Kong Operator is a Kubernetes operator which manages Kong Ingress Controller instances.

With Kong Operator running in your cluster, you can spin up multiple instances of Kong, each of them configured by a Kong custom resource (example). See the Quick Start section below to get up and running.

• Kubernetes v1.15+
  • Try it out: Kong Operator runs on microk8s but requires dns and rbac microk8s addons.
  • Note: Kong Ingress Controller v0.9 does not support the spec.ingressClassName field introduced in Kubernetes v1.18. Instead, use the (deprecated in v1.18) kubernetes.io/ingress.class annotation.
• OKD v4.3+

1. Deploy kong-operator:

   1. Navigate to the Kong operator at OperatorHub.
   2. Click "Install".
   3. Follow the instructions described in the pop-up in order.

2. Deploy a Kong Ingress Controller with example-ingress-class Ingress class (see Configuration section for available options):

   kubectl create -f - <<EOF
   apiVersion: charts.helm.k8s.io/v1alpha1
   kind: Kong
   metadata:
     name: example-kong
   spec:
     proxy:
       type: NodePort
     env:
       prefix: /kong_prefix/
     resources:
       limits:
         cpu: 500m
         memory: 2G
       requests:
         cpu: 100m
         memory: 512Mi
     ingressController:
       enabled: true
       ingressClass: example-ingress-class
       installCRDs: false
   EOF
   

3. Deploy an example Service and expose it with an Ingress:

   1. Deploy the echo service:

      kubectl apply -f https://bit.ly/echo-service
      

   2. Create an Ingress:

      kubectl create -f - <<EOF
      apiVersion: extensions/v1beta1
      kind: Ingress
      metadata:
        name: demo
        annotations:
          # Note that the annotation below is deprecated as of Kubernetes 1.18
          # in favor of the new spec.ingressClassName field. At the moment of writing
          # (Kong Ingress Controller v0.9.0), Kong Ingress Controller does not support
          # the new format yet.
          kubernetes.io/ingress.class: example-ingress-class
      spec:
        rules:
        - http:
            paths:
            - path: /foo
              backend:
                serviceName: echo
                servicePort: 8080
      EOF
      

4. See that Kong works and relays requests to the application!

   PROXY_IP=$(kubectl get service example-kong-kong-proxy -o jsonpath={.spec.clusterIP})
   

   curl http://$PROXY_IP/foo/
   

5. Optional: See the list of Kong Ingress Controllers present in your cluster:

   kubectl get kongs
   
   # Example output:
   # NAME          AGE
   # example-kong  8m
   

6. Optional: Remove an existing Kong Ingress Controller from your cluster:

   kubectl delete kong example-kong
   

For every Kong resource applied to the cluster by kubectl apply, Kong Operator (being a Helm operator under the hood) operates a Helm release of this Helm chart. If you're interested in the inner workings, refer to the official Helm documentation. Note, though, that Kong Operator takes all the responsibility of running Helm. You are expected not to interact with Helm at all.

• When you kubectl create a Kong resource, Kong Operator will asynchronously install a new Helm release of Kong.
• When you kubectl edit or kubectl patch (or edit in some another way) an existing Kong resource, Kong Operator will upgrade the existing release of Kong.
• When you kubectl delete a Kong resource, Kong Operator will delete the existing release of Kong from the cluster.

Stopping the operator does not affect running Kong releases.

You can tailor the configuration of a Kong running in your Kubernetes cluster (if you have chosen Kong Operator as the way of deploying Kong) by defining the desired settings in the .spec field of the Kong resource.

The reference of the .spec object (as well as the default values for unset fields) is the values.yaml file.

If you create a Kong with an empty .spec, the Kong will have the default configuration (as per values.yaml). You can override a certain setting (e.g. ingressController.enabled) by setting the corresponding field under .spec of the Kong resource (in the aforementioned example: .spec.ingressController.enabled).