Expose NGINX Gateway Fabric

Overview

Gain access to NGINX Gateway Fabric by creating either a NodePort service or a LoadBalancer service in the same namespace as the controller. The service name is specified in the --service argument of the controller.

Important:
The service manifests configure NGINX Gateway Fabric on ports 80 and 443, affecting any gateway listeners on these ports. To use different ports, update the manifests. NGINX Gateway Fabric requires a configured gateway resource with a valid listener to listen on any ports.

NGINX Gateway Fabric uses the created service to update the Addresses field in the Gateway Status resource. Using a LoadBalancer service sets this field to the IP address and/or hostname of that service. Without a service, the pod IP address is used.

This gateway is associated with the NGINX Gateway Fabric through the gatewayClassName field. The default installation of NGINX Gateway Fabric creates a GatewayClass with the name nginx. NGINX Gateway Fabric will only configure gateways with a gatewayClassName of nginx unless you change the name via the --gatewayclass command-line flag.

Create a NodePort service

To create a NodePort service run the following command:

kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nginxinc/nginx-gateway-fabric/v1.3.0/deploy/manifests/service/nodeport.yaml

A NodePort service allocates a port on every cluster node. Access NGINX Gateway Fabric using any node’s IP address and the allocated port.

Create a LoadBalancer Service

To create a LoadBalancer service, use the appropriate manifest for your cloud provider:

GCP (Google Cloud Platform) and Azure

Run the following command:

kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nginxinc/nginx-gateway-fabric/v1.3.0/deploy/manifests/service/loadbalancer.yaml

Lookup the public IP of the load balancer, which is reported in the EXTERNAL-IP column in the output of the following command:
```
kubectl get svc nginx-gateway -n nginx-gateway
```
Use the public IP of the load balancer to access NGINX Gateway Fabric.

AWS (Amazon Web Services)

Run the following command:

kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nginxinc/nginx-gateway-fabric/v1.3.0/deploy/manifests/service/loadbalancer-aws-nlb.yaml

In AWS, the NLB (Network Load Balancer) DNS (directory name system) name will be reported by Kubernetes instead of a public IP in the EXTERNAL-IP column. To get the DNS name, run:
```
kubectl get svc nginx-gateway -n nginx-gateway
```
Note:

We recommend using the NLB DNS whenever possible, but for testing purposes, you can resolve the DNS name to get the IP address of the load balancer:
```
nslookup <dns-name>
```