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Ingress Operator in OpenShift Container Platform

OpenShift Container Platform Ingress Operator

When you create your OpenShift Container Platform cluster, pods and services running on the cluster are each allocated their own IP addresses. The IP addresses are accessible to other pods and services running nearby but are not accessible to outside clients. The Ingress Operator implements the IngressController API and is the component responsible for enabling external access to OpenShift Container Platform cluster services.

The Ingress Operator makes it possible for external clients to access your service by deploying and managing one or more HAProxy-based Ingress Controllers to handle routing. You can use the Ingress Operator to route traffic by specifying OpenShift Container Platform Route and Kubernetes Ingress resources. Configurations within the Ingress Controller, such as the ability to define endpointPublishingStrategy type and internal load balancing, provide ways to publish Ingress Controller endpoints.

The Ingress configuration asset

The installation program generates an asset with an Ingress resource in the config.openshift.io API group, cluster-ingress-02-config.yml.

YAML Definition of the Ingress resource
apiVersion: config.openshift.io/v1
kind: Ingress
metadata:
  name: cluster
spec:
  domain: apps.openshiftdemos.com

The installation program stores this asset in the cluster-ingress-02-config.yml file in the manifests/ directory. This Ingress resource defines the cluster-wide configuration for Ingress. This Ingress configuration is used as follows:

  • The Ingress Operator uses the domain from the cluster Ingress configuration as the domain for the default Ingress Controller.

  • The OpenShift API Server Operator uses the domain from the cluster Ingress configuration. This domain is also used when generating a default host for a Route resource that does not specify an explicit host.

Ingress Controller configuration parameters

The ingresscontrollers.operator.openshift.io resource offers the following configuration parameters.

Parameter Description

domain

domain is a DNS name serviced by the Ingress Controller and is used to configure multiple features:

  • For the LoadBalancerService endpoint publishing strategy, domain is used to configure DNS records. See endpointPublishingStrategy.

  • When using a generated default certificate, the certificate is valid for domain and its subdomains. See defaultCertificate.

  • The value is published to individual Route statuses so that users know where to target external DNS records.

The domain value must be unique among all Ingress Controllers and cannot be updated.

If empty, the default value is ingress.config.openshift.io/cluster .spec.domain.

replicas

replicas is the desired number of Ingress Controller replicas. If not set, the default value is 2.

endpointPublishingStrategy

endpointPublishingStrategy is used to publish the Ingress Controller endpoints to other networks, enable load balancer integrations, and provide access to other systems.

If not set, the default value is based on infrastructure.config.openshift.io/cluster .status.platform:

  • AWS: LoadBalancerService (with external scope)

  • Azure: LoadBalancerService (with external scope)

  • GCP: LoadBalancerService (with external scope)

  • Bare metal: NodePortService

  • Other: HostNetwork

For most platforms, the endpointPublishingStrategy value cannot be updated. However, on GCP, you can configure the loadbalancer.providerParameters.gcp.clientAccess subfield.

defaultCertificate

The defaultCertificate value is a reference to a secret that contains the default certificate that is served by the Ingress Controller. When Routes do not specify their own certificate, defaultCertificate is used.

The secret must contain the following keys and data: * tls.crt: certificate file contents * tls.key: key file contents

If not set, a wildcard certificate is automatically generated and used. The certificate is valid for the Ingress Controller domain and subdomains, and the generated certificate’s CA is automatically integrated with the cluster’s trust store.

The in-use certificate, whether generated or user-specified, is automatically integrated with OpenShift Container Platform built-in OAuth server.

namespaceSelector

namespaceSelector is used to filter the set of namespaces serviced by the Ingress Controller. This is useful for implementing shards.

routeSelector

routeSelector is used to filter the set of Routes serviced by the Ingress Controller. This is useful for implementing shards.

nodePlacement

nodePlacement enables explicit control over the scheduling of the Ingress Controller.

If not set, the defaults values are used.

