About customizing the gateway

The configuration that is used to spin up a gateway proxy is stored in several custom resources, including GatewayParameters, Settings, and a gateway proxy template. By default, Gloo Gateway creates these resources for you during the installation so that you can spin up gateway proxies with the default proxy configuration. You have the following options to change the default configuration for your gateway proxies:

OptionDescription
Create your own GatewayParameters resource (recommended)To adjust the settings on the gateway proxy, you can create your own GatewayParameters resource. This approach allows you to spin up gateway proxies with different configurations. Keep in mind that you must maintain the GatewayParameters resources that you created manually. The values in these resources are not automatically updated during upgrades.
Change default GatewayParameters and SettingsYou can change the values for the default GatewayParameters and Settings resources by updating the values in the Gloo Gateway Helm chart. Do not update the values in these resources directly as the values do not persist between upgrades. The values that you set in your Helm chart are automatically applied to the default GatewayParameters and Settings resources, and rolled out to the gateway proxies.
Create self-managed gateways with custom proxy templatesIf you want to change the default gateway proxy template and provide your own Envoy configuration to bootstrap the proxy with, you must create a self-managed gateway. For more information, see Self-managed gateways (BYO).

Customize the gateway proxy

The example in this guide uses the GatewayParameters resource to change settings on the gateway proxy. To find other customization examples, see the Gateway customization guides.

  1. Optional: Review the default configuration for your gateway proxies. This configuration can help you identify the settings that you want to change or add.

      kubectl get gatewayparameters gloo-gateway -n gloo-system -o yaml

  2. Create a GatewayParameters resource to add any custom settings to the gateway. The following example makes the following changes:

    • The Kubernetes service type is changed to NodePort (default value: LoadBalancer).
    • The gateway: custom label is added to the gateway proxy service that exposes the proxy (default value: gloo=kube-gateway).
    • The gateway: custom label is added to the gateway proxy pod (default value: gloo=kube-gateway ).
    • The security context of the gateway proxy is changed to use the 50000 as the supplemental group ID and user ID (default values: 10101 ).
      kubectl apply -f- <<EOF
apiVersion: gateway.gloo.solo.io/v1alpha1
kind: GatewayParameters
metadata:
  name: custom-gw-params
  namespace: gloo-system
spec:
  kube: 
    service:
      type: NodePort
      extraLabels: 
        gateway: custom
    podTemplate: 
      extraLabels:
        gateway: custom
      securityContext: 
        fsGroup: 50000
        runAsUser: 50000
EOF

  3. Create a Gateway resource that references your custom GatewayParameters by using the gateway.gloo.solo.io/gateway-parameters-name annotation.

      kubectl apply -f- <<EOF
kind: Gateway
apiVersion: gateway.networking.k8s.io/v1
metadata:
  name: custom
  namespace: gloo-system
  annotations:
    gateway.gloo.solo.io/gateway-parameters-name: "custom-gw-params"
spec:
  gatewayClassName: gloo-gateway
  listeners:
  - protocol: HTTP
    port: 80
    name: http
    allowedRoutes:
      namespaces:
        from: All
EOF

  4. Verify that a pod is created for your gateway proxy and that it has the pod settings that you defined in the GatewayParameters resource.

      kubectl get pods -l app.kubernetes.io/name=gloo-proxy-custom -n gloo-system -o yaml

    Example output:

       apiVersion: v1
   kind: Pod
   metadata:
     annotations:
       prometheus.io/path: /metrics
       prometheus.io/port: "9091"
       prometheus.io/scrape: "true"
     creationTimestamp: "2024-08-07T19:47:27Z"
     generateName: gloo-proxy-custom-7d9bf46f96-
     labels:
       app.kubernetes.io/instance: custom
       app.kubernetes.io/name: gloo-proxy-custom
       gateway: custom
       gateway.networking.k8s.io/gateway-name: custom
       gloo: kube-gateway
   ...
     priority: 0
     restartPolicy: Always
     schedulerName: default-scheduler
     securityContext:
       fsGroup: 50000
       runAsUser: 50000
   ...

  5. Get the details of the service that exposes the gateway proxy. Verify that the service is of type NodePort and that the extra label was added to the service.

      kubectl get service gloo-proxy-custom -n gloo-system -o yaml

    Example output:

       apiVersion: v1
   kind: Service
   metadata:
     creationTimestamp: "2024-08-07T19:47:27Z"
     labels:
       app.kubernetes.io/instance: custom
       app.kubernetes.io/managed-by: Helm
       app.kubernetes.io/name: gloo-proxy-custom
       app.kubernetes.io/version: 2.0.0-alpha1
       gateway: custom
       gateway.networking.k8s.io/gateway-name: custom
       gloo: kube-gateway
       helm.sh/chart: gloo-gateway-0.0.1-alpha1
     name: gloo-proxy-custom
     namespace: gloo-system
     ownerReferences:
     - apiVersion: gateway.networking.k8s.io/v1
       controller: true
       kind: Gateway
       name: custom
       uid: d29417ba-60f9-410c-a023-283b250f3d57
     resourceVersion: "7371789"
     uid: 67945b5f-e55f-42bb-b5f2-c35932659831
   spec:
     ports:
     - name: http
       nodePort: 30579
       port: 80
       protocol: TCP
       targetPort: 8080
     selector:
       app.kubernetes.io/instance: custom
       app.kubernetes.io/name: gloo-proxy-custom
       gateway.networking.k8s.io/gateway-name: custom
     sessionAffinity: None
     type: NodePort

Cleanup

You can optionally remove the resources that you set up as part of this guide.
  kubectl delete gateway custom -n gloo-system
kubectl delete gatewayparameters custom-gw-params -n gloo-system