Install AGIC by using a new Application Gateway deployment

The instructions in this article assume that you want to install the Application Gateway Ingress Controller (AGIC) in an environment that has no preexisting components.

Tip

Consider Application Gateway for Containers for your Kubernetes ingress solution. For more information, see Quickstart: Deploy Application Gateway for Containers ALB Controller.

Install required command-line tools

We recommend the use of Azure Cloud Shell for all the command-line operations in this article. You can open Cloud Shell by selecting the Launch Cloud Shell button.

Alternatively, open Cloud Shell from the Azure portal by selecting its icon.

Azure PowerShell icon in the portal

Your Cloud Shell instance already has all necessary tools. If you choose to use another environment, ensure that the following command-line tools are installed:

Create an identity

Use the following steps to create a Microsoft Entra service principal object.

  1. Create an Active Directory service principal, which includes an Azure role-based access control (RBAC) role:

    az ad sp create-for-rbac --role Contributor --scopes /subscriptions/mySubscriptionID -o json > auth.json
    appId=$(jq -r ".appId" auth.json)
    password=$(jq -r ".password" auth.json)
    

    Record the appId and password values from the JSON output. You'll use them in the next steps.

  2. Use the appId value from the previous command's output to get the id of the new service principal:

    objectId=$(az ad sp show --id $appId --query "id" -o tsv)
    

    The output of this command is objectId. Record this value, because you'll use it in the next step.

  3. Create the parameter file that you'll use in the Azure Resource Manager template (ARM template) deployment:

    cat <<EOF > parameters.json
    {
      "aksServicePrincipalAppId": { "value": "$appId" },
      "aksServicePrincipalClientSecret": { "value": "$password" },
      "aksServicePrincipalObjectId": { "value": "$objectId" },
      "aksEnableRBAC": { "value": false }
    }
    EOF
    

    To deploy a Kubernetes RBAC-enabled cluster, set aksEnableRBAC to true.

Deploy components

The following procedure adds these components to your subscription:

To deploy the components:

  1. Download the ARM template:

    wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Azure/application-gateway-kubernetes-ingress/master/deploy/azuredeploy.json -O template.json
    
  2. Deploy the ARM template by using the Azure CLI, and modify it as needed. The deployment might take up to 5 minutes.

    resourceGroupName="MyResourceGroup"
    location="westus2"
    deploymentName="ingress-appgw"
    
    # create a resource group
    az group create -n $resourceGroupName -l $location
    
    # modify the template as needed
    az deployment group create \
            -g $resourceGroupName \
            -n $deploymentName \
            --template-file template.json \
            --parameters parameters.json
    
  3. After the deployment finishes, download the deployment output into a file named deployment-outputs.json:

    az deployment group show -g $resourceGroupName -n $deploymentName --query "properties.outputs" -o json > deployment-outputs.json
    

Set up AGIC

With the instructions in the previous section, you created and configured a new AKS cluster and an Application Gateway deployment. You're now ready to deploy a sample app and an ingress controller to your new Kubernetes infrastructure.

Set up Kubernetes credentials

For the following steps, you need to set up the kubectl command, which you'll use to connect to your new Kubernetes cluster. Cloud Shell has kubectl already installed. You'll use az (Azure CLI) to obtain credentials for Kubernetes.

Get credentials for your newly deployed AKS instance. For more information about the following commands, see Use Azure RBAC for Kubernetes authorization with kubectl.

# use the deployment-outputs.json file created after deployment to get the cluster name and resource group name
aksClusterName=$(jq -r ".aksClusterName.value" deployment-outputs.json)
resourceGroupName=$(jq -r ".resourceGroupName.value" deployment-outputs.json)

az aks get-credentials --resource-group $resourceGroupName --name $aksClusterName

Install Microsoft Entra Pod Identity

Microsoft Entra Pod Identity provides token-based access to Azure Resource Manager.

Microsoft Entra Pod Identity adds the following components to your Kubernetes cluster:

To install Microsoft Entra Pod Identity to your cluster, use one of the following commands:

  • Kubernetes RBAC-enabled AKS cluster:

    kubectl create -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Azure/aad-pod-identity/master/deploy/infra/deployment-rbac.yaml
    
  • Kubernetes RBAC-disabled AKS cluster:

    kubectl create -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Azure/aad-pod-identity/master/deploy/infra/deployment.yaml
    

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 one of the following commands to add the AGIC Helm repository:

  • Kubernetes RBAC-enabled AKS cluster:

    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
    
  • Kubernetes RBAC-disabled AKS cluster:

    helm init
    

Install the ingress controller's Helm chart

  1. Use the deployment-outputs.json file that you created earlier to create the following variables:

    applicationGatewayName=$(jq -r ".applicationGatewayName.value" deployment-outputs.json)
    resourceGroupName=$(jq -r ".resourceGroupName.value" deployment-outputs.json)
    subscriptionId=$(jq -r ".subscriptionId.value" deployment-outputs.json)
    identityClientId=$(jq -r ".identityClientId.value" deployment-outputs.json)
    identityResourceId=$(jq -r ".identityResourceId.value" deployment-outputs.json)
    
