gateway-api VS ingress

It has already been a couple of years since the Kubernetes Ingress was defined as a “frozen” feature while further development will be added to the Gateway API.

Kubernetes provides two APIs to achieve this, the Ingress API and the Gateway API.

With all that said, K8s is not really meant to function as an API gateway to arbitrary services. You should look into API gateways such as NGINX, Kong or others, service meshes as others have already pointed out, or have a look at the K8s Gateway API the SIG is currently working on. The last one is in the early stages of adoption, but it could provide you with a nice way to do an API Gateway right in K8s.

Maybe there's something in the new fangled gateways.

Keep an eye on the Gateway API GAMMA Initiative as it is currently evolving with the goal of streamlining how services meshes can implement the Gateway API and reduce some overlap.

The selling point for me was ability to configure it using Kubernetes CRD's and future support of the Gateway API (under development - <https://gateway-api.sigs.k8s.io/>).

Developers can version their API now within helm charts or even yaml templates held along the code in their repositories.

-- https://gateway-api.sigs.k8s.io

While you're learning about ingresses, also look into the k8s Gateway API, which is the next generation. https://gateway-api.sigs.k8s.io/

The GatewayAPI model is quite different from the LB/ingress model, in the cluster it consists of gateway and route objects. Once the gateway is created routes connecting gateways to services are added. If you need to change how requests are distributed, the routes are updated but the gateway remains so the address and other configuration remains consistent. Gateways can be shared by multiple routes. Take a look at https://gateway-api.sigs.k8s.io/ its a bit terse but you will get the picture.

Caddy

That is true, unfortunately. We, the core maintainers, don't use k8s ourselves, so we need to defer to the community for help. See https://github.com/caddyserver/ingress

Caddy at its simplest form is an HTTP server. So you could use it to front end your application that otherwise isn't well suited for taking direct HTTP requests. Caddy would bring you other features like TLS support.

However I think in K8s world Caddy would make the most sense as an Ingress Controller. There is even a project as such: https://github.com/caddyserver/ingress

All traffic would terminate first at Caddy. Handling TLS, HTTP1/2/3, etc. Then passing it back to your application service/pod.

Sorry actually I'm mixing up caddy with traefik. And ingress is an http lb + something that talks to k8s to dynamically update the configuration. Caddy has a WIP ingress project https://github.com/caddyserver/ingress

We have an ingress controller in the works by the community here: https://github.com/caddyserver/ingress