Setting up Kubernetes Ingress Multiple Paths and Multiple Hosts

Kubernetes Ingress is an extremely flexible solution to expose services. In the previous post, we saw how to use Kubernetes Ingress to expose a Node Port service.

But, in that post, we focused on a single host and a single path.

However, with Kubernetes Ingress, you can configure multiple paths as well as multiple hosts.

Let’s look at both the options:

1 – Kubernetes Ingress Multiple Paths

Let’s say you have a high-level host test.example.path.

Now, you want to have two separate paths /demo and /admin under that high-level host.

Both of these sub-paths are catered by different Kubernetes services.

Here’s how you can do it using a Kubernetes Ingress.

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

Basically, the paths section within the Ingress resource can take multiple individual path sections.

In the above example, you define one path section for /demo and the other for /admin. Both of these paths are backed by different Kubernetes services.

In other words, clients can now reach two different services through a single IP address belonging to the Ingress Controller.

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2 – Kubernetes Ingress Multiple Hosts

The second option Kubernetes Ingress provides is the ability to route to multiple hosts.

Think of it as routing to multiple domains.

Let’s say you have two domains test.example.com and demo.example.com.

Here’s how you can setup a Kubernetes Ingress resource to map to different services based on the host in the HTTP request.

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

Basically, this is made possible because the rules section can contain a list of host sections.

Each host section takes care of a particular host value. In other words, requests received by the Ingress controller are forwarded to either test or demo service depending on the Host header in the request.

Of course, at the DNS level, both test.example.com and demo.example.com should point to the IP address of the Ingress Controller.

Conclusion

That’s all for this post.

You now know two different ways of utilizing Kubernetes Ingress resources:

• With multiple paths
• With multiple hosts

In fact, you can achieve more flexibility by playing around with these configuration settings depending on your exact requirement.

Anyways, before we end this post, a quick reminder about the Progressive Code Newsletter where I explain System Design & Cloud concepts in a fun & interesting manner so that you never forget what you’ve learned.

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