Nginx Ingress Controller for Dashboard service on Minikube can be easily installed with this in-depth guide by our experts. 

At Bobcares, we offer solutions for every query, big and small, as a part of our Server Management Services.

Let’s take a look at how our Support Team is ready to help customers setup Nginx Ingress Controller for Dashboard service on Minikube.

Setting up Nginx Ingress Controller for Dashboard service on Minikube

Today we are going to take a look at how our Support Engineers set up name-based Ingress rules in addition to enabling Ingress controller on Minikube. This permits the Ingress controller to take over and follow through the rules in forwarding requests to kubernetes-dashboard service.

Moreover, our Support Techs will also demonstrate how to map Minikube’s IP to a CNAME in the local /etc/hosts file.

Ingress controllers are pods like other applications. They are a part of the cluster and are able to see other pods. Furthermore, we have to expose them with the help of a Service with type either LoadBalancer or NodePort.

Additionally, the controller has the ability to inspect HTTP requests and direct clients to the correct pod depending on the characteristics like URL path or domain name.

How to install Nginx Ingress Controller on Minikube

1. First, we start the Minikube with the following command:

   $ minikube start --vm=true  --driver=hyperkit

   We need to specify the driver in the command as seen above. According to our Support Techs, not using the driver flag results in the Minikube opting for Docker rather than vm.
2. Next, we enable the NGINX Ingress controller in the Kubernetes cluster on Minikube with this command:

   $ minikube addons enable ingress
   Verifying ingress addon...
   The 'ingress' addon is enabled
3. Then, execute the command below to see the ingress-nginx-controller pod up and running in the kube-system namespace:

   $ kubectl get pods -n kube-system
   NAME                                        READY   STATUS      RESTARTS   AGE
   coredns-66bff467f8-r9fxd                    1/1     Running     0          3m1s
   etcd-minikube                               1/1     Running     0          3m4s
   ingress-nginx-admission-create-tctgw        0/1     Completed   0          2m4s
   ingress-nginx-admission-patch-6bwhd         0/1     Completed   0          2m4s
   ingress-nginx-controller-69ccf5d9d8-r7724   1/1     Running     0          2m4s
   kube-apiserver-minikube                     1/1     Running     0          3m4s
   kube-controller-manager-minikube            1/1     Running     0          3m4s
   kube-proxy-l29xr                            1/1     Running     0          3m1s
   kube-scheduler-minikube                     1/1     Running     0          3m4s
   storage-provisioner                         1/1     Running     0          3m4s

How to create Ingress rules

At this point, the kubernetes-dashboard is not available externally.

$ kubectl get all -n kubernetes-dashboard
NAME                                            READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
pod/dashboard-metrics-scraper-dc6947fbf-rw5tv   1/1     Running   0          4m40s
pod/kubernetes-dashboard-6dbb54fd95-k85gz       1/1     Running   0          4m40s

NAME                                TYPE        CLUSTER-IP       EXTERNAL-IP   PORT(S)    AGE
service/dashboard-metrics-scraper   ClusterIP   10.106.255.59            8000/TCP   4m40s
service/kubernetes-dashboard        ClusterIP   10.107.136.213           80/TCP     4m40s

NAME                                        READY   UP-TO-DATE   AVAILABLE   AGE
deployment.apps/dashboard-metrics-scraper   1/1     1            1           4m41s
deployment.apps/kubernetes-dashboard        1/1     1            1           4m41s

NAME                                                  DESIRED   CURRENT   READY   AGE
replicaset.apps/dashboard-metrics-scraper-dc6947fbf   1         1         1       4m41s
replicaset.apps/kubernetes-dashboard-6dbb54fd95       1         1         1       4m41s

In other words, we do not have access to any about the kubernetes-dashboard unless we execute this command:

$ kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kubernetes/dashboard/v2.0.0/aio/deploy/recommended.yaml   
namespace/kubernetes-dashboard configured
serviceaccount/kubernetes-dashboard configured
service/kubernetes-dashboard configured
secret/kubernetes-dashboard-certs configured
secret/kubernetes-dashboard-csrf configured
Warning: kubectl apply should be used on resource created by either kubectl create --save-config or kubectl apply
secret/kubernetes-dashboard-key-holder configured
configmap/kubernetes-dashboard-settings configured
role.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/kubernetes-dashboard configured
clusterrole.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/kubernetes-dashboard configured
rolebinding.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/kubernetes-dashboard configured
The ClusterRoleBinding "kubernetes-dashboard" is invalid: roleRef: Invalid value: rbac.RoleRef{APIGroup:"rbac.authorization.k8s.io", Kind:"ClusterRole", Name:"kubernetes-dashboard"}: cannot change roleRef

The output of the kubectl get all -n kubernetes-dashboard lets us know that the pod and service for the Dashboard are up and running. So, it is time to set up Ingress rules to access it via the hostname.

Before that, we have to take a look at the dashboard-ingress.yaml:

apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: Ingress
metadata:
  name: dashboard-ingress
  namespace: kubernetes-dashboard
spec:
  rules:
  - host: dashboard.info
    http:
      paths:
        - pathType: Prefix
          path: "/"
          backend:
            service:
              name: kubernetes-dashboard
              port:
                number: 80

This tells us that the rules are currently forwarding every request in regards to dashboard.info to the internal kubernetes-dashboard service.

Hence, we create the ingress rules as seen below:

$ kubectl apply -f dashboard-ingress.yaml
ingress.networking.k8s.io/dashboard-ingress created  

$ kubectl get ingress -n kubernetes-dashboard
NAME                CLASS    HOSTS            ADDRESS        PORTS   AGE
dashboard-ingress      dashboard.info   192.168.64.7   80      108s

Our Support Engineers recommend adding the information to /etc/hosts:

192.168.64.7    dashboard.info

After this is set up, any future requests from the Minikube cluster are taken over by the Ingress controller. It then follows through with the rules and ultimately forwards the requests to the kubernetes-dashboard.

Now, head to the browser and enter the domain name, dashboard.info to see a screen similar to the one below:

In case none of the paths or hosts match the HTTP request in the Ingress rules, the traffic heads to the default backend. For instance, the “404 page not found” response if the path is not present in any of the Ingress objects.

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Conclusion

In brief, our skilled Support Engineers at Bobcares demonstrated how to set up Nginx Ingress Controller for Dashboard service on Minikube.