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
Change GatewayParameters and SettingsAdjust settings on the gateway proxy, such as additional labels, security contexts, annotations, and more, by using the GatewayParameters and Settings resources. Gloo Gateway continues to manage the gateway for you. The values that you set in the GatewayParameters and Settings resources are automatically translated and applied 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