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How to get started, and achieve tasks, using Kubernetes

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Creating an External Load Balancer

Overview

When creating a service, you have the option of automatically creating a network load balancer. This provides an externally-accessible IP address that sends traffic to the correct port on your cluster nodes.

Configuration file

To create an external load balancer, add the following line to your service configuration file:

"type": "LoadBalancer"

Your configuration file might look like:

{
  "kind": "Service",
  "apiVersion": "v1",
  "metadata": {
    "name": "example-service"
  },
  "spec": {
    "ports": [{
      "port": 8765,
      "targetPort": 9376
    }],
    "selector": {
      "app": "example"
    },
    "type": "LoadBalancer"
  }
}

Using kubectl

You can alternatively create the service with the kubectl expose command and its --type=LoadBalancer flag:

$ kubectl expose rc example --port=8765 --target-port=9376 \
    --name=example-service --type=LoadBalancer

This command creates a new service using the same selectors as the referenced resource (in the case of the example above, a replication controller named example.)

For more information, including optional flags, refer to the kubectl expose reference.

Finding your IP address

You can find the IP address created for your service by getting the service information through kubectl:

$ kubectl describe services example-service
Name:  example-service
Selector:   app=example
Type:     LoadBalancer
IP:     10.67.252.103
LoadBalancer Ingress: 123.45.678.9
Port:     <unnamed> 80/TCP
NodePort:   <unnamed> 32445/TCP
Endpoints:    10.64.0.4:80,10.64.1.5:80,10.64.2.4:80
Session Affinity: None
No events.

The IP address is listed next to LoadBalancer Ingress.

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