Install load balancer (metallb) and Gateway API

MetalLB is a load balancer implementation for Kubernetes that allows services to be exposed externally

Gateway API is a newer way to manage traffic to Kubernetes cluster.

For on prem-clusters, install load balancer using metallb

• Add metallb helm chart, download and install metallb

helm repo add metallb https://metallb.github.io/metallb
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/metallb/metallb/main/charts/metallb/values.yaml
helm install metallb metallb/metallb --values values.yaml

• Verify metallb is deployed

kubectl -n default get pods

• Prepare the metallb Ip files(metallb_ip.yaml), and modify the IP address (with range provided by your network team)

apiVersion: metallb.io/v1beta1
kind: IPAddressPool
metadata:
    name: default
spec:
    addresses:
    - 172.16.20.16-172.16.20.23  <- Change this to your range of IP
    autoAssign: true
---
apiVersion: metallb.io/v1beta1
kind: L2Advertisement
metadata:
    name: default
spec:
    ipAddressPools:
    - default

• Apply IP address pool range

kubectl apply -f metallb_ip.yaml

• Verify metallb ip address pool

kubectl get IPAddressPool
kubectl describe IPAddressPool

• Setup Gateway APIs

  • For non-secure connections (dev clusters), install steps 1 to 4

  • For secure connections, install additional steps 5 to 10