The nodePlacement parameter includes two parts, nodeSelector and tolerations. For example:

nodePlacement:
 nodeSelector:
   matchLabels:
     kubernetes.io/os: linux
 tolerations:
 - effect: NoSchedule
   operator: Exists

tlsSecurityProfile

tlsSecurityProfile specifies settings for TLS connections for Ingress Controllers.

If not set, the default value is based on the apiservers.config.openshift.io/cluster resource.

When using the Old, Intermediate, and Modern profile types, the effective profile configuration is subject to change between releases. For example, given a specification to use the Intermediate profile deployed on release X.Y.Z, an upgrade to release X.Y.Z+1 may cause a new profile configuration to be applied to the Ingress Controller, resulting in a rollout.

The minimum TLS version for Ingress Controllers is 1.1, and the maximum TLS version is 1.3.

Ciphers and the minimum TLS version of the configured security profile are reflected in the TLSProfile status.

The Ingress Operator converts the TLS 1.0 of an Old or Custom profile to 1.1.

clientTLS

clientTLS authenticates client access to the cluster and services; as a result, mutual TLS authentication is enabled. If not set, then client TLS is not enabled.

clientTLS has the required subfields, spec.clientTLS.clientCertificatePolicy and spec.clientTLS.ClientCA.

The ClientCertificatePolicy subfield accepts one of the two values: Required or Optional. The ClientCA subfield specifies a config map that is in the openshift-config namespace. The config map should contain a CA certificate bundle. The AllowedSubjectPatterns is an optional value that specifies a list of regular expressions, which are matched against the distinguished name on a valid client certificate to filter requests. The regular expressions must use PCRE syntax. At least one pattern must match a client certificate’s distinguished name; otherwise, the ingress controller rejects the certificate and denies the connection. If not specified, the ingress controller does not reject certificates based on the distinguished name.

routeAdmission

routeAdmission defines a policy for handling new route claims, such as allowing or denying claims across namespaces.

namespaceOwnership describes how hostname claims across namespaces should be handled. The default is Strict.

  • Strict: does not allow routes to claim the same hostname across namespaces.

  • InterNamespaceAllowed: allows routes to claim different paths of the same hostname across namespaces.

wildcardPolicy describes how routes with wildcard policies are handled by the Ingress Controller.

  • WildcardsAllowed: Indicates routes with any wildcard policy are admitted by the Ingress Controller.

  • WildcardsDisallowed: Indicates only routes with a wildcard policy of None are admitted by the Ingress Controller. Updating wildcardPolicy from WildcardsAllowed to WildcardsDisallowed causes admitted routes with a wildcard policy of Subdomain to stop working. These routes must be recreated to a wildcard policy of None to be readmitted by the Ingress Controller. WildcardsDisallowed is the default setting.

IngressControllerLogging

logging defines parameters for what is logged where. If this field is empty, operational logs are enabled but access logs are disabled.

  • access describes how client requests are logged. If this field is empty, access logging is disabled.

    • destination describes a destination for log messages.

      • type is the type of destination for logs:

        • Container specifies that logs should go to a sidecar container. The Ingress Operator configures the container, named logs, on the Ingress Controller pod and configures the Ingress Controller to write logs to the container. The expectation is that the administrator configures a custom logging solution that reads logs from this container. Using container logs means that logs may be dropped if the rate of logs exceeds the container runtime capacity or the custom logging solution capacity.

        • Syslog specifies that logs are sent to a Syslog endpoint. The administrator must specify an endpoint that can receive Syslog messages. The expectation is that the administrator has configured a custom Syslog instance.

      • container describes parameters for the Container logging destination type. Currently there are no parameters for container logging, so this field must be empty.

      • syslog describes parameters for the Syslog logging destination type:

        • address is the IP address of the syslog endpoint that receives log messages.

        • port is the UDP port number of the syslog endpoint that receives log messages.

        • facility specifies the syslog facility of log messages. If this field is empty, the facility is local1. Otherwise, it must specify a valid syslog facility: kern, user, mail, daemon, auth, syslog, lpr, news, uucp, cron, auth2, ftp, ntp, audit, alert, cron2, local0, local1, local2, local3. local4, local5, local6, or local7.

