RKE2 the Hard Way: Part 10 – Installing Ingress Nginx // Support Tools

Part 10 – Installing Ingress Nginx

In this part of the “RKE2 the Hard Way” training series, we will install and configure Ingress Nginx for external access to services in our Kubernetes cluster. Ingress Nginx is a popular ingress controller for Kubernetes that uses NGINX as a reverse proxy and load balancer.

An ingress controller is essential because it:

Provides a single entry point to multiple services in your cluster
Handles SSL/TLS termination for your services
Enables host-based and path-based routing to backend services
Allows you to expose applications to the outside world without creating a LoadBalancer service for each one

At this point in our series, we have:

A fully functional Kubernetes cluster with all control plane components
Pod networking via Cilium CNI
DNS resolution via CoreDNS

Let’s now set up Ingress Nginx to enable external access to our applications.

1. Prepare the Ingress Nginx Manifest

We’ll deploy Ingress Nginx using the official manifest:

# Download the Ingress Nginx manifest
INGRESS_NGINX_VERSION=v1.9.5
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kubernetes/ingress-nginx/controller-${INGRESS_NGINX_VERSION}/deploy/static/provider/baremetal/deploy.yaml -o ingress-nginx.yaml

2. Deploy Ingress Nginx

Apply the manifest to your cluster:

kubectl apply -f ingress-nginx.yaml

This will create:

The ingress-nginx namespace
RBAC resources (ServiceAccount, ClusterRole, ClusterRoleBinding)
ConfigMaps for controller configuration
The Ingress Nginx controller Deployment
A NodePort Service to expose the controller

3. Verify Ingress Nginx Installation

Check that the Ingress Nginx controller pods are running:

kubectl get pods -n ingress-nginx

You should see output similar to:

NAME                                        READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
ingress-nginx-controller-xxxxxxxxxx-xxxxx   1/1     Running   0          1m

Also, check the service:

kubectl get svc -n ingress-nginx

You should see output similar to:

NAME                                 TYPE        CLUSTER-IP      EXTERNAL-IP   PORT(S)                      AGE
ingress-nginx-controller             NodePort    10.43.x.x       <none>        80:30080/TCP,443:30443/TCP   1m
ingress-nginx-controller-admission   ClusterIP   10.43.x.x       <none>        443/TCP                      1m

The NodePort service exposes the Ingress controller on all nodes at ports 30080 (HTTP) and 30443 (HTTPS).

4. Create a Sample Application to Test Ingress

Let’s deploy a simple application to test our Ingress controller:

# Create a namespace for our test application
kubectl create namespace demo

# Create a deployment
cat > hello-app.yaml << EOF
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: hello-app
  namespace: demo
spec:
  replicas: 3
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: hello-app
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: hello-app
    spec:
      containers:
      - name: hello-app
        image: gcr.io/google-samples/hello-app:1.0
        ports:
        - containerPort: 8080
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: hello-service
  namespace: demo
spec:
  selector:
    app: hello-app
  ports:
  - port: 80
    targetPort: 8080
EOF

kubectl apply -f hello-app.yaml

5. Create an Ingress Resource

Now, let’s create an Ingress resource to expose our application:

cat > hello-ingress.yaml << EOF
apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: Ingress
metadata:
  name: hello-ingress
  namespace: demo
  annotations:
    nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/rewrite-target: /
spec:
  ingressClassName: nginx
  rules:
  - host: hello-world.info
    http:
      paths:
      - path: /
        pathType: Prefix
        backend:
          service:
            name: hello-service
            port:
              number: 80
EOF

kubectl apply -f hello-ingress.yaml

6. Test the Ingress

To test the Ingress, you’ll need to simulate DNS resolution for the hostname we defined (hello-world.info). You can do this by:

Adding an entry to your local machine’s hosts file pointing to one of your node’s IPs:
```
<NODE_IP> hello-world.info
```

Or by using curl with the Host header:

# Get the NodePort for HTTP
NODE_PORT=$(kubectl get svc -n ingress-nginx ingress-nginx-controller -o jsonpath='{.spec.ports[?(@.name=="http")].nodePort}')

# Test the Ingress with curl (replace <NODE_IP> with the IP of any node)
curl -H "Host: hello-world.info" http://<NODE_IP>:$NODE_PORT

You should see a response from the hello-app service.

7. Clean Up Test Resources

After successful testing, you can clean up the test resources if desired:

kubectl delete namespace demo

Next Steps

Congratulations! You now have a complete Kubernetes cluster with networking, DNS, and external access capability through Ingress Nginx. In the final part of this series, we’ll perform a comprehensive Cluster Verification and set up access for kubectl.

👉 Continue to Part 11: Cluster Verification and Access