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OpenShift Container Platform provides the following methods for communicating from outside the cluster with services running in the cluster.

The methods are recommended, in order or preference:

  • If you have HTTP/HTTPS, use an Ingress Controller.

  • If you have a TLS-encrypted protocol other than HTTPS. For example, for TLS with the SNI header, use an Ingress Controller.

  • Otherwise, use a Load Balancer, an External IP, or a NodePort.

Method Purpose

Use an Ingress Controller

Allows access to HTTP/HTTPS traffic and TLS-encrypted protocols other than HTTPS (for example, TLS with the SNI header).

Automatically assign an external IP using a load balancer service

Allows traffic to non-standard ports through an IP address assigned from a pool.

Manually assign an external IP to a service

Allows traffic to non-standard ports through a specific IP address.

Configure a NodePort

Expose a service on all nodes in the cluster.