How to Add Load Balancers to Kubernetes Clusters

The DigitalOcean Cloud Controller supports provisioning DigitalOcean Load Balancers in a cluster’s resource configuration file. Load balancers created in the control panel or via the API cannot be used by your Kubernetes clusters.

The example configuration below defines a load balancer and creates it if one with the same name does not already exist. Additional configuration examples are available in the DigitalOcean Cloud Controller Manager repository.

Create a Configuration File

You can add an external load balancer to a cluster by creating a new configuration file or adding the following lines to your existing service config file. Both the type and ports values are required for type: LoadBalancer:

spec:
  type: LoadBalancer
  selector:
    app: nginx-example
  ports:
    - name: http
      protocol: TCP
      port: 80
      targetPort: 80

You can configure how many nodes a load balancer contains at creation by setting the size unit annotation. In the context of a service file, this looks like:

apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: nginx
  annotations:
    kubernetes.digitalocean.com/load-balancer-id: "your-load-balancer-id"
    service.beta.kubernetes.io/do-loadbalancer-size-unit: "3"
    service.beta.kubernetes.io/do-loadbalancer-disable-lets-encrypt-dns-records: "false"
spec:
  type: LoadBalancer
  selector:
    app: nginx-example
  ports:
    - name: http
      protocol: TCP
      port: 80
      targetPort: 80

You can control the load balancer service access by adding firewall rules. Use the LoadBalancerSourceRanges field to allow incoming connections and the deny-list annotation to block incoming connections. The following example configures the load balancer’s firewall to block incoming connections from 198.51.100.0/16 IP block and to accept connections from the 203.0.113.24 and 203.0.113.68 addresses.

apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: nginx
  annotations:
    kubernetes.digitalocean.com/load-balancer-id: "your-load-balancer-id"
    service.beta.kubernetes.io/do-loadbalancer-size-unit: "3"
    service.beta.kubernetes.io/do-loadbalancer-deny-rules: "cidr:198.51.100.0/16"
spec:
  type: LoadBalancer
  selector:
    app: nginx-example
  ports:
    - name: http
      protocol: TCP
      port: 80
      targetPort: 80
  loadBalancerSourceRanges:
    - 203.0.113.24/24, 203.0.113.68/24

This is the minimum definition required to trigger creation of a DigitalOcean Load Balancer on your account and billing begins once the creation is completed.

The number of nodes a load balancer contains determines how many connections it can maintain at once. Load balancers with more nodes can maintain more connections, making them more highly available. The number of nodes can be an integer between 1 and 200 and defaults to 1. Your actual load balancer node limit is determined by your account’s limits. To request a limit increase, contact support.

You can configure load balancer settings, such as adding an internal load balancer and specifying health checks, using annotations in the service config file.

You can resize the load balancer after creation once per minute.

Show Load Balancers

Once you apply the config file to a deployment, you can see the load balancer in the Resources tab of your cluster in the control panel.

Alternatively, use kubectl get services to see its status:

kubectl get services

NAME                   TYPE           CLUSTER-IP      EXTERNAL-IP      PORT(S)        AGE
kubernetes             ClusterIP      192.0.2.1       <none>           443/TCP        2h
sample-load-balancer   LoadBalancer   192.0.2.167     <pending>   80:32490/TCP        6s

When the load balancer creation is complete, the EXTERNAL-IP column displays the external IP address instead of <pending>. In the PORT(S) column, the first port is the incoming port (80), and the second port is the node port (32490), not the container port supplied in the targetPort parameter.

Show Details for One Load Balancer

If the provisioning process for the load balancer is unsuccessful, you can access the service’s event stream to troubleshoot any errors. The event stream includes information on provisioning status and reconciliation errors.

To get detailed information about the load balancer configuration of a single load balancer, including the event stream at the bottom, use kubectl’s describe service command:

kubectl describe service <LB-NAME>

Name:                     sample-load-balancer
Namespace:                default
Labels:                   <none>
Annotations:              kubectl.kubernetes.io/last-applied-configuration={"apiVersion":"v1","kind":"Service","metadata":{"annotations":{},"name":"sample-load-balancer","namespace":"default"},"spec":{"ports":[{"name":"https",...
Selector:                 <none>
Type:                     LoadBalancer
IP Family Policy:         SingleStack
IP Families:              IPv4
IP:                       10.245.178.117
IPs:                      10.245.178.117
LoadBalancer Ingress:     203.0.113.86
Port:                     https  80/TCP
TargetPort:               443/TCP
NodePort:                 https  32490/TCP
Endpoints:                <none>
Session Affinity:         None
External Traffic Policy:  Cluster
Events:
  Type    Reason                Age               From                Message
  ----    ------                ----              ----                -------
  Normal  EnsuringLoadBalancer  3m (x2 over 38m)  service-controller  Ensuring load balancer
  Normal  EnsuredLoadBalancer   1m (x2 over 37m)  service-controller  Ensured load balancer

References

For more about managing load balancers, see:

• Other Kubernetes Components in the DigitalOcean Community’s Introduction to Kubernetes.

• Kubernetes Services in the official Kubernetes Concepts guide