Use TLS with an ingress controller on Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
The transport layer security (TLS) protocol uses certificates to provide security for communication, encryption, authentication, and integrity. Using TLS with an ingress controller on AKS allows you to secure communication between your applications and experience the benefits of an ingress controller.
You can bring your own certificates and integrate them with the Secrets Store CSI driver. Alternatively, you can use cert-manager, which automatically generates and configures Let's Encrypt certificates. Two applications run in the AKS cluster, each of which is accessible over a single IP address.
Important
The Application routing add-on is recommended for ingress in AKS. For more information, see Managed nginx Ingress with the application routing add-on.
Important
Microsoft does not manage or support cert-manager and any issues stemming from its use. For issues with cert-manager, see cert-manager troubleshooting documentation.
There are two open source ingress controllers for Kubernetes based on Nginx: one is maintained by the Kubernetes community (kubernetes/ingress-nginx), and one is maintained by NGINX, Inc. (nginxinc/kubernetes-ingress). This article uses the Kubernetes community ingress controller.
Before you begin
This article assumes you have an ingress controller and applications set up. If you need an ingress controller or example applications, see Create an ingress controller.
This article uses Helm 3 to install the NGINX ingress controller on a supported version of Kubernetes. Make sure you're using the latest release of Helm and have access to the
ingress-nginx
andjetstack
Helm repositories. The steps outlined in this article may not be compatible with previous versions of the Helm chart, NGINX ingress controller, or Kubernetes.- For more information on configuring and using Helm, see Install applications with Helm in AKS. For upgrade instructions, see the Helm install docs.
This article assumes you have an existing AKS cluster with an integrated Azure Container Registry (ACR). For more information on creating an AKS cluster with an integrated ACR, see Authenticate with ACR from AKS.
If you're using Azure CLI, this article requires that you're running the Azure CLI version 2.0.64 or later. Run
az --version
to find the version. If you need to install or upgrade, see Install Azure CLI.If you're using Azure PowerShell, this article requires that you're running Azure PowerShell version 5.9.0 or later. Run
Get-InstalledModule -Name Az
to find the version. If you need to install or upgrade, see Install Azure PowerShell.
Use TLS with your own certificates with Secrets Store CSI Driver
To use TLS with your own certificates with Secrets Store CSI Driver, you need an AKS cluster with the Secrets Store CSI Driver configured and an Azure Key Vault instance.
For more information, see Set up Secrets Store CSI Driver to enable NGINX Ingress Controller with TLS.
Use TLS with Let's Encrypt certificates
To use TLS with Let's Encrypt certificates, you'll deploy cert-manager, which automatically generates and configures Let's Encrypt certificates.
Import the cert-manager images used by the Helm chart into your ACR
Use
az acr import
to import the following images into your ACR.REGISTRY_NAME=<REGISTRY_NAME> CERT_MANAGER_REGISTRY=quay.io CERT_MANAGER_TAG=v1.8.0 CERT_MANAGER_IMAGE_CONTROLLER=jetstack/cert-manager-controller CERT_MANAGER_IMAGE_WEBHOOK=jetstack/cert-manager-webhook CERT_MANAGER_IMAGE_CAINJECTOR=jetstack/cert-manager-cainjector az acr import --name $REGISTRY_NAME --source $CERT_MANAGER_REGISTRY/$CERT_MANAGER_IMAGE_CONTROLLER:$CERT_MANAGER_TAG --image $CERT_MANAGER_IMAGE_CONTROLLER:$CERT_MANAGER_TAG az acr import --name $REGISTRY_NAME --source $CERT_MANAGER_REGISTRY/$CERT_MANAGER_IMAGE_WEBHOOK:$CERT_MANAGER_TAG --image $CERT_MANAGER_IMAGE_WEBHOOK:$CERT_MANAGER_TAG az acr import --name $REGISTRY_NAME --source $CERT_MANAGER_REGISTRY/$CERT_MANAGER_IMAGE_CAINJECTOR:$CERT_MANAGER_TAG --image $CERT_MANAGER_IMAGE_CAINJECTOR:$CERT_MANAGER_TAG
Note
You can also import Helm charts into your ACR. For more information, see Push and pull Helm charts to an ACR.
Ingress controller configuration options
You can configure your NGINX ingress controller using either a static public IP address or a dynamic public IP address. If you're using a custom domain, you need to add an A record to your DNS zone. If you're not using a custom domain, you can configure a fully qualified domain name (FQDN) for the ingress controller IP address.
