Learn-04-Nginx-Gateway-Fabric

Nginx Gateway Fabric Documentation Used

1. https://docs.nginx.com/nginx-gateway-fabric/installation/installing-ngf/manifests/
2. https://docs.nginx.com/nginx-gateway-fabric/how-to/traffic-management/routing-traffic-to-your-app/
3. https://docs.nginx.com/nginx-gateway-fabric/how-to/traffic-management/tls-passthrough/

Project Summary

The reason for testing the Nginx Gateway Fabric (NGF) is that it provides a GA implementation of a Gateway Controller Implementation. Other projects in this series use the Istio implemenation which is also GA. The purpose was to review the functionality provided to determine is there were any significant differences making one more attractive than the other.

Based upon the results of working on this prototype with Nginx Gateway Fabric I found that I personnally prefer the Istio implementation. The major reason for this is that the NGF only supports a single Gateway per kubernetes cluster, whereas Istio supports multiple Gateways within a cluster.

See the GatewayClass - https://docs.nginx.com/nginx-gateway-fabric/overview/gateway-api-compatibility/

Project Implemenation

The project scripts deploy the Kubernetes Gateway API CRDs and then the Nginx Gateway Fabric CRDs. After this it deploys the sample cafe app found within the documentation above into the default namespace. After the sample app deployment the Apple HTTP Echo app is deployed, also to the default namespace. Tests of these deployments use curl.

Due to the limitation of a single Gateway Class instance, no further work was done on extending this prototype.

Project Deployment

Note :
The commands within the shell files below are meant to be copy pasted (one or a few lines at a time) into a terminal, and not run as an automated bash script.

Deployment file Steps - (Step 01-Install Minikube, Gateway, Nginx Gateway

1. Deploy fresh minikube environment.
2. Configure Metallb loadbalancer
3. Deploy Kubernetes Gateway API CRDs
4. Deploy Nginx Gateway Fabric
5. Verify fabric pod deployment
6. Deploy demo coffee app and service
7. Deploy Gateway and HTTPRoute to service
8. Obtain Port and URL
9. Test coffee app access
10. Deploy Apple App (Http echo)
11. Test apple app access