Install Kong Ingress Controller

Uses: Kong Ingress Controller

Deployment Platform:

Prerequisites

Kong Konnect

If you don’t have a Konnect account, you can get started quickly with our onboarding wizard.

The following Konnect items are required to complete this tutorial:
- Personal access token (PAT): Create a new personal access token by opening the Konnect PAT page and selecting Generate Token.
Set the personal access token as an environment variable:
```
export KONNECT_TOKEN='YOUR KONNECT TOKEN'
```

Enable the Gateway API (Optional)

Install the Gateway API CRDs before installing Kong Ingress Controller.

kubectl apply -f https://github.com/kubernetes-sigs/gateway-api/releases/download/v1.3.0/standard-install.yaml

Create a Gateway and GatewayClass instance to use.

echo "
apiVersion: v1
kind: Namespace
metadata:
  name: kong
---
apiVersion: gateway.networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: GatewayClass
metadata:
  name: kong
  annotations:
    konghq.com/gatewayclass-unmanaged: 'true'
spec:
  controllerName: konghq.com/kic-gateway-controller
---
apiVersion: gateway.networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: Gateway
metadata:
  name: kong
spec:
  gatewayClassName: kong
  listeners:
  - name: proxy
    port: 80
    protocol: HTTP
    allowedRoutes:
      namespaces:
         from: All
" | kubectl apply -n kong -f -

Konnect setup

For UI setup instructions to install Kong Ingress Controller on Konnect, use the Gateway Manager setup UI.

To create a Kong Ingress Controller in Konnect deployment, you need the following items:

A Kong Ingress Controller Control Plane, including the Control Plane URL
An mTLS certificate for Kong Ingress Controller to talk to Konnect

Create a KIC in Konnect Control Plane

Use the Konnect API to create a new CLUSTER_TYPE_K8S_INGRESS_CONTROLLER Control Plane:

CONTROL_PLANE_DETAILS=$(curl -X POST "https://us.api.konghq.com/v2/control-planes" \
     -H "Authorization: Bearer $KONNECT_TOKEN" \
     --json '{
       "name": "My KIC CP",
       "cluster_type": "CLUSTER_TYPE_K8S_INGRESS_CONTROLLER"
     }')

We’ll need the id and telemetry_endpoint for the values.yaml file later. Save them as environment variables:

CONTROL_PLANE_ID=$(echo $CONTROL_PLANE_DETAILS | jq -r .id)
CONTROL_PLANE_TELEMETRY=$(echo $CONTROL_PLANE_DETAILS | jq -r '.config.telemetry_endpoint | sub("https://";"")')

Create mTLS certificates

Kong Ingress Controller talks to Konnect over a connected secured with TLS certificates.

Generate a new certificate using openssl:

openssl req -new -x509 -nodes -newkey rsa:2048 -subj "/CN=kongdp/C=US" -keyout ./tls.key -out ./tls.crt

The certificate needs to be a single line string to send it to the Konnect API with curl. Use awk to format the certificate:

export CERT=$(awk 'NF {sub(/\r/, ""); printf "%s\\n",$0;}' tls.crt);

Next, upload the certificate to Konnect:

curl -X POST "https://us.api.konghq.com/v2/control-planes/$CONTROL_PLANE_ID/dp-client-certificates" \
     -H "Authorization: Bearer $KONNECT_TOKEN" \
     --json '{
       "cert": "'$CERT'"
     }'

Finally, store the certificate in a Kubernetes secret so that Kong Ingress Controller can read it:

kubectl create namespace kong -o yaml --dry-run=client | kubectl apply -f -
kubectl create secret tls konnect-client-tls -n kong --cert=./tls.crt --key=./tls.key

Create a values.yaml

Kong Ingress Controller must be configured to send it’s configuration to Konnect. Create a values.yaml file by copying and pasting the following command into your terminal:

echo 'controller:
  ingressController:
    image:
      tag: "3.4"
    env:
      feature_gates: "FillIDs=true"
    konnect:
      license:
        enabled: true
      enabled: true
      controlPlaneID: "'$CONTROL_PLANE_ID'"
      tlsClientCertSecretName: konnect-client-tls
      apiHostname: "us.kic.api.konghq.com"

gateway:
  image:
    repository: kong/kong-gateway
    tag: "3.10"
  env:
    konnect_mode: 'on'
    vitals: "off"
    cluster_mtls: pki
    cluster_telemetry_endpoint: "'$CONTROL_PLANE_TELEMETRY':443"
    cluster_telemetry_server_name: "'$CONTROL_PLANE_TELEMETRY'"
    cluster_cert: /etc/secrets/konnect-client-tls/tls.crt
    cluster_cert_key: /etc/secrets/konnect-client-tls/tls.key
    lua_ssl_trusted_certificate: system
    proxy_access_log: "off"
    dns_stale_ttl: "3600"
  resources:
    requests:
      cpu: 1
      memory: "2Gi"
  secretVolumes:
    - konnect-client-tls' > values.yaml

Install Kong

Kong provides Helm charts to install Kong Ingress Controller. Add the Kong charts repo and update to the latest version:

helm repo add kong https://charts.konghq.com
helm repo update

The default values file installs Kong Ingress Controller in Gateway Discovery mode with a DB-less Kong Gateway. This is the recommended deployment topology.

Run helm upgrade --install to install Kong Ingress Controller:

helm upgrade --install kong kong/ingress -n kong --values ./values.yaml

helm install kong kong/ingress -n kong --create-namespace

Test connectivity to Kong

Call the proxy IP:

export PROXY_IP=$(kubectl get svc --namespace kong kong-gateway-proxy -o jsonpath='{range .status.loadBalancer.ingress[0]}{@.ip}{@.hostname}{end}')
curl -i $PROXY_IP

You will receive an HTTP 404 response as there are no routes configured:

HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found
Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8
Connection: keep-alive
Content-Length: 48
X-Kong-Response-Latency: 0
Server: kong/3.9.1

{"message":"no Route matched with those values"}

Next → 2. Services and Routes