Create a static or dynamic public IP address
Use a static public IP address
You can configure your ingress controller with a static public IP address. The static public IP address remains if you delete your ingress controller. The IP address doesn't remain if you delete your AKS cluster.
When you upgrade your ingress controller, you must pass a parameter to the Helm release to ensure the ingress controller service is made aware of the load balancer that will be allocated to it. For the HTTPS certificates to work correctly, you use a DNS label to configure an FQDN for the ingress controller IP address.
Get the resource group name of the AKS cluster with the
az aks show
command.az aks show --resource-group myResourceGroup --name myAKSCluster --query nodeResourceGroup -o tsv
Create a public IP address with the static allocation method using the
az network public-ip create
command. The following example creates a public IP address named myAKSPublicIP in the AKS cluster resource group obtained in the previous step.az network public-ip create --resource-group MC_myResourceGroup_myAKSCluster_eastus --name myAKSPublicIP --sku Standard --allocation-method static --query publicIp.ipAddress -o tsv
Note
Alternatively, you can create an IP address in a different resource group, which you can manage separately from your AKS cluster. If you create an IP address in a different resource group, ensure the following are true:
- The cluster identity used by the AKS cluster has delegated permissions to the resource group, such as Network Contributor.
- Add the
--set controller.service.annotations."service\.beta\.kubernetes\.io/azure-load-balancer-resource-group"="<RESOURCE_GROUP>"
parameter. Replace<RESOURCE_GROUP>
with the name of the resource group where the IP address resides.
Add the
--set controller.service.annotations."service\.beta\.kubernetes\.io/azure-dns-label-name"="<DNS_LABEL>"
parameter. The DNS label can be set either when the ingress controller is first deployed, or it can be configured later.Add the
--set controller.service.loadBalancerIP="<STATIC_IP>"
parameter. Specify your own public IP address that was created in the previous step.DNS_LABEL="<DNS_LABEL>" NAMESPACE="ingress-basic" STATIC_IP=<STATIC_IP> helm upgrade ingress-nginx ingress-nginx/ingress-nginx \ --namespace $NAMESPACE \ --set controller.service.annotations."service\.beta\.kubernetes\.io/azure-dns-label-name"=$DNS_LABEL \ --set controller.service.loadBalancerIP=$STATIC_IP \ --set controller.service.annotations."service\.beta\.kubernetes\.io/azure-load-balancer-health-probe-request-path"=/healthz
For more information, see Use a static public IP address and DNS label with the AKS load balancer.
Use a dynamic public IP address
An Azure public IP address is created for your ingress controller upon creation. The public IP address is static for the lifespan of your ingress controller. The public IP address doesn't remain if you delete your ingress controller. If you create a new ingress controller, it will be assigned a new public IP address. Your output should look similar to the following sample output.
Use the
kubectl get service
command to get the public IP address for your ingress controller.# Get the public IP address for your ingress controller kubectl --namespace ingress-basic get services -o wide -w nginx-ingress-ingress-nginx-controller # Sample output NAME TYPE CLUSTER-IP EXTERNAL-IP PORT(S) AGE SELECTOR nginx-ingress-ingress-nginx-controller LoadBalancer 10.0.74.133 EXTERNAL_IP 80:32486/TCP,443:30953/TCP 44s app.kubernetes.io/component=controller,app.kubernetes.io/instance=nginx-ingress,app.kubernetes.io/name=ingress-nginx
Add an A record to your DNS zone
If you're using a custom domain, you need to add an A record to your DNS zone. If you're not using a custom domain, you can configure the public IP address with an FQDN.
Add an A record to your DNS zone with the external IP address of the NGINX service using
az network dns record-set a add-record
.az network dns record-set a add-record \ --resource-group myResourceGroup \ --zone-name MY_CUSTOM_DOMAIN \ --record-set-name "*" \ --ipv4-address MY_EXTERNAL_IP
Configure an FQDN for your ingress controller
Optionally, you can configure an FQDN for the ingress controller IP address instead of a custom domain by setting a DNS label. Your FQDN should follow this form: <CUSTOM DNS LABEL>.<AZURE REGION NAME>.cloudapp.azure.com
.
Important
Your DNS label must be unique within its Azure location.
You can configure your FQDN using one of the following methods:
- Set the DNS label using Azure CLI or Azure PowerShell.
- Set the DNS label using Helm chart settings.
For more information, see Public IP address DNS name labels.
Set the DNS label using Azure CLI or Azure PowerShell
Make sure to replace <DNS_LABEL>
with your unique DNS label.
