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May 13, 2024
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MetalLB in Kubernetes Cluster

How to setup a MetalLB in kubernetes cluster to allow EXTERNAL-IP to work
  • Grega Rotar

Preparation

If you’re using kube-proxy in IPVS mode, since Kubernetes v1.14.2 you have to enable strict ARP mode.

Note, you don’t need this if you’re using kube-router as service-proxy because it is enabling strict ARP by default.

You can achieve this by editing kube-proxy config in current cluster:

kubectl edit configmap -n kube-system kube-proxy

You can also add this configuration snippet to your kubeadm-config, just append it with --- after the main configuration.

If you are trying to automate this change, these shell snippets may help you:

# see what changes would be made, returns nonzero returncode if different
kubectl get configmap kube-proxy -n kube-system -o yaml | \
sed -e "s/strictARP: false/strictARP: true/" | \
kubectl diff -f - -n kube-system

# actually apply the changes, returns nonzero returncode on errors only
kubectl get configmap kube-proxy -n kube-system -o yaml | \
sed -e "s/strictARP: false/strictARP: true/" | \
kubectl apply -f - -n kube-system

Instalation By Manifest

To install MetalLB, apply the manifest:

kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/metallb/metallb/v0.14.5/config/manifests/metallb-native.yaml

Go to https://metallb.universe.tf/installation/ to find latest verison.

There are other installation options available, which are also found on upper link.

IPAddressPool

With applying this .yml file you create pool for external ip addresses.

apiVersion: metallb.io/v1beta1
kind: IPAddressPool
metadata:
  name: first-pool
  namespace: metallb-system
spec:
  addresses:
    #  - 192.168.1.203-192.168.1.208
    - 10.30.0.0/16

---
apiVersion: metallb.io/v1beta1
kind: L2Advertisement
metadata:
  name: example
  namespace: metallb-system

Find out more at: https://metallb.io/configuration/_advanced_ipaddresspool_configuration/

Best regards,
Grega Rotar