TOPIC CONTAINERS
Kubernetes Ingress routing external traffic to services inside your cluster
IN 10 SECONDS
An Ingress is a Kubernetes resource that exposes HTTP/HTTPS routes from outside the cluster to services inside. Instead of creating a LoadBalancer for every service, you create one Ingress that routes requests based on hostnames (`api.example.com`) and paths (`/users`, `/orders`) to different backend services.
GOTCHA An Ingress resource is just a config — it does nothing without an Ingress controller (NGINX, Traefik, AWS LB Controller, GKE Ingress). Install a controller first, then your Ingress rules apply.
HOW AN INGRESS ROUTES TRAFFIC
01 External client sends `GET https://api.example.com/users` to the Ingress controller's IP.
02 Ingress controller terminates TLS, examines the `Host` header and path.
03 Controller matches against Ingress rules — `Host: api.example.com` + path `/users` → `service: user-svc, port: 8080`.
04 Service forwards the request to an available pod matching the service's selector labels.
POKE IT YOURSELF
kubectl get ingress -A — list all ingress resources
kubectl describe ingress my-ingress — show routing rules and TLS config
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