# Public IP address of your ingress controller
IP="MY_EXTERNAL_IP"
# Name to associate with public IP address
DNSLABEL="<DNS_LABEL>"
# Get the resource-id of the public IP
PUBLICIPID=$(az network public-ip list --query "[?ipAddress!=null]|[?contains(ipAddress, '$IP')].[id]" --output tsv)
# Update public IP address with DNS name
az network public-ip update --ids $PUBLICIPID --dns-name $DNSLABEL
# Display the FQDN
az network public-ip show --ids $PUBLICIPID --query "[dnsSettings.fqdn]" --output tsv
Set the DNS label using Helm chart settings
You can pass an annotation setting to your Helm chart configuration using the --set controller.service.annotations."service\.beta\.kubernetes\.io/azure-dns-label-name"
parameter. This parameter can be set when the ingress controller is first deployed, or it can be configured later.
The following example shows how to update this setting after the controller has been deployed. Make sure to replace <DNS_LABEL>
with your unique DNS label.
DNSLABEL="<DNS_LABEL>"
NAMESPACE="ingress-basic"
helm upgrade ingress-nginx ingress-nginx/ingress-nginx \
--namespace $NAMESPACE \
--set controller.service.annotations."service\.beta\.kubernetes\.io/azure-dns-label-name"=$DNSLABEL \
--set controller.service.annotations."service\.beta\.kubernetes\.io/azure-load-balancer-health-probe-request-path"=/healthz
Install cert-manager
The NGINX ingress controller supports TLS termination. There are several ways to retrieve and configure certificates for HTTPS. This article uses cert-manager, which provides automatic Lets Encrypt certificate generation and management functionality.
To install the cert-manager controller, use the following commands.
# Set variable for ACR location to use for pulling images
ACR_URL=<REGISTRY_URL>
# Label the ingress-basic namespace to disable resource validation
kubectl label namespace ingress-basic cert-manager.io/disable-validation=true
# Add the Jetstack Helm repository
helm repo add jetstack https://charts.jetstack.io
# Update your local Helm chart repository cache
helm repo update
# Install the cert-manager Helm chart
helm install cert-manager jetstack/cert-manager \
--namespace ingress-basic \
--version=$CERT_MANAGER_TAG \
--set installCRDs=true \
--set nodeSelector."kubernetes\.io/os"=linux \
--set image.repository=$ACR_URL/$CERT_MANAGER_IMAGE_CONTROLLER \
--set image.tag=$CERT_MANAGER_TAG \
--set webhook.image.repository=$ACR_URL/$CERT_MANAGER_IMAGE_WEBHOOK \
--set webhook.image.tag=$CERT_MANAGER_TAG \
--set cainjector.image.repository=$ACR_URL/$CERT_MANAGER_IMAGE_CAINJECTOR \
--set cainjector.image.tag=$CERT_MANAGER_TAG
For more information on cert-manager configuration, see the cert-manager project.
Create a CA cluster issuer
Before certificates can be issued, cert-manager requires one of the following issuers:
- An Issuer, which works in a single namespace.
- A ClusterIssuer resource, which works across all namespaces.
For more information, see the cert-manager issuer documentation.
Create a cluster issuer, such as
cluster-issuer.yaml
, using the following example manifest. ReplaceMY_EMAIL_ADDRESS
with a valid address from your organization.apiVersion: cert-manager.io/v1 kind: ClusterIssuer metadata: name: letsencrypt spec: acme: server: https://acme-v02.api.letsencrypt.org/directory email: MY_EMAIL_ADDRESS privateKeySecretRef: name: letsencrypt solvers: - http01: ingress: class: nginx podTemplate: spec: nodeSelector: "kubernetes.io/os": linux
Apply the issuer using the
kubectl apply
command.kubectl apply -f cluster-issuer.yaml --namespace ingress-basic
Update your ingress routes
You need to update your ingress routes to handle traffic to your FQDN or custom domain.
In the following example, traffic is routed as such:
- Traffic to hello-world-ingress.MY_CUSTOM_DOMAIN is routed to the aks-helloworld-one service.
- Traffic to hello-world-ingress.MY_CUSTOM_DOMAIN/hello-world-two is routed to the aks-helloworld-two service.
- Traffic to hello-world-ingress.MY_CUSTOM_DOMAIN/static is routed to the service named aks-helloworld-one for static assets.
Note
If you configured an FQDN for the ingress controller IP address instead of a custom domain, use the FQDN instead of hello-world-ingress.MY_CUSTOM_DOMAIN.
For example, if your FQDN is demo-aks-ingress.eastus.cloudapp.azure.com, replace hello-world-ingress.MY_CUSTOM_DOMAIN with demo-aks-ingress.eastus.cloudapp.azure.com in hello-world-ingress.yaml
.
