Install AGIC by using an existing Application Gateway deployment
The Application Gateway Ingress Controller (AGIC) is a pod within your Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) cluster. AGIC monitors the Kubernetes Ingress resources. It creates and applies an Azure Application Gateway configuration based on the status of the Kubernetes cluster.
Tip
Consider Application Gateway for Containers for your Kubernetes ingress solution. For more information, see Quickstart: Deploy Application Gateway for Containers ALB Controller.
Prerequisites
This article assumes that you already installed the following tools and infrastructure:
- An AKS cluster with Azure Container Networking Interface (CNI).
- Application Gateway v2 in the same virtual network as the AKS cluster.
- Microsoft Entra Workload ID configured for your AKS cluster.
- Azure Cloud Shell as the Azure shell environment, which has
az
(Azure CLI),kubectl
, andhelm
installed. These tools are required for commands that support configuring this deployment.
Add the Helm repository
Helm is a package manager for Kubernetes. You use it to install the application-gateway-kubernetes-ingress
package.
If you use Cloud Shell, you don't need to install Helm. Cloud Shell comes with Helm version 3. Run the following commands to add the AGIC Helm repository for an AKS cluster that's enabled with Kubernetes role-based access control (RBAC):
kubectl create serviceaccount --namespace kube-system tiller-sa
kubectl create clusterrolebinding tiller-cluster-rule --clusterrole=cluster-admin --serviceaccount=kube-system:tiller-sa
helm init --tiller-namespace kube-system --service-account tiller-sa
Back up the Application Gateway deployment
Before you install AGIC, back up your Application Gateway deployment's configuration:
- In the Azure portal, go to your Application Gateway deployment.
- In the Automation section, select Export template and then select Download.
The downloaded .zip file contains JSON templates, Bash scripts, and PowerShell scripts that you can use to restore Application Gateway, if a restoration becomes necessary.
Set up an identity for Resource Manager authentication
AGIC communicates with the Kubernetes API server and Azure Resource Manager. It requires an identity to access these APIs. You can use either Microsoft Entra Workload ID or a service principal.
Set up Microsoft Entra Workload ID
Microsoft Entra Workload ID is an identity that you assign to a software workload. This identity enables your AKS pod to authenticate with other Azure resources.
For this configuration, you need authorization for the AGIC pod to make HTTP requests to Azure Resource Manager.
Use the Azure CLI az account set command to set a specific subscription to be the current active subscription:
az account set --subscription "subscriptionID"
Then use the az identity create command to create a managed identity. You must create the identity in the node resource group. The node resource group is assigned a name by default, such as
MC_myResourceGroup_myAKSCluster_eastus
.az identity create --name "userAssignedIdentityName" --resource-group "resourceGroupName" --location "location" --subscription "subscriptionID"
For the role assignment, run the following command to identify the
principalId
value for the newly created identity:$resourceGroup="resource-group-name" $identityName="identity-name" az identity list -g $resourceGroup --query "[?name == '$identityName'].principalId | [0]" -o tsv
Grant the identity Contributor access to your Application Gateway deployment. You need the ID of the Application Gateway deployment, which looks like
/subscriptions/A/resourceGroups/B/providers/Microsoft.Network/applicationGateways/C
.First, get the list of Application Gateway IDs in your subscription by running the following command:
az network application-gateway list --query '[].id'
To assign the identity Contributor access, run the following command:
$resourceGroup="resource-group-name" $identityName="identity-Name" # Get the Application Gateway ID $AppGatewayID=$(az network application-gateway list --query '[].id' -o tsv) $role="contributor" # Get the principal ID for the user-assigned identity $principalId=$(az identity list -g $resourceGroup --query "[?name == '$identityName'].principalId | [0]" -o tsv) az role assignment create --assignee $principalId --role $role --scope $AppGatewayID
Grant the identity Reader access to the Application Gateway resource group. The resource group ID looks like
/subscriptions/A/resourceGroups/B
. You can get all resource groups by runningaz group list --query '[].id'
.$resourceGroup="resource-group-name" $identityName="identity-Name" # Get the Application Gateway resource group $AppGatewayResourceGroup=$(az network application-gateway list --query '[].resourceGroup' -o tsv) # Get the Application Gateway resource group ID $AppGatewayResourceGroupID=$(az group show --name $AppGatewayResourceGroup --query id -o tsv) $role="Reader" # Get the principal ID for the user-assigned identity $principalId=$(az identity list -g $resourceGroup --query "[?name == '$identityName'].principalId | [0]" -o tsv) # Assign the Reader role to the user-assigned identity at the resource group scope az role assignment create --role $role --assignee $principalId --scope $AppGatewayResourceGroupID
Note
Make sure the identity that AGIC uses has the Microsoft.Network/virtualNetworks/subnets/join/action permission delegated to the subnet where Application Gateway is deployed. If you didn't define a custom role that has this permission, you can use the built-in Network Contributor role.
