gateway-api VS metallb

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.

Hey guys, I want to share a guide I’m pretty proud of which is talking about setting up kubernetes which leverages https://kubespray.io/#/ and https://metallb.universe.tf/ so you can host this yourself most people when spinning up kubernetes opt for k3s or get stuck with all the options or unable to setup the external ips for their services so these tools will eliminate the problem.

Have a closer look at MetallLB.

To avoid that, you can use a combination of haproxy and keepalived, an enterprise grade load balancer like the one from F5 or Citrix. Besides that you can also work with https://kube-vip.io or https://metallb.universe.tf.

Not sure if klipper is usable in a cluster with multiple nodes, as it binds to one port only. You may want to use MetalLB instead: https://metallb.universe.tf/

Then deploy MetalLB https://metallb.universe.tf/

What issue do you see with the load balancer? For self hosted clusters, one can use MetalLB for example to have such single outfacing IP which will failover to another node keeping the same IP if a node dies.

Quoting from their docs:

metalLB to manage bare-metal LoadBalancer services - WIP - Only L2 configuration can be set-up via playbook.