    • httpLogFormat specifies the format of the log message for an HTTP request. If this field is empty, log messages use the implementation’s default HTTP log format. For HAProxy’s default HTTP log format, see the HAProxy documentation.

httpHeaders

httpHeaders defines the policy for HTTP headers.

By setting the forwardedHeaderPolicy for the IngressControllerHTTPHeaders, you specify when and how the Ingress controller sets the Forwarded, X-Forwarded-For, X-Forwarded-Host, X-Forwarded-Port, X-Forwarded-Proto, and X-Forwarded-Proto-Version HTTP headers.

By default, the policy is set to Append.

  • Append specifies that the Ingress Controller appends the headers, preserving any existing headers.

  • Replace specifies that the Ingress Controller sets the headers, removing any existing headers.

  • IfNone specifies that the Ingress Controller sets the headers if they are not already set.

  • Never specifies that the Ingress Controller never sets the headers, preserving any existing headers.

By setting headerNameCaseAdjustments, you can specify case adjustments that can be applied to HTTP header names. Each adjustment is specified as an HTTP header name with the desired capitalization. For example, specifying X-Forwarded-For indicates that the x-forwarded-for HTTP header should be adjusted to have the specified capitalization.

These adjustments are only applied to cleartext, edge-terminated, and re-encrypt routes, and only when using HTTP/1.

For request headers, these adjustments are applied only for routes that have the haproxy.router.openshift.io/h1-adjust-case=true annotation. For response headers, these adjustments are applied to all HTTP responses. If this field is empty, no request headers are adjusted.

httpErrorCodePages

httpErrorCodePages specifies custom HTTP error code response pages. By default, an IngressController uses error pages built into the IngressController image.

tuningOptions

tuningOptions specifies options for tuning the performance of Ingress Controller pods.

  • headerBufferBytes specifies how much memory is reserved, in bytes, for Ingress Controller connection sessions. This value must be at least 16384 if HTTP/2 is enabled for the Ingress Controller. If not set, the default value is 32768 bytes. Setting this field not recommended because headerBufferBytes values that are too small can break the Ingress Controller, and headerBufferBytes values that are too large could cause the Ingress Controller to use significantly more memory than necessary.

  • headerBufferMaxRewriteBytes specifies how much memory should be reserved, in bytes, from headerBufferBytes for HTTP header rewriting and appending for Ingress Controller connection sessions. The minimum value for headerBufferMaxRewriteBytes is 4096. headerBufferBytes must be greater than headerBufferMaxRewriteBytes for incoming HTTP requests. If not set, the default value is 8192 bytes. Setting this field not recommended because headerBufferMaxRewriteBytes values that are too small can break the Ingress Controller and headerBufferMaxRewriteBytes values that are too large could cause the Ingress Controller to use significantly more memory than necessary.

  • threadCount specifies the number of threads to create per HAProxy process. Creating more threads allows each Ingress Controller pod to handle more connections, at the cost of more system resources being used. HAProxy supports up to 64 threads. If this field is empty, the Ingress Controller uses the default value of 4 threads. The default value can change in future releases. Setting this field is not recommended because increasing the number of HAProxy threads allows Ingress Controller pods to use more CPU time under load, and prevent other pods from receiving the CPU resources they need to perform. Reducing the number of threads can cause the Ingress Controller to perform poorly.

  • clientTimeout specifies how long a connection is held open while waiting for a client response. If unset, the default timeout is 30s.

  • serverFinTimeout specifies how long a connection is held open while waiting for the server response to the client that is closing the connection. If unset, the default timeout is 1s.

  • serverTimeout specifies how long a connection is held open while waiting for a server response. If unset, the default timeout is 30s.

  • clientFinTimeout specifies how long a connection is held open while waiting for the client response to the server closing the connection. If unset, the default timeout is 1s.

  • tlsInspectDelay specifies how long the router can hold data to find a matching route. Setting this value too short can cause the router to fall back to the default certificate for edge-terminated, reencrypted, or passthrough routes, even when using a better matched certificate. If unset, the default inspect delay is 5s.

