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About Cluster Networking Options

This topic describes the networking options for accessing applications deployed on clusters created with Replicated Compatibility Matrix. It also describes how to use and manage Compatibility Matrix tunnels.

Networking Options​

After deploying your application into Compatibility Matrix clusters, you will want to execute your tests using your own test runner. In order to do this, you need to access your application. Compatibility matrix offers several methods to access your application.

Some standard Kubernetes networking options are available, but vary based on the distribution. For VM-based distributions, there is no default network route into the cluster, making inbound connections challenging to create.

Port Forwarding​

Port forwarding is a low-cost and portable mechanism to access your application. Port forwarding works on all clusters supported by Compatibility Matrix because the connection is initiated from the client, over the Kubernetes API server port. If you have a single service or pod and are not worried about complex routing, this is a good mechanism. The basic steps are to connect the port-forward, execute your tests against localhost, and then shut down the port-forward.

LoadBalancer​

If your application is only running on cloud services (EKS, GKE, AKS) you can create a service of type LoadBalancer. This will provision the cloud-provider specific load balancer. The LoadBalancer service will be filled by the in-tree Kubernetes functionality that's integrated with the underlying cloud provider. You can then query the service definition using kubectl and connect to and execute your tests over the LoadBalancer IP address.

Ingress​

Ingress is a good way to recreate customer-representative environments, but the problem still remains on how to get inbound access to the IP address that the ingress controller allocates. Ingress is also not perfectly portable; each ingress controller might require different annotations in the ingress resource to work properly. Supported ingress controllers vary based on the distribution. Compatibility matrix supports ingress controllers that are running as a NodePort service.

Compatibility Matrix Tunnels​

All VM-based Compatibility Matrix clusters support tunneling traffic into a NodePort service. When this option is used, Replicated is responsible for creating the DNS record and TLS certs. Replicated will route traffic from :443 and/or :80 into the NodePort service you defined. For more information about using tunnels, see Expose Ports Using Tunnels.