Adding Ingress with HAProxy

Josef Polar — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 21:29:42 +0000

After getting the Service running, the next thing I needed was a way to route external HTTP traffic to it. That's where Ingress comes in — and I went with the HAProxy ingress controller.

Installing the HAProxy ingress controller

helm repo add haproxytech https://haproxytech.github.io/helm-charts
helm repo update
helm install haproxy-ingress haproxytech/kubernetes-ingress \
  --namespace ingress-controller \
  --create-namespace

Then I checked it came up:

kubectl get pods -n ingress-controller

Writing the Ingress resource

apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: Ingress
metadata:
  name: my-app-ingress
  annotations:
    kubernetes.io/ingress.class: haproxy
spec:
  rules:
    - host: my-app.example.com
      http:
        paths:
          - path: /
            pathType: Prefix
            backend:
              service:
                name: my-app-service
                port:
                  number: 80

The host field is the domain I want to route. The backend.service.name matches the Service I created earlier — that chain of connections (Deployment → Service → Ingress) is the pattern that keeps repeating in Kubernetes.

Applying it

kubectl apply -f ingress.yaml
kubectl get ingress

Testing it locally

If I don't have a real domain yet, I can fake it by adding an entry to /etc/hosts:

127.0.0.1 my-app.example.com

Then hitting http://my-app.example.com routes traffic through HAProxy into the service and down to the pods.

Getting Started with Kubernetes: Creating a Basic Service

Josef Polar — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 17:31:11 +0000

Run an app in a container, then expose it so traffic could actually reach it. Two resources handle this: a Deployment and a Service.

Step 1: Writing the Deployment

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: my-app
spec:
  replicas: 2
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: my-app
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: my-app
    spec:
      containers:
        - name: my-app
          image: echo-server:latest
          ports:
            - containerPort: 80

This tells Kubernetes to run 2 copies of echo-server and label them app: my-app. The label part matters — I'll need it in a second.

Step 2: Writing the Service

apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: my-app-service
spec:
  selector:
    app: my-app
  ports:
    - protocol: TCP
      port: 80
      targetPort: 80
  type: ClusterIP

The selector matches the label I set in the Deployment. That's how Kubernetes knows which pods to send traffic to. Once I understood that connection, the rest started clicking.

Step 3: Applying both files

kubectl apply -f deployment.yaml
kubectl apply -f service.yaml

Then I checked that everything came up:

kubectl get pods
kubectl get services

Two pods in Running state, and the service listed with a cluster IP. Good sign.

Step 4: Testing it locally

kubectl port-forward service/my-app-service 8080:80

Opened http://localhost:8080 in the browser and got the echo-server return page. It worked.

DEV Community: Josef Polar