  • tunnelTimeout specifies how long a tunnel connection, including websockets, remains open while the tunnel is idle. If unset, the default timeout is 1h.

logEmptyRequests

logEmptyRequests specifies connections for which no request is received and logged. These empty requests come from load balancer health probes or web browser speculative connections (preconnect) and logging these requests can be undesirable. However, these requests can be caused by network errors, in which case logging empty requests can be useful for diagnosing the errors. These requests can be caused by port scans, and logging empty requests can aid in detecting intrusion attempts. Allowed values for this field are Log and Ignore. The default value is Log.

The LoggingPolicy type accepts either one of two values:

  • Log: Setting this value to Log indicates that an event should be logged.

  • Ignore: Setting this value to Ignore sets the dontlognull option in the HAproxy configuration.

HTTPEmptyRequestsPolicy

HTTPEmptyRequestsPolicy describes how HTTP connections are handled if the connection times out before a request is received. Allowed values for this field are Respond and Ignore. The default value is Respond.

The HTTPEmptyRequestsPolicy type accepts either one of two values:

  • Respond: If the field is set to Respond, the Ingress Controller sends an HTTP 400 or 408 response, logs the connection if access logging is enabled, and counts the connection in the appropriate metrics.

  • Ignore: Setting this option to Ignore adds the http-ignore-probes parameter in the HAproxy configuration. If the field is set to Ignore, the Ingress Controller closes the connection without sending a response, then logs the connection, or incrementing metrics.

These connections come from load balancer health probes or web browser speculative connections (preconnect) and can be safely ignored. However, these requests can be caused by network errors, so setting this field to Ignore can impede detection and diagnosis of problems. These requests can be caused by port scans, in which case logging empty requests can aid in detecting intrusion attempts.

All parameters are optional.

Ingress Controller TLS security profiles

TLS security profiles provide a way for servers to regulate which ciphers a connecting client can use when connecting to the server.

Understanding TLS security profiles

You can use a TLS (Transport Layer Security) security profile to define which TLS ciphers are required by various OpenShift Container Platform components. The OpenShift Container Platform TLS security profiles are based on Mozilla recommended configurations.

You can specify one of the following TLS security profiles for each component:

Table 1. TLS security profiles
Profile Description

Old

This profile is intended for use with legacy clients or libraries. The profile is based on the Old backward compatibility recommended configuration.

The Old profile requires a minimum TLS version of 1.0.

For the Ingress Controller, the minimum TLS version is converted from 1.0 to 1.1.

Intermediate

This profile is the recommended configuration for the majority of clients. It is the default TLS security profile for the Ingress Controller, kubelet, and control plane. The profile is based on the Intermediate compatibility recommended configuration.

The Intermediate profile requires a minimum TLS version of 1.2.

Modern

This profile is intended for use with modern clients that have no need for backwards compatibility. This profile is based on the Modern compatibility recommended configuration.

The Modern profile requires a minimum TLS version of 1.3.

Custom

This profile allows you to define the TLS version and ciphers to use.

Use caution when using a Custom profile, because invalid configurations can cause problems.

When using one of the predefined profile types, the effective profile configuration is subject to change between releases. For example, given a specification to use the Intermediate profile deployed on release X.Y.Z, an upgrade to release X.Y.Z+1 might cause a new profile configuration to be applied, resulting in a rollout.

Configuring the TLS security profile for the Ingress Controller

To configure a TLS security profile for an Ingress Controller, edit the IngressController custom resource (CR) to specify a predefined or custom TLS security profile. If a TLS security profile is not configured, the default value is based on the TLS security profile set for the API server.

Sample IngressController CR that configures the Old TLS security profile
apiVersion: operator.openshift.io/v1
kind: IngressController
 ...
spec:
  tlsSecurityProfile:
    old: {}
    type: Old
 ...

The TLS security profile defines the minimum TLS version and the TLS ciphers for TLS connections for Ingress Controllers.

