Managing Load Balancer IPs

Reserving a Load Balancer IP using the API

Use the Scaleway API to reserve an IP address (this address has to be a Load Balancer IP). To create a secret key, use the following tutorial:

curl -X POST "https://api.scaleway.com/lb/v1/regions/$SCW_DEFAULT_REGION/ips" -H "X-Auth-Token: $SCW_SECRET_KEY" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d "{\"project_id\":\"$SCW_DEFAULT_PROJECT_ID\"}" | jq -r .ip_addressCopy

This IP address can be re-used every time you create a Load Balancer service (if there is no other Load Balancer using this IP) by using the loadBalancerIP field on the service.

Using a reserved IP address on Kubernetes Load Balancer services

At the time you create or patch a Load Balancer service, you can specify the previously “reserved” IP on the service using the loadBalancerIP spec on the example below (the public Load Balancer IP address is in this case 51.159.24.7):

On the example below we will:

• Create a new Load Balancer with the IP reserved before by patching the tea-svc service.
• Check the IP address was correctly set on this service and that this service is now a Load Balancer one.
• Delete the tea-svc service (showing that the IP address is not deleted).
• Create a new Load Balancer with the IP reserved before by patching the coffee-svc service.

By doing the steps above, we show that we can use a reserved IP on Load Balancer creation and that we can “move” this IP from one service to one another.

# kubectl get svc
NAME         TYPE        CLUSTER-IP     EXTERNAL-IP   PORT(S)   AGE
coffee-svc   ClusterIP   10.32.102.89   <none>        80/TCP    9s
kubernetes   ClusterIP   10.32.0.1      <none>        443/TCP   3m56s
tea-svc      ClusterIP   10.32.57.52    <none>        80/TCP    9s
# kubectl patch svc tea-svc --type merge --patch '{"spec":{"loadBalancerIP": "51.159.24.7","type":"Load Balancer"}}'
service/tea-svc patched
# kubectl get svc
NAME         TYPE           CLUSTER-IP     EXTERNAL-IP   PORT(S)        AGE
coffee-svc   ClusterIP      10.32.102.89   <none>        80/TCP         44s
kubernetes   ClusterIP      10.32.0.1      <none>        443/TCP        4m31s
tea-svc      Load Balancer   10.32.57.52    <pending>     80:32434/TCP   44s
# kubectl get svc
NAME         TYPE           CLUSTER-IP     EXTERNAL-IP   PORT(S)        AGE
coffee-svc   ClusterIP      10.32.102.89   <none>        80/TCP         45s
kubernetes   ClusterIP      10.32.0.1      <none>        443/TCP        4m32s
tea-svc      Load Balancer   10.32.57.52    51.159.24.7   80:32434/TCP   45s
# kubectl delete svc tea-svc
service "tea-svc" deleted
# kubectl patch svc coffee-svc --type merge --patch '{"spec":{"loadBalancerIP": "51.159.24.7","type":"Load Balancer"}}'
service/coffee-svc patched
# kubectl get svc
NAME         TYPE           CLUSTER-IP     EXTERNAL-IP   PORT(S)        AGE
coffee-svc   Load Balancer   10.32.102.89   <pending>     80:31094/TCP   100s
kubernetes   ClusterIP      10.32.0.1      <none>        443/TCP        5m27s
# kubectl get svc
NAME         TYPE           CLUSTER-IP     EXTERNAL-IP   PORT(S)        AGE
coffee-svc   Load Balancer   10.32.102.89   51.159.24.7   80:31094/TCP   103s
kubernetes   ClusterIP      10.32.0.1      <none>        443/TCP        5m30sCopy

As you can see, we have been able to keep the same IP on different Load Balancers. By doing so, we can, for instance, keep the same DNS configuration and move it from one Load Balancer Instance type to another. We have also seen that Kapsule manages the configuration of your Load Balancer for you. The cloud controller manager is in charge of managing the complete lifecycle of your Load Balancer.

Deploying a Load Balancer with specific IP

Instead of creating a Load Balancer service with an ephemeral IP (which changes each time you delete/create the service), you can use a reserved Load Balancer address.

1. Reserve a Load Balancer IP through the following API call:

   curl -X POST "https://api.scaleway.com/lb/v1/regions/$SCW_DEFAULT_REGION/ips" -H "X-Auth-Token: $SCW_SECRET_KEY" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
   -d "{\"organization_id\":\"$SCW_DEFAULT_ORGANIZATION_ID\"} | jq -r .ip_address"Copy

2. Specify this IP address to spec.loadBalancerIP field of the service:

   kind: Service
   apiVersion: v1
   metadata:
   name: demo-nginx
   spec:
   selector:
       app: demo-nginx
   type: Load Balancer
   ports:
   - name: http
       port: 80
       targetPort: 80
   loadBalancerIP: SCW.LB.IP.ADDRCopy

Converting an ephemeral IP into reserved IP

It is possible to keep an ephemeral address (converting into a reserved address) by patching the associated service.

export CURRENT_EXTERNAL_IP=$(kubectl get svc $SERVICE_NAME -o json | jq -r .status.loadBalancer.ingress[0].ip)
kubectl patch svc $SERVICE_NAME --type merge --patch "{\"spec\":{\"loadBalancerIP\": \"$CURRENT_EXTERNAL_IP\"}}"Copy

This way, the ephemeral IP would not be deleted when the service will be deleted and could be reused in another service.