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  • Configuring a fallback service
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  • Prerequisites
    • Install Kong
    • Test connectivity to Kong
  • Setup a sample service
  • Setup a fallback service
  • Test the fallback service
You are browsing documentation for an outdated version. See the latest documentation here.

Configuring a fallback service

Learn to setup a fallback service using Ingress resource. The fallback service receives all requests that don’t match against any of the defined Ingress rules. This can be useful if you would like to return a 404 page to the end user if the user clicks a dead link or inputs an incorrect URL.

Before you begin ensure that you have Installed Kong Ingress Controller in your Kubernetes cluster and are able to connect to Kong.

Prerequisites

Install Kong

You can install Kong in your Kubernetes cluster using Helm.

  1. Add the Kong Helm charts:

     helm repo add kong https://charts.konghq.com
     helm repo update
    
  2. Install Kong Ingress Controller and Kong Gateway with Helm:

     helm install kong kong/ingress -n kong --create-namespace
    

Test connectivity to Kong

Kubernetes exposes the proxy through a Kubernetes service. Run the following commands to store the load balancer IP address in a variable named PROXY_IP:

  1. Populate $PROXY_IP for future commands:

     HOST=$(kubectl get svc --namespace kong kong-gateway-proxy -o jsonpath='{.status.loadBalancer.ingress[0].ip}')
     PORT=$(kubectl get svc --namespace kong kong-gateway-proxy -o jsonpath='{.spec.ports[0].port}')
     export PROXY_IP=${HOST}:${PORT}
     echo $PROXY_IP   
    
  2. Ensure that you can call the proxy IP:

     curl -i $PROXY_IP
    

    The results should look like this:

     HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found
     Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8
     Connection: keep-alive
     Content-Length: 48
     X-Kong-Response-Latency: 0
     Server: kong/3.0.0
      
     {"message":"no Route matched with those values"}
    

    If you are not able to connect to Kong, read the deployment guide.

Setup a sample service

  1. Deploy an example echo service.

     kubectl apply -f https://docs.konghq.com/assets/kubernetes-ingress-controller/examples/echo-service.yaml
    

    The results should look like this:

     deployment.apps/echo created
     service/echo created
    
  2. Create an Ingress rule to proxy the echo service.

     $ echo '
     apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1
     kind: Ingress
     metadata:
       name: demo
       annotations:
         konghq.com/strip-path: "true"
     spec:
       ingressClassName: kong
       rules:
       - http:
           paths:
           - path: /echo
             pathType: ImplementationSpecific
             backend:
               service:
                 name: echo
                 port:
                   number: 1027
     ' | kubectl apply -f -
    

    The results should look like this:

     ingress.extensions/demo created
    
  3. Test the Ingress rule:

     $ curl -i $PROXY_IP/echo
    

    The results should look like this:

     HTTP/1.1 200 OK
     Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
     Content-Length: 137
     Connection: keep-alive
     Date: Sun, 17 Sep 2023 19:45:02 GMT
     X-Kong-Upstream-Latency: 1
     X-Kong-Proxy-Latency: 0
     Via: kong/3.3.1
        
     Welcome, you are connected to node kind.
     Running on Pod echo-74d47cc5d9-9zbzh.
     In namespace default.
     With IP address 192.168.194.7.
    

Setup a fallback service

  1. Deploy another sample service service.

    $ echo '
    apiVersion: apps/v1
    kind: Deployment
    metadata:
      name: fallback-svc
    spec:
      replicas: 1
      selector:
        matchLabels:
          app: fallback-svc
      template:
        metadata:
          labels:
            app: fallback-svc
        spec:
          containers:
          - name: fallback-svc
            image: hashicorp/http-echo
            args:
            - "-text"
            - "This is not the path you are looking for. - Fallback service"
            ports:
            - containerPort: 5678
    ---
    apiVersion: v1
    kind: Service
    metadata:
      name: fallback-svc
      labels:
        app: fallback-svc
    spec:
      type: ClusterIP
      ports:
      - port: 80
        targetPort: 5678
        protocol: TCP
        name: http
      selector:
        app: fallback-svc
    ' | kubectl apply -f -
    

    The results should look like this:

    deployment.apps/fallback-svc created
    service/fallback-svc created
    
  2. Configure an Ingress rule to make it the fallback service to send all requests to it that don’t match any of the Ingress rules.

     $ echo "
     apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1
     kind: Ingress
     metadata:
       name: fallback
       annotations:
     spec:
       ingressClassName: kong
       defaultBackend:
         service:
           name: fallback-svc
           port:
             number: 80
     " | kubectl apply -f -
    

    The results should look like this:

     ingress.networking.k8s.io/fallback created
    

    Test the fallback service

    Send a request with a request property that doesn’t match any of the defined rules:

     $ curl $PROXY_IP/random-path
    

    The results should look like this:

     HTTP/1.1 200 OK
     Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
     Content-Length: 61
     Connection: keep-alive
     X-App-Name: http-echo
     X-App-Version: 0.2.3
     Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2023 09:46:56 GMT
     X-Kong-Upstream-Latency: 16
     X-Kong-Proxy-Latency: 0
     Via: kong/3.3.1
    
     This is not the path you are looking for. - Fallback service
    

    This message is from the fallback service that you deployed.

Create more Ingress rules, some complicated regex based ones and see how requests that don’t match any rules, are forwarded to the fallback service.

You can also use Kong’s request-termination plugin on the fallback Ingress resource to terminate all requests at Kong, without forwarding them inside the infrastructure.

Thank you for your feedback.
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