You can see the ciphers and the minimum TLS version of the configured TLS security profile in the IngressController custom resource (CR) under Status.Tls Profile and the configured TLS security profile under Spec.Tls Security Profile. For the Custom TLS security profile, the specific ciphers and minimum TLS version are listed under both parameters.

The HAProxy Ingress Controller image supports TLS 1.3 and the Modern profile.

The Ingress Operator also converts the TLS 1.0 of an Old or Custom profile to 1.1.
Prerequisites

  • You have access to the cluster as a user with the cluster-admin role.

Procedure

  1. Edit the IngressController CR in the openshift-ingress-operator project to configure the TLS security profile:

    $ oc edit IngressController default -n openshift-ingress-operator

  2. Add the spec.tlsSecurityProfile field:

    Sample IngressController CR for a Custom profile
    apiVersion: operator.openshift.io/v1
kind: IngressController
 ...
spec:
  tlsSecurityProfile:
    type: Custom (1)
    custom: (2)
      ciphers: (3)
      - ECDHE-ECDSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305
      - ECDHE-RSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305
      - ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256
      - ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256
      minTLSVersion: VersionTLS11
 ...
    1 Specify the TLS security profile type (Old, Intermediate, or Custom). The default is Intermediate.
    2 Specify the appropriate field for the selected type:

    • old: {}

    • intermediate: {}

    • custom:
    3 For the custom type, specify a list of TLS ciphers and minimum accepted TLS version.

  3. Save the file to apply the changes.

Verification

  • Verify that the profile is set in the IngressController CR:

    $ oc describe IngressController default -n openshift-ingress-operator
    Example output
    Name:         default
Namespace:    openshift-ingress-operator
Labels:       <none>
Annotations:  <none>
API Version:  operator.openshift.io/v1
Kind:         IngressController
 ...
Spec:
 ...
  Tls Security Profile:
    Custom:
      Ciphers:
        ECDHE-ECDSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305
        ECDHE-RSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305
        ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256
        ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256
      Min TLS Version:  VersionTLS11
    Type:               Custom
 ...

Configuring mutual TLS authentication

You can configure the Ingress Controller to enable mutual TLS (mTLS) authentication by setting a spec.clientTLS value. The clientTLS value configures the Ingress Controller to verify client certificates. This configuration includes setting a clientCA value, which is a reference to a config map. The config map contains the PEM-encoded CA certificate bundle that is used to verify a client’s certificate. Optionally, you can configure a list of certificate subject filters.

If the clientCA value specifies an X509v3 certificate revocation list (CRL) distribution point, the Ingress Operator downloads the CRL and configures the Ingress Controller to acknowledge it. Requests that do not provide valid certificates are rejected.

Prerequisites

  • You have access to the cluster as a user with the cluster-admin role.

Procedure

  1. Create a config map that is in the openshift-config namespace:

    $ oc create configmap router-ca-certs-default --from-file=ca-bundle.pem=client-ca.crt -n openshift-config

    The config map data key must be ca-bundle.pem, and the data value must be a CA certificate in PEM format.

  2. Edit the IngressController resource in the openshift-ingress-operator project:

    $ oc edit IngressController default -n openshift-ingress-operator

  3. Add the spec.clientTLS field and subfields to configure mutual TLS:

    Sample IngressController CR for a clientTLS profile that specifies filtering patterns
      apiVersion: operator.openshift.io/v1
  kind: IngressController
  metadata:
    name: default
    namespace: openshift-ingress-operator
  spec:
    clientTLS:
      clientCertificatePolicy: Required
      clientCA:
        name: router-ca-certs-default
      allowedSubjectPatterns:
      - "^/CN=example.com/ST=NC/C=US/O=Security/OU=OpenShift$"

Ingress controller endpoint publishing strategy

NodePortService endpoint publishing strategy

The NodePortService endpoint publishing strategy publishes the Ingress Controller using a Kubernetes NodePort service.

In this configuration, the Ingress Controller deployment uses container networking. A NodePortService is created to publish the deployment. The specific node ports are dynamically allocated by OpenShift Container Platform; however, to support static port allocations, your changes to the node port field of the managed NodePortService are preserved.