  2. Download helm-config.yaml, which configures AGIC:

    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 will manage
    #
    appgw:
        subscriptionId: <subscriptionId>
        resourceGroup: <resourceGroupName>
        name: <applicationGatewayName>
    
        # Setting appgw.shared to "true" will create 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 will 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: AAD-Pod-Identity (https://github.com/Azure/aad-pod-identity)
    armAuth:
        type: aadPodIdentity
        identityResourceID: <identityResourceId>
        identityClientID:  <identityClientId>
    
    ## Alternatively you can use Service Principal credentials
    # armAuth:
    #    type: servicePrincipal
    #    secretJSON: <<Generate this value with: "az ad sp create-for-rbac --subscription <subscription-uuid> --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>
    
  3. Edit the newly downloaded helm-config.yaml file and fill out the sections for appgw and armAuth:

    sed -i "s|<subscriptionId>|${subscriptionId}|g" helm-config.yaml
    sed -i "s|<resourceGroupName>|${resourceGroupName}|g" helm-config.yaml
    sed -i "s|<applicationGatewayName>|${applicationGatewayName}|g" helm-config.yaml
    sed -i "s|<identityResourceId>|${identityResourceId}|g" helm-config.yaml
    sed -i "s|<identityClientId>|${identityClientId}|g" helm-config.yaml
    

    Note

    If you're deploying to a sovereign cloud (for example, Azure Government), you must add the appgw.environment configuration parameter and set it to the appropriate value.

    Here are the values:

    • verbosityLevel: Sets the verbosity level of the AGIC logging infrastructure. For possible values, see Logging levels.
    • appgw.environment: Sets the cloud environment. Possible values: AZURECHINACLOUD, AZUREGERMANCLOUD, AZUREPUBLICCLOUD, AZUREUSGOVERNMENTCLOUD.
    • appgw.subscriptionId: The Azure subscription ID in which Application Gateway resides. Example: aaaa0000-bb11-2222-33cc-444444dddddd.
    • appgw.resourceGroup: Name of the Azure resource group in which you created the Application Gateway deployment. Example: app-gw-resource-group.
    • appgw.name: Name of the Application Gateway deployment. Example: applicationgatewayd0f0.
    • appgw.shared: Boolean flag that defaults to false. Set it to true if you need a shared Application Gateway deployment.
    • kubernetes.watchNamespace: Specifies the namespace that AGIC should watch. The namespace value can be a single string value or a comma-separated list of namespaces.
    • armAuth.type: Could be aadPodIdentity or servicePrincipal.
    • armAuth.identityResourceID: Resource ID of the Azure managed identity.
    • armAuth.identityClientID: Client ID of the identity.
    • armAuth.secretJSON: Needed only when you choose a service principal as the secret type (that is, when you set armAuth.type to servicePrincipal).

    Note

    You created the identityResourceID and identityClientID values during the earlier steps for deploying components. You can obtain them again by using the following command:

    az identity show -g <resource-group> -n <identity-name>
    

    In the command, <resource-group> is the resource group of your Application Gateway deployment. The <identity-name> placeholder is the name of the created identity. You can list all identities for a particular subscription by using az identity list.

  4. Install the AGIC package:

    helm install agic-controller oci://mcr.microsoft.com/azure-application-gateway/charts/ingress-azure --version 1.7.5 -f helm-config.yaml
    

Install a sample app

Now that you have Application Gateway, AKS, and AGIC installed, you can install a sample app via Azure Cloud Shell:

cat <<EOF | kubectl apply -f -
apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  name: aspnetapp
  labels:
    app: aspnetapp
spec:
  containers:
  - image: "mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/samples:aspnetapp"
    name: aspnetapp-image
    ports:
    - containerPort: 8080
      protocol: TCP

---

apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: aspnetapp
spec:
  selector:
    app: aspnetapp
  ports:
  - protocol: TCP
    port: 80
    targetPort: 8080

---

apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: Ingress
metadata:
  name: aspnetapp
  annotations:
    kubernetes.io/ingress.class: azure/application-gateway
spec:
  rules:
  - http:
      paths:
      - path: /
        pathType: Exact
        backend:
          service:
            name: aspnetapp
            port:
              number: 80
        pathType: Exact
EOF

Alternatively, you can:

  • Download the preceding YAML file:

    curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Azure/application-gateway-kubernetes-ingress/master/docs/examples/aspnetapp.yaml -o aspnetapp.yaml
    
  • Apply the YAML file:

    kubectl apply -f aspnetapp.yaml
    
  • For more examples on how to expose an AKS service to the internet via HTTP or HTTPS by using Application Gateway, see this how-to guide.
  • For information about Application Gateway for Containers, see this overview article.