Get started

Gloo Gateway is a cloud-native Layer 7 proxy that is based on the Kubernetes Gateway API.

Before you begin link

1. Set your Gloo Gateway license key as an environment variable. If you do not have one, contact an account representative.

     export GLOO_GATEWAY_LICENSE_KEY=<license-key>
     

Set up Gloo Gateway link

1. If you have not already, install helm, the Kubernetes package manager.

2. Install the custom resources of the Kubernetes Gateway API.

     kubectl apply -f https://github.com/kubernetes-sigs/gateway-api/releases/download/v1.0.0/standard-install.yaml
     

   Example output:

     customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/gatewayclasses.gateway.networking.k8s.io created
   customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/gateways.gateway.networking.k8s.io created
   customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/httproutes.gateway.networking.k8s.io created
   customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/referencegrants.gateway.networking.k8s.io created
     

3. Add the Helm repository for Gloo Gateway Enterprise.

     helm repo add glooe https://storage.googleapis.com/gloo-ee-helm
   helm repo update
     

4. Install Gloo Gateway Enterprise Edition. This command creates the gloo-system namespace and installs the Gloo Gateway control plane into it.

     helm install -n gloo-system gloo-gateway glooe/gloo-ee \
    --create-namespace \
    --version 1.17.0-beta1 \
    --set-string license_key=$GLOO_GATEWAY_LICENSE_KEY \
    --set gloo.kubeGateway.enabled=true \
    --set gloo.gloo.disableLeaderElection=true \
    --set gloo.discovery.enabled=false \
    --set gloo.observability.enabled=false \
    --set gloo.prometheus.enabled=false \
    --set gloo.grafana.defaultInstallationEnabled=false \
    --set gloo.gloo-fed.enabled=false 
     

   Example output:

     NAME: gloo-gateway
   LAST DEPLOYED: Thu Apr 18 11:50:39 2024
   NAMESPACE: gloo-system
   STATUS: deployed
   REVISION: 2
   TEST SUITE: None
     

5. Verify that the Gloo Gateway control plane is up and running.

     kubectl get pods -n gloo-system | grep gloo
     

   Example output:

     NAME                                  READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
   gloo-78658959cd-cz6jt                 1/1     Running   0          12s
     

6. Verify that the gloo-gateway GatewayClass is created. You can optionally take a look at how the gateway class is configured by adding the -o yaml option to your command.

     kubectl get gatewayclass gloo-gateway 
     

   Example output:

     NAME           CONTROLLER             ACCEPTED   AGE
   gloo-gateway   solo.io/gloo-gateway   True       2m12s
     

7. Create a gateway resource and configure an HTTP listener. The following gateway can serve HTTP resources from all namespaces.

     kubectl apply -n gloo-system -f- <<EOF
   kind: Gateway
   apiVersion: gateway.networking.k8s.io/v1
   metadata:
     name: http
   spec:
     gatewayClassName: gloo-gateway
     listeners:
     - protocol: HTTP
       port: 8080
       name: http
       allowedRoutes:
         namespaces:
           from: All
   EOF
     

8. Verify that the gateway is created successfully. You can also review the external address that is assigned to the gateway.

     kubectl get gateway http -n gloo-system
     

   Example output:

     NAME   CLASS          ADDRESS                                                                  PROGRAMMED   AGE
   http   gloo-gateway   a3a6c06e2f4154185bf3f8af46abf22e-139567718.us-east-2.elb.amazonaws.com   True         93s
     

Deploy a sample app link

1. Create the httpbin namespace.

     kubectl create ns httpbin
     

2. Deploy the httpbin app.

     kubectl -n httpbin apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/solo-io/gloo-mesh-use-cases/main/policy-demo/httpbin.yaml
     

3. Verify that the httpbin app is running.

     kubectl -n httpbin get pods
     

   Example output:

     NAME                      READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
   httpbin-d57c95548-nz98t   3/3     Running   0          18s
     

Expose the app on the gateway link

1. Create an HTTPRoute resource to expose the httpbin app on the gateway. The following example exposes the app on the wwww.example.com domain.

