Configuring Istio Ingress with AWS NLB

Ingress AWS Network Load Balancer

By Julien SENON / April 20, 2018

This post provides instructions to use and configure ingress Istio with AWS Network Load Balancer.

Network load balancer (NLB) could be used instead of classical load balancer. You can see the comparison between different AWS loadbalancer for more explanation.

Prerequisites

The following instructions require a Kubernetes 1.9.0 or newer cluster.

Usage of AWS nlb on kubernetes is an alpha feature and not recommended for production clusters.

IAM Policy

You need to apply policy on the master role in order to be able to provision network load balancer.

1. In AWS iam console click on policies and click on create a new one:

   

2. Select json:

   

3. Copy/paste text below:

   {
       "Version": "2012-10-17",
       "Statement": [
           {
               "Sid": "kopsK8sNLBMasterPermsRestrictive",
               "Effect": "Allow",
               "Action": [
                   "ec2:DescribeVpcs",
                   "elasticloadbalancing:AddTags",
                   "elasticloadbalancing:CreateListener",
                   "elasticloadbalancing:CreateTargetGroup",
                   "elasticloadbalancing:DeleteListener",
                   "elasticloadbalancing:DeleteTargetGroup",
                   "elasticloadbalancing:DescribeListeners",
                   "elasticloadbalancing:DescribeLoadBalancerPolicies",
                   "elasticloadbalancing:DescribeTargetGroups",
                   "elasticloadbalancing:DescribeTargetHealth",
                   "elasticloadbalancing:ModifyListener",
                   "elasticloadbalancing:ModifyTargetGroup",
                   "elasticloadbalancing:RegisterTargets",
                   "elasticloadbalancing:SetLoadBalancerPoliciesOfListener"
               ],
               "Resource": [
                   "*"
               ]
           },
           {
               "Effect": "Allow",
               "Action": [
                   "ec2:DescribeVpcs",
                   "ec2:DescribeRegions"
               ],
               "Resource": "*"
           }
       ]
   }
   

4. Click review policy, fill all fields and click create policy:

   

5. Click on roles, select you master role nodes, and click attach policy:

   

6. Your policy is now attach to your master node.

Rewrite Istio Ingress Service

You need to rewrite ingress service with the following:

apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: istio-ingress
  namespace: istio-system
  labels:
    istio: ingress
  annotations:
    service.beta.kubernetes.io/aws-load-balancer-type: "nlb"
spec:
  externalTrafficPolicy: Local
  ports:
  - port: 80
    protocol: TCP
    targetPort: 80
    name: http
  - port: 443
    protocol: TCP
    targetPort: 443
    name: https
  selector:
    istio: ingress
  type: LoadBalancer

What's next

Kubernetes service networking should be consulted if further information is needed.