Upstream and Target

In this guide you’ll learn how to use the KongUpstream and KongTarget custom resources to manage Kong Konnect upstreams and their targets natively from your Kubernetes cluster.

Before you create any Konnect entity, make sure you've installed Kong Gateway Operator and created a valid KonnectAPIAuthConfiguration and KonnectGatewayControlPlane in your cluster.

Prerequisites

Install Kong Gateway Operator

Update the Helm repository:

helm repo add kong https://charts.konghq.com
helm repo update kong

Install Kong Gateway Operator with Helm:

helm upgrade --install kgo kong/gateway-operator -n kong-system --create-namespace --set image.tag=1.4 \
  --set kubernetes-configuration-crds.enabled=true \
  --set env.ENABLE_CONTROLLER_KONNECT=true

You can wait for the operator to be ready using kubectl wait:

kubectl -n kong-system wait --for=condition=Available=true --timeout=120s deployment/kgo-gateway-operator-controller-manager

Create an access token in Konnect

You may create either a Personal Access Token (PAT) or a Service Account Token (SAT) in Konnect. Please refer to the Konnect authentication documentation for more information. You will need this token to create a KonnectAPIAuthConfiguration object that will be used by the Kong Gateway Operator to authenticate with Konnect APIs.

Create a Kong Konnect API auth configuration

Depending on your preferences, you can create a KonnectAPIAuthConfiguration object with the token specified directly in its spec or as a reference to a Kubernetes Secret. The serverURL field should be set to the Konnect API URL in a region where your Kong Konnect account is located. Please refer to the list of available API URLs for more information.

Directly in specification

Stored in a Secret

echo '
kind: KonnectAPIAuthConfiguration
apiVersion: konnect.konghq.com/v1alpha1
metadata:
  name: konnect-api-auth
  namespace: default
spec:
  type: token
  token: kpat_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
  serverURL: us.api.konghq.com
' | kubectl apply -f -

Please note that the Secret must have the konghq.com/credential: konnect label to make the Kong Gateway Operator reconcile it.

echo '
kind: KonnectAPIAuthConfiguration
apiVersion: konnect.konghq.com/v1alpha1
metadata:
  name: konnect-api-auth
  namespace: default
spec:
  type: secretRef
  secretRef:
    name: konnect-api-auth-secret
  serverURL: us.api.konghq.com
---
kind: Secret
apiVersion: v1
metadata:
  name: konnect-api-auth-secret
  namespace: default
  labels:
    konghq.com/credential: konnect
stringData:
  token: kpat_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
' | kubectl apply -f -

You can verify the KonnectAPIAuthConfiguration object was reconciled successfully by checking its status.

kubectl get konnectapiauthconfiguration konnect-api-auth

The output should look like this:

NAME               VALID   ORGID                                  SERVERURL
konnect-api-auth   True    <your-konnect-org-id>                  https://us.api.konghq.tech

Create a Kong Gateway control plane

Creating the KonnectGatewayControlPlane object in your Kubernetes cluster will provision a Kong Konnect Gateway control plane in your Gateway Manager. The KonnectGatewayControlPlane CR API allows you to explicitly set a type of the Kong Gateway control plane, but if you don’t specify it, the default type is a Self-Managed Hybrid gateway control plane.

You can create one by applying the following YAML manifest:

echo '
kind: KonnectGatewayControlPlane
apiVersion: konnect.konghq.com/v1alpha1
metadata:
  name: gateway-control-plane
  namespace: default
spec:
  name: gateway-control-plane # Name used to identify the Gateway Control Plane in Konnect
  konnect:
    authRef:
      name: konnect-api-auth # Reference to the KonnectAPIAuthConfiguration object
  ' | kubectl apply -f -

You can see the status of the Gateway Control Plane by running:

kubectl get konnectgatewaycontrolplanes.konnect.konghq.com gateway-control-plane

If the Gateway Control Plane is successfully created, you should see the following output:

NAME                    PROGRAMMED   ID                                     ORGID
gateway-control-plane   True         <konnect-control-plane-id>             <your-konnect-ord-id>

Having that in place, you will be able to reference the gateway-control-plane in your Kong Konnect entities as their parent.

Create an upstream

Creating the KongUpstream object in your Kubernetes cluster will provision a Kong Konnect key in your Gateway Manager. You can refer to the CR API to see all the available fields.

Your KongUpstream must be associated with a KonnectGatewayControlPlane object that you’ve created in your cluster. It will make it part of the Gateway Control Plane’s configuration.

To create a KongUpstream, you can apply the following YAML manifest:

echo '
kind: KongUpstream
apiVersion: configuration.konghq.com/v1alpha1
metadata:
  name: upstream
  namespace: default
spec:
  name: upstream
  controlPlaneRef:
    type: konnectNamespacedRef # This indicates that an in cluster reference is used
    konnectNamespacedRef:
      name: gateway-control-plane # KonnectGatewayControlPlane reference
  ' | kubectl apply -f -

You can verify the KongUpstream was reconciled successfully by checking its Programmed condition.

kubectl get kongupstream upstream -o=jsonpath='{.status.conditions[?(@.type=="Programmed")]}' | jq

The output should look similar to this:

{
  "observedGeneration": 1,
  "reason": "Programmed",
  "status": "True",
  "type": "Programmed"
}

At this point, you should see the Upstream in the Gateway Manager UI.

Create a target

Each KongTarget must be associated with a KongUpstream it’s meant to be a backend for. For this reason, you must specify the upstreamRef field in the spec section of the KongTarget object. Please refer to the CR API to see all the available fields.

To create two different KongTargets associated with the KongUpstream created before, you can apply the following YAML manifest:

echo '
kind: KongTarget
apiVersion: configuration.konghq.com/v1alpha1
metadata:
  name: target-a
  namespace: default
spec:
  upstreamRef:
    name: upstream # Reference to the KongUpstream object
  target: "10.0.0.1"
  weight: 30
---
kind: KongTarget
apiVersion: configuration.konghq.com/v1alpha1
metadata:
  name: target-b
  namespace: default
spec:
  upstreamRef:
    name: upstream # Reference to the KongUpstream object
  target: "10.0.0.2"
  weight: 70
  ' | kubectl apply -f - 

You can verify both KongTargets successfully were associated with the KongUpstream by checking their KongUpstreamRefValid condition.

kubectl get kongtarget target-a -o=jsonpath='{.status.conditions[?(@.type=="KongUpstreamRefValid")]}' | jq

The output should look similar to this:

{
  "observedGeneration": 1,
  "reason": "Valid",
  "status": "True",
  "type": "KongUpstreamRefValid"
}

kubectl get kongtarget target-b -o=jsonpath='{.status.conditions[?(@.type=="KongUpstreamRefValid")]}' | jq

The output should look similar to this:

{
  "observedGeneration": 1,
  "reason": "Valid",
  "status": "True",
  "type": "KongUpstreamRefValid"
}

You can also verify both KongTargets were reconciled successfully by checking their Programmed condition.

kubectl get kongtarget target-a -o=jsonpath='{.status.conditions[?(@.type=="Programmed")]}' | jq

The output should look similar to this:

{
  "observedGeneration": 1,
  "reason": "Programmed",
  "status": "True",
  "type": "Programmed"
}

kubectl get kongtarget target-b -o=jsonpath='{.status.conditions[?(@.type=="Programmed")]}' | jq

The output should look similar to this:

{
  "observedGeneration": 1,
  "reason": "Programmed",
  "status": "True",
  "type": "Programmed"
}

At this point, you should see both Targets in the upstream Upstream in the Gateway Manager UI.