     kubectl apply -f- <<EOF
   apiVersion: gateway.networking.k8s.io/v1beta1
   kind: HTTPRoute
   metadata:
     name: httpbin
     namespace: httpbin
     labels:
       example: httpbin-route
   spec:
     parentRefs:
       - name: http
         namespace: gloo-system
     hostnames:
       - "www.example.com"
     rules:
       - backendRefs:
           - name: httpbin
             port: 8000
   EOF
     

   Setting	Description
   spec.parentRefs	The name and namespace of the gateway resource that serves the route. In this example, you use the HTTP gateway that you created earlier.
   spec.hostnames	A list of hostnames that the route is exposed on.
   spec.rules.backendRefs	The Kubernetes service that serves the incoming request. In this example, requests to www.example.com are forwarded to the httpbin app on port 9000. Note that you must create the HTTP route in the same namespace as the service that serves that route. To create the HTTP route resource in a different namespace, you must create a ReferenceGrant resource to allow the HTTP route to forward requests to a service in a different namespace. For more information, see the Kubernetes API Gateway documentation.

2. Verify that the HTTPRoute is applied successfully.

     kubectl get -n httpbin httproute/httpbin -o yaml
     

3. Send a request to the httpbin app.

   1. Get the external address of the gateway and save it in an environment variable.

        export INGRESS_GW_ADDRESS=$(kubectl get svc -n gloo-system gloo-proxy-http -o jsonpath='{.status.loadBalancer.ingress[0].ip}')
      echo $INGRESS_GW_ADDRESS  
        

   2. Send a request to the httpbin app and verify that you get back a 200 HTTP response code.

        curl -I http://$INGRESS_GW_ADDRESS:8080/headers -H "host: www.example.com:8080"
        

      Example output:

        HTTP/1.1 200 OK
      server: envoy
      date: Wed, 17 Jan 2024 17:32:21 GMT
      content-type: application/json
      content-length: 211
      access-control-allow-origin: *
      access-control-allow-credentials: true
      x-envoy-upstream-service-time: 2
        

   1. Get the external address of the gateway and save it in an environment variable.

        export INGRESS_GW_ADDRESS=$(kubectl get svc -n gloo-system gloo-proxy-http -o jsonpath='{.status.loadBalancer.ingress[0].hostname}')
      echo $INGRESS_GW_ADDRESS
        

   2. Send a request to the httpbin app and verify that you get back a 200 HTTP response code.

        curl -I http://$INGRESS_GW_ADDRESS:8080/headers -H "host: www.example.com:8080"
        

      Example output:

        HTTP/1.1 200 OK
      server: envoy
      date: Wed, 17 Jan 2024 17:32:21 GMT
      content-type: application/json
      content-length: 211
      access-control-allow-origin: *
      access-control-allow-credentials: true
      x-envoy-upstream-service-time: 2
        

   1. Port-forward the gloo-proxy-http pod on port 8080.

        kubectl port-forward deployment/gloo-proxy-http -n gloo-system 8080:8080
        

   2. Send a request to the httpbin app and verify that you get back a 200 HTTP response code.

        curl -I localhost:8080/headers -H "host: www.example.com"
        

      Example output:

        HTTP/1.1 200 OK
      server: envoy
      date: Wed, 17 Jan 2024 17:32:21 GMT
      content-type: application/json
      content-length: 211
      access-control-allow-origin: *
      access-control-allow-credentials: true
      x-envoy-upstream-service-time: 2
        

Next steps link

Now that you have Gloo Gateway set up and running, check out the following guides to expand your API gateway capabilities.

• Learn more about Gloo Gateway, its features and benefits.
• Add routing capabilities to your httpbin route by using the Traffic management guides.
• Explore ways to make your routes more resilient by using the Resiliency guides.
• Secure your routes with external authentication and rate limiting policies by using the Security guides.

Cleanup link

If you no longer need this quick-start Gloo Gateway environment, you can uninstall your setup by following the steps in the Uninstall guide.