Change Default Ingress Port to HTTP for Bitnami/nginx in Kubernetes // Support Tools

When setting up Bitnami/nginx as your Ingress controller in a Kubernetes environment, the default configuration may use HTTPS (port 443). However, there are cases where you might want to change the default Ingress port to HTTP (port 80), especially if you’re dealing with non-HTTPS traffic or need to expose services through standard HTTP.

In this post, we will walk through how to modify the default Ingress port for Bitnami/nginx in Kubernetes to use HTTP (port 80) instead of HTTPS, allowing you to handle non-encrypted traffic effectively.

Why Change the Default Ingress Port to HTTP?

By default, the Bitnami/nginx Helm chart for Kubernetes may be set up to handle secure traffic via HTTPS on port 443. While HTTPS is essential for production environments where security is a priority, there are several reasons why you might want to configure your Ingress controller to use HTTP (port 80) instead:

Local Development: For development and testing environments where encryption isn’t necessary.
Non-HTTPS Services: Some legacy services or APIs may not require HTTPS traffic.
Custom Routing: You may want to expose services over HTTP for specific internal use cases or to offload SSL termination elsewhere.

Step 1: Install Bitnami/nginx Ingress Controller

First, install the Bitnami/nginx Ingress controller using Helm, which is a common way to manage Kubernetes packages.

helm repo add bitnami https://charts.bitnami.com/bitnami
helm repo update
helm install my-nginx-ingress bitnami/nginx-ingress-controller -n ingress-controller --create-namespace

This command installs the nginx-ingress-controller from the Bitnami Helm repository into the ingress-controller namespace.

Step 2: Modify Values to Use HTTP (Port 80)

By default, the controller handles HTTPS traffic, but we can modify the values.yaml file or pass values via the Helm command line to change the port to HTTP.

Option 1: Update `values.yaml`

Create or edit the values.yaml file to configure the Ingress controller to listen on port 80 by specifying the controller.service configuration:

controller:
  service:
    ports:
      http: 80
      https: 443
    type: LoadBalancer

In this configuration:

http: 80: This line tells the Ingress controller to listen on port 80 for HTTP traffic.
https: 443: You can keep HTTPS configured if you want dual support or remove it entirely for an HTTP-only setup.

Once you’ve modified the values.yaml file, apply the changes with Helm:

helm upgrade my-nginx-ingress bitnami/nginx-ingress-controller -n ingress-controller -f values.yaml

Option 2: Pass Values Inline via Helm

Alternatively, you can pass the HTTP port directly as a Helm value without modifying the values.yaml file:

helm upgrade my-nginx-ingress bitnami/nginx-ingress-controller -n ingress-controller --set controller.service.ports.http=80 --set controller.service.type=LoadBalancer

This command tells the Helm chart to configure the Ingress controller to listen on port 80 for HTTP traffic.

Step 3: Update Ingress Resources to Use HTTP

Once the Ingress controller is listening on port 80, you can update your Ingress resources to serve traffic over HTTP. A typical Ingress resource might look like this:

apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: Ingress
metadata:
  name: my-app-ingress
  annotations:
    nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/rewrite-target: /
spec:
  rules:
  - host: my-app.example.com
    http:
      paths:
      - path: /
        pathType: Prefix
        backend:
          service:
            name: my-app
            port:
              number: 80

This Ingress rule configures traffic to be routed to the my-app service on port 80. The nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/rewrite-target annotation is used to handle URL path rewrites if needed.

Step 4: Verify HTTP Traffic

After updating your configuration, ensure that HTTP traffic is flowing through the NGINX Ingress controller. You can use tools like curl to check if the application is accessible over HTTP:

curl http://my-app.example.com

If the Ingress and service are configured correctly, you should receive a response from your application on port 80.

Step 5: Optional—Disable HTTPS

If you only want to expose HTTP traffic and have no need for HTTPS, you can completely remove the HTTPS port configuration from the Ingress controller.

In values.yaml, simply remove the HTTPS configuration:

controller:
  service:
    ports:
      http: 80
    type: LoadBalancer

You can apply the configuration using the same Helm command as before, and NGINX will no longer listen on port 443.

Conclusion

Configuring the Bitnami/nginx Ingress controller to use HTTP (port 80) in Kubernetes is a simple process that allows you to handle non-secured traffic for development, internal services, or custom routing purposes. By modifying the Helm values or values.yaml file, you can quickly adjust the NGINX Ingress controller to fit your specific use case.

For environments where HTTPS is not a priority, setting up NGINX to listen on port 80 streamlines access to services without the overhead of SSL configuration. However, it’s always best practice to secure production environments with SSL/TLS, even if SSL termination occurs outside of Kubernetes.