15.2. Configuring ExternalIPs for services
As a cluster administrator, you can designate an IP address block that is external to the cluster that can send traffic to services in the cluster.
This functionality is generally most useful for clusters installed on bare-metal hardware.
15.2.1. Prerequisites
- Your network infrastructure must route traffic for the external IP addresses to your cluster.
15.2.2. About ExternalIP
For non-cloud environments, OpenShift Container Platform supports the assignment of external IP addresses to a Service
object spec.externalIPs[]
field through the ExternalIP facility. By setting this field, OpenShift Container Platform assigns an additional virtual IP address to the service. The IP address can be outside the service network defined for the cluster. A service configured with an ExternalIP functions similarly to a service with type=NodePort
, allowing you to direct traffic to a local node for load balancing.
You must configure your networking infrastructure to ensure that the external IP address blocks that you define are routed to the cluster.
OpenShift Container Platform extends the ExternalIP functionality in Kubernetes by adding the following capabilities:
- Restrictions on the use of external IP addresses by users through a configurable policy
- Allocation of an external IP address automatically to a service upon request
Disabled by default, use of ExternalIP functionality can be a security risk, because in-cluster traffic to an external IP address is directed to that service. This could allow cluster users to intercept sensitive traffic destined for external resources.
This feature is supported only in non-cloud deployments. For cloud deployments, use the load balancer services for automatic deployment of a cloud load balancer to target the endpoints of a service.
You can assign an external IP address in the following ways:
- Automatic assignment of an external IP
-
OpenShift Container Platform automatically assigns an IP address from the
autoAssignCIDRs
CIDR block to thespec.externalIPs[]
array when you create aService
object withspec.type=LoadBalancer
set. In this case, OpenShift Container Platform implements a non-cloud version of the load balancer service type and assigns IP addresses to the services. Automatic assignment is disabled by default and must be configured by a cluster administrator as described in the following section. - Manual assignment of an external IP
-
OpenShift Container Platform uses the IP addresses assigned to the
spec.externalIPs[]
array when you create aService
object. You cannot specify an IP address that is already in use by another service.
15.2.2.1. Configuration for ExternalIP
Use of an external IP address in OpenShift Container Platform is governed by the following fields in the Network.config.openshift.io
CR named cluster
:
-
spec.externalIP.autoAssignCIDRs
defines an IP address block used by the load balancer when choosing an external IP address for the service. OpenShift Container Platform supports only a single IP address block for automatic assignment. This can be simpler than having to manage the port space of a limited number of shared IP addresses when manually assigning ExternalIPs to services. If automatic assignment is enabled, aService
object withspec.type=LoadBalancer
is allocated an external IP address. -
spec.externalIP.policy
defines the permissible IP address blocks when manually specifying an IP address. OpenShift Container Platform does not apply policy rules to IP address blocks defined byspec.externalIP.autoAssignCIDRs
.
If routed correctly, external traffic from the configured external IP address block can reach service endpoints through any TCP or UDP port that the service exposes.
You must ensure that the IP address block you assign terminates at one or more nodes in your cluster.
OpenShift Container Platform supports both the automatic and manual assignment of IP addresses, and each address is guaranteed to be assigned to a maximum of one service. This ensures that each service can expose its chosen ports regardless of the ports exposed by other services.
To use IP address blocks defined by autoAssignCIDRs
in OpenShift Container Platform, you must configure the necessary IP address assignment and routing for your host network.
The following YAML describes a service with an external IP address configured:
Example Service
object with spec.externalIPs[]
set
apiVersion: v1 kind: Service metadata: name: http-service spec: clusterIP: 172.30.163.110 externalIPs: - 192.168.132.253 externalTrafficPolicy: Cluster ports: - name: highport nodePort: 31903 port: 30102 protocol: TCP targetPort: 30102 selector: app: web sessionAffinity: None type: LoadBalancer status: loadBalancer: ingress: - ip: 192.168.132.253
15.2.2.2. Restrictions on the assignment of an external IP address
As a cluster administrator, you can specify IP address blocks to allow and to reject.
Restrictions apply only to users without cluster-admin
privileges. A cluster administrator can always set the service spec.externalIPs[]
field to any IP address.