Set up a service principal
It's also possible to provide AGIC access to Azure Resource Manager by using a Kubernetes secret:
Create an Active Directory service principal and encode it with Base64. The Base64 encoding is required for the JSON blob to be saved to Kubernetes.
az ad sp create-for-rbac --role Contributor --sdk-auth | base64 -w0
Add the Base64-encoded JSON blob to the
helm-config.yaml
file. Thehelm-config.yaml
file configures AGIC.armAuth: type: servicePrincipal secretJSON: <Base64-Encoded-Credentials>
Deploy the AGIC add-on
Create a deployment manifest for the ingress controller
---
# file: pet-supplies-ingress.yaml
apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: Ingress
metadata:
name: pet-supplies-ingress
spec:
ingressClassName: azure-application-gateway
rules:
- http:
paths:
- path: /
pathType: Prefix
backend:
service:
name: store-front
port:
number: 80
- path: /order-service
pathType: Prefix
backend:
service:
name: order-service
port:
number: 3000
- path: /product-service
pathType: Prefix
backend:
service:
name: product-service
port:
number: 3002
Deploy the ingress controller
$namespace="namespace"
$file="pet-supplies-ingress.yaml"
kubectl apply -f $file -n $namespace
Install the ingress controller as a Helm chart
Use Cloud Shell to install the AGIC Helm package:
Perform a Helm update:
helm repo update
Download
helm-config.yaml
:wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Azure/application-gateway-kubernetes-ingress/master/docs/examples/sample-helm-config.yaml -O helm-config.yaml
Or copy the following YAML file:
# This file contains the essential configs for the ingress controller helm chart # Verbosity level of the App Gateway Ingress Controller verbosityLevel: 3 ################################################################################ # Specify which application gateway the ingress controller must manage # appgw: subscriptionId: <subscriptionId> resourceGroup: <resourceGroupName> name: <applicationGatewayName> # Setting appgw.shared to "true" creates an AzureIngressProhibitedTarget CRD. # This prohibits AGIC from applying config for any host/path. # Use "kubectl get AzureIngressProhibitedTargets" to view and change this. shared: false ################################################################################ # Specify which kubernetes namespace the ingress controller must watch # Default value is "default" # Leaving this variable out or setting it to blank or empty string would # result in Ingress Controller observing all accessible namespaces. # # kubernetes: # watchNamespace: <namespace> ################################################################################ # Specify the authentication with Azure Resource Manager # # Two authentication methods are available: # - Option 1: Azure-AD-workload-identity armAuth: type: workloadIdentity identityClientID: <identityClientId> ## Alternatively you can use Service Principal credentials # armAuth: # type: servicePrincipal # secretJSON: <<Generate this value with: "az ad sp create-for-rbac --role Contributor --sdk-auth | base64 -w0" >> ################################################################################ # Specify if the cluster is Kubernetes RBAC enabled or not rbac: enabled: false # true/false # Specify aks cluster related information. THIS IS BEING DEPRECATED. aksClusterConfiguration: apiServerAddress: <aks-api-server-address>
Edit
helm-config.yaml
and fill in the values forappgw
andarmAuth
.Note
<identity-client-id>
is a property of the Microsoft Entra Workload ID value that you set up in the previous section. You can retrieve this information by running the following command:az identity show -g <resourcegroup> -n <identity-name>
. In that command,<resourcegroup>
is the resource group that hosts the infrastructure resources related to the AKS cluster, Application Gateway, and the managed identity.Install the Helm chart with the
helm-config.yaml
configuration from the previous step:helm install agic-controller oci://mcr.microsoft.com/azure-application-gateway/charts/ingress-azure --version 1.7.5 -f helm-config.yaml
Alternatively, you can combine
helm-config.yaml
and the Helm command in one step:helm install oci://mcr.microsoft.com/azure-application-gateway/charts/ingress-azure \ --name agic-controller \ --version 1.7.5 \ --namespace default \ --debug \ --set appgw.name=applicationgatewayABCD \ --set appgw.resourceGroup=your-resource-group \ --set appgw.subscriptionId=subscription-uuid \ --set appgw.shared=false \ --set armAuth.type=servicePrincipal \ --set armAuth.secretJSON=$(az ad sp create-for-rbac --role Contributor --sdk-auth | base64 -w0) \ --set rbac.enabled=true \ --set verbosityLevel=3 \ --set kubernetes.watchNamespace=default \ --set aksClusterConfiguration.apiServerAddress=aks-abcdefg.hcp.westus2.azmk8s.io
Check the log of the newly created pod to verify that it started properly.
To understand how you can expose an AKS service to the internet over HTTP or HTTPS by using an Azure Application Gateway deployment, see this how-to guide.
