Exploring Kong Ingress Controller (KIC)

- 2 mins read

Wishing everyone a Happy New Year 2024! In this post, I shift focus from my previous discussion on Kong Gateway to delve into the setup of the Kong Ingress Controller (KIC). Keeping it concise and celebratory for the New Year!

Preparation

Helm serves as a Kubernetes package manager. To install it, execute the following command:

sudo snap install helm --classic

Depending on your configuration, from my K3s master node, I set up my kubeconfig with:

cp /etc/rancher/k3s/k3s.yaml ~/.kube/config
chmod 600 ~/.kube/config

Installing Kong Ingress Controller

Following the Install KIC guide:

wget https://github.com/kubernetes-sigs/gateway-api/releases/download/v1.0.0/standard-install.yaml

# kca is simply an alias for kubectl apply -f
kca standard-install.yaml

Next, create a kong-gatewayclass.yaml:

echo "
---
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
" >> kong-gatewayclass.yaml

kca kong-gatewayclass.yaml

Install Kong via Helm

Add the Kong Helm charts:

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

Install Kong Ingress Controller and Kong Gateway:

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

kic-applications-in-home-lab

kic-services-in-home-lab

Test connectivity with:

export PROXY_IP=$(kubectl get svc --namespace kong kong-gateway-proxy -o jsonpath='{.status.loadBalancer.ingress[0].ip}')
echo $PROXY_IP

curl -i $PROXY_IP

call-proxy-ip-via-kong

Further investigation into Kong charts reveals that KONG_ADMIN_GUI_URL might be restricted to enterprise editions.

kong-admin-gui-url-for-enterprise-only

Adding Kong Ingresses

To replicate the previous routing, set up kong-ingress.yaml:

apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: Ingress
metadata:
  name: kong-ingress
  namespace: llm
  annotations:
    konghq.com/strip-path: 'true'
spec:
  ingressClassName: kong
  rules:
    - http:
        paths:
          - path: /localai
            pathType: ImplementationSpecific
            backend:
              service:
                name: localai-server-svc
                port:
                  number: 80
    - http:
        paths:
          - path: /phi2
            pathType: ImplementationSpecific
            backend:
              service:
                name: llama-phi2-svc
                port:
                  number: 80

Apply the ingress rules:

kca kong-ingress.yaml

kic-ingresses-in-home-lab

KIC In Action

For testing purposes, I added the following to Windows System32\drivers\etc\hosts file:

192.168.68.222      kic.local

Testing on the localai path from WSL:

curl http://kic.local/localai/v1/models

kic-localai-get-models-path

Testing on the phi2 path:

curl http://kic.local/phi2/docs

kic-phi2-docs-path

That concludes the exploration of KIC! Enjoy experimenting! Happy New Year!