Overview

Ingress exposes HTTP and HTTPS routes from outside the cluster to services within the cluster. Traffic routing is controlled by rules defined on the Ingress resource.

Key Functions

  • Load Balancing: Distributes incoming traffic across multiple backend services.
  • SSL/TLS Termination: Handles secure connections at the edge of the cluster.
  • Name-Based Virtual Hosting: Routes traffic to different services based on the host name (e.g., app.example.com vs api.example.com).
  • Path-Based Routing: Routes traffic based on the URL path (e.g., /shop vs /api).

Ingress Controller

To satisfy an Ingress, the cluster must have an Ingress controller running (e.g., NGINX Ingress Controller, Traefik, Istio Ingress Gateway).

Related Terms