Set up a shared Application Gateway deployment
By default, AGIC assumes full ownership of the Application Gateway deployment that it's linked to. AGIC version 0.8.0 and later can share a single Application Gateway deployment with other Azure components. For example, you could use the same Application Gateway deployment for an app that's hosted on an Azure virtual machine scale set and an AKS cluster.
Example scenario
Let's look at an imaginary Application Gateway deployment that manages traffic for two websites:
dev.contoso.com
: Hosted on a new AKS cluster by using Application Gateway and AGIC.prod.contoso.com
: Hosted on a virtual machine scale set.
With default settings, AGIC assumes 100% ownership of the Application Gateway deployment that it's pointed to. AGIC overwrites all of the App Gateway configuration. If you manually create a listener for prod.contoso.com
on Application Gateway without defining it in the Kubernetes ingress, AGIC deletes the prod.contoso.com
configuration within seconds.
To install AGIC and also serve prod.contoso.com
from the machines that use the virtual machine scale set, you must constrain AGIC to configuring
dev.contoso.com
only. You facilitate this constraint by instantiating the following custom resource definition (CRD):
cat <<EOF | kubectl apply -f -
apiVersion: "appgw.ingress.k8s.io/v1"
kind: AzureIngressProhibitedTarget
metadata:
name: prod-contoso-com
spec:
hostname: prod.contoso.com
EOF
The preceding command creates an AzureIngressProhibitedTarget
object. This object makes AGIC (version 0.8.0 and later) aware of the existence of
the Application Gateway configuration for prod.contoso.com
. This object also explicitly instructs AGIC to avoid changing any configuration
related to that host name.
Enable a shared Application Gateway deployment by using a new AGIC installation
To limit AGIC (version 0.8.0 and later) to a subset of the Application Gateway configuration, modify the helm-config.yaml
template.
In the appgw:
section, add a shared
key and set it to true
:
appgw:
subscriptionId: <subscriptionId> # existing field
resourceGroup: <resourceGroupName> # existing field
name: <applicationGatewayName> # existing field
shared: true # Add this field to enable shared Application Gateway
Apply the Helm changes:
Ensure that the
AzureIngressProhibitedTarget
CRD is installed:kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Azure/application-gateway-kubernetes-ingress/7b55ad194e7582c47589eb9e78615042e00babf3/crds/AzureIngressProhibitedTarget-v1-CRD-v1.yaml
Update Helm:
helm upgrade \ --recreate-pods \ -f helm-config.yaml \ agic-controller oci://mcr.microsoft.com/azure-application-gateway/charts/ingress-azure
As a result, your AKS cluster has a new instance of AzureIngressProhibitedTarget
called prohibit-all-targets
:
kubectl get AzureIngressProhibitedTargets prohibit-all-targets -o yaml
The prohibit-all-targets
object prohibits AGIC from changing the configuration for any host and path. Helm installed with appgw.shared=true
deploys AGIC, but it doesn't make any changes to Application Gateway.
Broaden permissions
Because Helm with appgw.shared=true
and the default prohibit-all-targets
blocks AGIC from applying a configuration, you must broaden AGIC permissions:
Create a new YAML file named
AzureIngressProhibitedTarget
with the following snippet that contains your specific setup:cat <<EOF | kubectl apply -f - apiVersion: "appgw.ingress.k8s.io/v1" kind: AzureIngressProhibitedTarget metadata: name: your-custom-prohibitions spec: hostname: your.own-hostname.com EOF
Now that you've created your own custom prohibition, you can delete the default one, which is too broad:
kubectl delete AzureIngressProhibitedTarget prohibit-all-targets
Enable a shared Application Gateway deployment for an existing AGIC installation
Assume that you already have a working AKS cluster and an Application Gateway deployment, and you configured AGIC in your cluster. You have an Ingress for prod.contoso.com
and are successfully serving traffic for it from the cluster.
You want to add staging.contoso.com
to your existing Application Gateway deployment, but you need to host it on a virtual machine. You're going to reuse the existing Application Gateway deployment and manually configure a listener and backend pools for staging.contoso.com
. But manually tweaking the Application Gateway configuration (by using the Azure portal, Resource Manager APIs, or Terraform) would conflict with AGIC's assumptions of full ownership. Shortly after you apply changes, AGIC overwrites or deletes them.
You can prohibit AGIC from making changes to a subset of the configuration:
Create a new YAML file named
AzureIngressProhibitedTarget
by using the following snippet:cat <<EOF | kubectl apply -f - apiVersion: "appgw.ingress.k8s.io/v1" kind: AzureIngressProhibitedTarget metadata: name: manually-configured-staging-environment spec: hostname: staging.contoso.com EOF
View the newly created object:
kubectl get AzureIngressProhibitedTargets
Modify the Application Gateway configuration from the Azure portal. For example, add listeners, routing rules, and backends. The new object that you created (
manually-configured-staging-environment
) prohibits AGIC from overwriting the Application Gateway configuration related tostaging.contoso.com
.