You configure IP address policy with a policy
object defined by specifying the spec.ExternalIP.policy
field. The policy object has the following shape:
{ "policy": { "allowedCIDRs": [], "rejectedCIDRs": [] } }
When configuring policy restrictions, the following rules apply:
-
If
policy={}
is set, then creating aService
object withspec.ExternalIPs[]
set will fail. This is the default for OpenShift Container Platform. -
If
policy=null
is set, then creating aService
object withspec.ExternalIPs[]
set to any IP address is allowed. If
policy
is set and eitherpolicy.allowedCIDRs[]
orpolicy.rejectedCIDRs[]
is set, the following rules apply:-
If
allowedCIDRs[]
andrejectedCIDRs[]
are both set, thenrejectedCIDRs[]
has precedence overallowedCIDRs[]
. -
If
allowedCIDRs[]
is set, creating aService
object withspec.ExternalIPs[]
will succeed only if the specified IP addresses are allowed. -
If
rejectedCIDRs[]
is set, creating aService
object withspec.ExternalIPs[]
will succeed only if the specified IP addresses are not rejected.
-
If
15.2.2.3. Example policy objects
The examples that follow demonstrate several different policy configurations.
In the following example, the policy prevents OpenShift Container Platform from creating any service with an external IP address specified:
Example policy to reject any value specified for
Service
objectspec.externalIPs[]
apiVersion: config.openshift.io/v1 kind: Network metadata: name: cluster spec: externalIP: policy: {} ...
In the following example, both the
allowedCIDRs
andrejectedCIDRs
fields are set.Example policy that includes both allowed and rejected CIDR blocks
apiVersion: config.openshift.io/v1 kind: Network metadata: name: cluster spec: externalIP: policy: allowedCIDRs: - 172.16.66.10/23 rejectedCIDRs: - 172.16.66.10/24 ...
In the following example,
policy
is set tonull
. If set tonull
, when inspecting the configuration object by enteringoc get networks.config.openshift.io -o yaml
, thepolicy
field will not appear in the output.Example policy to allow any value specified for
Service
objectspec.externalIPs[]
apiVersion: config.openshift.io/v1 kind: Network metadata: name: cluster spec: externalIP: policy: null ...
15.2.3. ExternalIP address block configuration
The configuration for ExternalIP address blocks is defined by a Network custom resource (CR) named cluster
. The Network CR is part of the config.openshift.io
API group.
During cluster installation, the Cluster Version Operator (CVO) automatically creates a Network CR named cluster
. Creating any other CR objects of this type is not supported.
The following YAML describes the ExternalIP configuration:
Network.config.openshift.io CR named cluster
apiVersion: config.openshift.io/v1 kind: Network metadata: name: cluster spec: externalIP: autoAssignCIDRs: [] 1 policy: 2 ...
- 1
- Defines the IP address block in CIDR format that is available for automatic assignment of external IP addresses to a service. Only a single IP address range is allowed.
- 2
- Defines restrictions on manual assignment of an IP address to a service. If no restrictions are defined, specifying the
spec.externalIP
field in aService
object is not allowed. By default, no restrictions are defined.
The following YAML describes the fields for the policy
stanza:
Network.config.openshift.io policy
stanza
policy: allowedCIDRs: [] 1 rejectedCIDRs: [] 2
Example external IP configurations
Several possible configurations for external IP address pools are displayed in the following examples:
The following YAML describes a configuration that enables automatically assigned external IP addresses:
Example configuration with
spec.externalIP.autoAssignCIDRs
setapiVersion: config.openshift.io/v1 kind: Network metadata: name: cluster spec: ... externalIP: autoAssignCIDRs: - 192.168.132.254/29
The following YAML configures policy rules for the allowed and rejected CIDR ranges:
Example configuration with
spec.externalIP.policy
setapiVersion: config.openshift.io/v1 kind: Network metadata: name: cluster spec: ... externalIP: policy: allowedCIDRs: - 192.168.132.0/29 - 192.168.132.8/29 rejectedCIDRs: - 192.168.132.7/32
15.2.4. Configure external IP address blocks for your cluster
As a cluster administrator, you can configure the following ExternalIP settings:
-
An ExternalIP address block used by OpenShift Container Platform to automatically populate the
spec.clusterIP
field for aService
object. -
A policy object to restrict what IP addresses may be manually assigned to the
spec.clusterIP
array of aService
object.
Prerequisites
-
Install the OpenShift CLI (
oc
). -
Access to the cluster as a user with the
cluster-admin
role.
Procedure
Optional: To display the current external IP configuration, enter the following command:
$ oc describe networks.config cluster
To edit the configuration, enter the following command:
$ oc edit networks.config cluster
Modify the ExternalIP configuration, as in the following example:
apiVersion: config.openshift.io/v1 kind: Network metadata: name: cluster spec: ... externalIP: 1 ...
- 1
- Specify the configuration for the
externalIP
stanza.
To confirm the updated ExternalIP configuration, enter the following command:
$ oc get networks.config cluster -o go-template='{{.spec.externalIP}}{{"\n"}}'