Control the rate of requests to destinations within the service mesh. The following example shows you how to create a basic rate limit policy that applies to a destination or route, based on a generic key.

For more in-depth examples of the Envoy and Set-style rate limiting APIs, see More rate limit policy examples.

Before you begin

  1. Set up Gloo Mesh Gateway in a single cluster.
  2. Install Bookinfo and other sample apps.

  3. Configure an HTTP listener on your gateway and set up basic routing for the sample apps.

  4. Make sure that the rate limiting service is installed and running. If not, install the rate limiting service.

      kubectl get pods -A -l app=rate-limiter

  5. To use rate limiting policies, you must create the required RateLimitServerConfig, RateLimitServerSettings, and RateLimitClientConfig resources. To create these resources you can either follow the Rate limit server setup guide, or use the example resources in step 2 of the Verify rate limit policies section.

Configure rate limit policies

You can apply a rate limit policy at the destination level. For more information, see Applying policies.

Review the following sample configuration files. Continue to the Verify rate limit policies section for example steps on how to check that rate limiting is working.

  apiVersion: trafficcontrol.policy.gloo.solo.io/v2
kind: RateLimitPolicy
metadata:
  annotations:
    cluster.solo.io/cluster: ""
  name: rl-policy
  namespace: bookinfo
spec:
  applyToRoutes:
  - route:
      labels:
        route: ratings
  config:
    phase:
      postAuthz: {}
    ratelimitClientConfig:
      name: rl-client-config
    ratelimitServerConfig:
      name: rl-server-config
      namespace: gloo-mesh
    serverSettings:
      name: rl-server


Review the following table to understand this configuration.

SettingDescription
applyToRoutesUse labels to configure which routes to apply the policy to. This example label matches the app and route from the example route table that you apply separately. If omitted and you do not have another selector such as applyToDestinations, the policy applies to all routes in the workspace.
configThe ratelimitServerConfig is required. The serverSettings and ratelimitClientConfig are optional, and can be added manually in the policy. In this example, the rate limit policy refers to the client config, server config, and server settings that you downloaded before you began. For more information, see Rate limit server setup.

Verify rate limit policies

  1. Create a rate limit server config with the rate limiting rules that the server accepts. For more information, see Rate limit server setup. Note: Change cluster-1 as needed to your cluster’s actual name (value of $CLUSTER_NAME).

      kubectl apply -f - << EOF
apiVersion: admin.gloo.solo.io/v2
kind: RateLimitServerConfig
metadata:
  annotations:
    cluster.solo.io/cluster: ""
  name: rl-server-config
  namespace: gloo-mesh
spec:
  destinationServers:
  - port:
      number: 8083
    ref:
      cluster: cluster-1
      name: rate-limiter
      namespace: gloo-mesh
  raw:
    descriptors:
    - key: generic_key
      rateLimit:
        requestsPerUnit: 1
        unit: DAY
      value: counter
EOF

  2. Create a rate limit server settings resource to control how clients connect to the rate limit server. For more information, see Rate limit server setup. Note: Change cluster-1 as needed to your cluster’s actual name (value of $CLUSTER_NAME).

      kubectl apply -f - << EOF
apiVersion: admin.gloo.solo.io/v2
kind: RateLimitServerSettings
metadata:
  annotations:
    cluster.solo.io/cluster: ""
  name: rl-server
  namespace: bookinfo
spec:
  destinationServer:
    port:
      number: 8083
    ref:
      cluster: cluster-1
      name: rate-limiter
      namespace: gloo-mesh
EOF

  3. Create a rate limit client config to set up the rate limiting actions to take. For more information, see Rate limit server setup.

      kubectl apply -f - << EOF
apiVersion: trafficcontrol.policy.gloo.solo.io/v2
kind: RateLimitClientConfig
metadata:
  annotations:
    cluster.solo.io/cluster: ""
  name: rl-client-config
  namespace: bookinfo
spec:
  raw:
    rateLimits:
    - actions:
      - genericKey:
          descriptorValue: counter
      limit:
        dynamicMetadata:
          metadataKey:
            key: envoy.filters.http.ext_authz
            path:
            - key: opa_auth
            - key: rateLimit
EOF

  4. Create the rate limit policy that you reviewed in the previous section.

      kubectl apply -f - << EOF
apiVersion: trafficcontrol.policy.gloo.solo.io/v2
kind: RateLimitPolicy
metadata:
  annotations:
    cluster.solo.io/cluster: ""
  name: rl-policy
  namespace: bookinfo
spec:
  applyToRoutes:
  - route:
      labels:
        route: ratings
  config:
    phase:
      postAuthz: {}
    ratelimitClientConfig:
      name: rl-client-config
    ratelimitServerConfig:
      name: rl-server-config
      namespace: gloo-mesh
    serverSettings:
      name: rl-server
EOF

  5. Send a request to the app.

    • HTTP:
        curl -vik --connect-timeout 1 --max-time 5 --resolve www.example.com:80:${INGRESS_GW_ADDRESS} http://www.example.com:80/ratings/1
    • HTTPS:
        curl -vik --connect-timeout 1 --max-time 5 --resolve www.example.com:443:${INGRESS_GW_ADDRESS} https://www.example.com:443/ratings/1

  6. Repeat the request a few times. Because the rate limit policy limits requests to 1 per day, the request results in a 429 - Too Many Requests error.

Cleanup

You can optionally remove the resources that you set up as part of this guide.
  kubectl -n gloo-mesh delete RateLimitServerConfig rl-server-config
kubectl -n bookinfo delete RateLimitServerSettings rl-server
kubectl -n bookinfo delete RateLimitClientConfig rl-client-config
kubectl -n bookinfo delete RateLimitPolicy rl-policy