testing loxilb ingress

If you are testing locally you can simply add the following for dns resolution in your bastion/host :

$ tail -n 2  /etc/hosts
192.168.80.9   domain1.loxilb.io

The above step is similar to adding A records in a DNS like route53.

Finally, try to access the service "domain1.loxilb.io" :

$ curl -H "HOST: domain1.loxilb.io" https://domain1.loxilb.io
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Welcome to nginx!</title>
<style>
html { color-scheme: light dark; }
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="https://nginx.org/">nginx.org</a>.<br/>
Commercial support is available at
<a href="https://nginx.com/">nginx.com</a>.</p>

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

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