Create or update the
hello-world-ingress.yaml
file using the following example YAML file. Update thespec.tls.hosts
andspec.rules.host
to the DNS name you created in a previous step.apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1 kind: Ingress metadata: name: hello-world-ingress annotations: nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/rewrite-target: /$2 nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/use-regex: "true" cert-manager.io/cluster-issuer: letsencrypt spec: ingressClassName: nginx tls: - hosts: - hello-world-ingress.MY_CUSTOM_DOMAIN secretName: tls-secret rules: - host: hello-world-ingress.MY_CUSTOM_DOMAIN http: paths: - path: /hello-world-one(/|$)(.*) pathType: Prefix backend: service: name: aks-helloworld-one port: number: 80 - path: /hello-world-two(/|$)(.*) pathType: Prefix backend: service: name: aks-helloworld-two port: number: 80 - path: /(.*) pathType: Prefix backend: service: name: aks-helloworld-one port: number: 80 --- apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1 kind: Ingress metadata: name: hello-world-ingress-static annotations: nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/ssl-redirect: "false" nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/rewrite-target: /static/$2 spec: ingressClassName: nginx tls: - hosts: - hello-world-ingress.MY_CUSTOM_DOMAIN secretName: tls-secret rules: - host: hello-world-ingress.MY_CUSTOM_DOMAIN http: paths: - path: /static(/|$)(.*) pathType: Prefix backend: service: name: aks-helloworld-one port: number: 80
Update the ingress resource using the
kubectl apply
command.kubectl apply -f hello-world-ingress.yaml --namespace ingress-basic
Verify a certificate object has been created
Next, a certificate resource must be created. The certificate resource defines the desired X.509 certificate. For more information, see cert-manager certificates.
Cert-manager automatically creates a certificate object for you using ingress-shim, which is automatically deployed with cert-manager since v0.2.2. For more information, see the ingress-shim documentation.
To verify that the certificate was created successfully, use the kubectl get certificate --namespace ingress-basic
command and verify READY is True. It may take several minutes to get the output.
kubectl get certificate --namespace ingress-basic
The following output shows the certificate's status.
NAME READY SECRET AGE
tls-secret True tls-secret 11m
Test the ingress configuration
Open a web browser to hello-world-ingress.MY_CUSTOM_DOMAIN or the FQDN of your Kubernetes ingress controller. Ensure the following are true:
- You're redirected to use HTTPS.
- The certificate is trusted.
- The demo application is shown in the web browser.
- Add /hello-world-two to the end of the domain and ensure the second demo application with the custom title is shown.
Clean up resources
This article used Helm to install the ingress components, certificates, and sample apps. When you deploy a Helm chart, many Kubernetes resources are created. These resources include pods, deployments, and services. To clean up these resources, you can either delete the entire sample namespace or the individual resources.
Delete the sample namespace and all resources
Deleting the sample namespace also deletes all the resources in the namespace.
Delete the entire sample namespace using the
kubectl delete
command and specifying your namespace name.kubectl delete namespace ingress-basic
Delete resources individually
Alternatively, you can delete the resource individually.
Remove the cluster issuer resources.
kubectl delete -f cluster-issuer.yaml --namespace ingress-basic
List the Helm releases with the
helm list
command. Look for charts named nginx and cert-manager, as shown in the following example output.$ helm list --namespace ingress-basic NAME NAMESPACE REVISION UPDATED STATUS CHART APP VERSION cert-manager ingress-basic 1 2020-01-15 10:23:36.515514 -0600 CST deployed cert-manager-v0.13.0 v0.13.0 nginx ingress-basic 1 2020-01-15 10:09:45.982693 -0600 CST deployed nginx-ingress-1.29.1 0.27.0
Uninstall the releases using the
helm uninstall
command. The following example uninstalls the NGINX ingress and cert-manager deployments.$ helm uninstall cert-manager nginx --namespace ingress-basic release "cert-manager" uninstalled release "nginx" uninstalled
Remove the two sample applications.
kubectl delete -f aks-helloworld-one.yaml --namespace ingress-basic kubectl delete -f aks-helloworld-two.yaml --namespace ingress-basic
Remove the ingress route that directed traffic to the sample apps.
kubectl delete -f hello-world-ingress.yaml --namespace ingress-basic
Delete the itself namespace. Use the
kubectl delete
command and specify your namespace name.kubectl delete namespace ingress-basic
Next steps
This article included some external components to AKS. To learn more about these components, see the following project pages:
You can also:
Azure Kubernetes Service