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Deploying an egress router pod in redirect mode

As a cluster administrator, you can deploy an egress router pod that is configured to redirect traffic to specified destination IP addresses.

Egress router pod specification for redirect mode

Define the configuration for an egress router pod in the Pod object. The following YAML describes the fields for the configuration of an egress router pod in redirect mode:

apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  name: egress-1
  labels:
    name: egress-1
  annotations:
    pod.network.openshift.io/assign-macvlan: "true" (1)
spec:
  initContainers:
  - name: egress-router
    image: openshift/origin-egress-router
    securityContext:
      privileged: true
    env:
    - name: EGRESS_SOURCE (2)
      value: <egress_router>
    - name: EGRESS_GATEWAY (3)
      value: <egress_gateway>
    - name: EGRESS_DESTINATION (4)
      value: <egress_destination>
    - name: EGRESS_ROUTER_MODE
      value: init
  containers:
  - name: egress-router-wait
    image: openshift/origin-pod
1 The annotation tells OKD to create a macvlan network interface on the primary network interface controller (NIC) and move that macvlan interface into the pod’s network namespace. You must include the quotation marks around the "true" value. To have OKD create the macvlan interface on a different NIC interface, set the annotation value to the name of that interface. For example, eth1.
2 IP address from the physical network that the node is on that is reserved for use by the egress router pod. Optional: You can include the subnet length, the /24 suffix, so that a proper route to the local subnet is set. If you do not specify a subnet length, then the egress router can access only the host specified with the EGRESS_GATEWAY variable and no other hosts on the subnet.
3 Same value as the default gateway used by the node.
4 External server to direct traffic to. Using this example, connections to the pod are redirected to 203.0.113.25, with a source IP address of 192.168.12.99.
Example egress router pod specification
apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  name: egress-multi
  labels:
    name: egress-multi
  annotations:
    pod.network.openshift.io/assign-macvlan: "true"
spec:
  initContainers:
  - name: egress-router
    image: openshift/origin-egress-router
    securityContext:
      privileged: true
    env:
    - name: EGRESS_SOURCE
      value: 192.168.12.99/24
    - name: EGRESS_GATEWAY
      value: 192.168.12.1
    - name: EGRESS_DESTINATION
      value: |
        80   tcp 203.0.113.25
        8080 tcp 203.0.113.26 80
        8443 tcp 203.0.113.26 443
        203.0.113.27
    - name: EGRESS_ROUTER_MODE
      value: init
  containers:
  - name: egress-router-wait
    image: openshift/origin-pod

Egress destination configuration format

When an egress router pod is deployed in redirect mode, you can specify redirection rules by using one or more of the following formats:

  • <port> <protocol> <ip_address> - Incoming connections to the given <port> should be redirected to the same port on the given <ip_address>. <protocol> is either tcp or udp.

  • <port> <protocol> <ip_address> <remote_port> - As above, except that the connection is redirected to a different <remote_port> on <ip_address>.

  • <ip_address> - If the last line is a single IP address, then any connections on any other port will be redirected to the corresponding port on that IP address. If there is no fallback IP address then connections on other ports are rejected.

In the example that follows several rules are defined:

  • The first line redirects traffic from local port 80 to port 80 on 203.0.113.25.

  • The second and third lines redirect local ports 8080 and 8443 to remote ports 80 and 443 on 203.0.113.26.

  • The last line matches traffic for any ports not specified in the previous rules.

Example configuration
80   tcp 203.0.113.25
8080 tcp 203.0.113.26 80
8443 tcp 203.0.113.26 443
203.0.113.27

Deploying an egress router pod in redirect mode

In redirect mode, an egress router pod sets up iptables rules to redirect traffic from its own IP address to one or more destination IP addresses. Client pods that need to use the reserved source IP address must be configured to access the service for the egress router rather than connecting directly to the destination IP. You can access the destination service and port from the application pod by using the curl command. For example:

$ curl <router_service_IP> <port>
Prerequisites

  • Install the OpenShift CLI (oc).

  • Log in as a user with cluster-admin privileges.

Procedure

  1. Create an egress router pod.

  2. To ensure that other pods can find the IP address of the egress router pod, create a service to point to the egress router pod, as in the following example:

    apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: egress-1
spec:
  ports:
  - name: http
    port: 80
  - name: https
    port: 443
  type: ClusterIP
  selector:
    name: egress-1

    Your pods can now connect to this service. Their connections are redirected to the corresponding ports on the external server, using the reserved egress IP address.

Additional resources