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Compression

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Compress responses and decompress request bodies for each route with a traffic policy.
Reduce response payload sizes and decompress incoming request bodies with gzip compression.
About gzip compression 
Gzip is an HTTP option that enables your gateway proxy to compress response data or decompress request data upon client request. Compression is useful in situations where large payloads need to be transmitted without compromising the response time.
Use the EnterpriseKgatewayTrafficPolicy resource to configure gzip compression and decompression per route. Choose between the following options:
  • Response compression: When enabled on a route, Solo Enterprise for kgateway compresses HTTP responses by using gzip when the downstream client includes an Accept-Encoding: gzip header. You can also configure Brotli and Zstd as additional codecs by using the libraries field. Envoy negotiates the codec with the client with the Accept-Encoding header and uses the configured library order as a tiebreaker when the client accepts multiple codecs equally. The following content types are compressed by default:
    • application/javascript
    • application/json
    • application/xhtml+xml
    • image/svg+xml
    • text/css
    • text/html
    • text/plain
    • text/xml
  • Request decompression: When enabled on a route, Solo Enterprise for kgateway decompresses gzip-encoded request bodies before forwarding them to the backend service. You can also configure Brotli and Zstd as additional codecs by using the libraries field. The codec is selected based on the Content-Encoding header of the incoming request.
For more information about how Envoy handles compression, see the Envoy compressor filter docs.
Before you begin 
  1. Follow the Get started guide to install Solo Enterprise for kgateway.
  2. Follow the Sample app guide to create a gateway proxy with an HTTP listener and deploy the httpbin sample app.
  3. Get the external address of the gateway and save it in an environment variable.


    export INGRESS_GW_ADDRESS=$(kubectl get svc -n kgateway-system http -o jsonpath="{.status.loadBalancer.ingress[0]['hostname','ip']}")
echo $INGRESS_GW_ADDRESS  
    kubectl port-forward deployment/http -n kgateway-system 8080:8080
Response compression 
Enable gzip compression on a route so that Solo Enterprise for kgateway compresses responses for clients that support it.
  1. Create an HTTPRoute that routes requests from the compression.example domain to the httpbin sample app.
    kubectl apply -f- <<EOF
apiVersion: gateway.networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: HTTPRoute
metadata:
  name: httpbin-compression
  namespace: httpbin
spec:
  parentRefs:
  - name: http
    namespace: kgateway-system
  hostnames:
    - compression.example
  rules:
    - backendRefs:
        - name: httpbin
          port: 8000
EOF
  2. Create a EnterpriseKgatewayTrafficPolicy that enables response compression on the route.
    kubectl apply -f- <<EOF
apiVersion: enterprisekgateway.solo.io/v1alpha1
kind: EnterpriseKgatewayTrafficPolicy
metadata:
  name: response-compression
  namespace: httpbin
spec:
  targetRefs:
  - group: gateway.networking.k8s.io
    kind: HTTPRoute
    name: httpbin-compression
  compression:
    responseCompression: {}
EOF
    SettingDescription
    spec.targetRefsThe HTTPRoute to apply this policy to.
    spec.compression.responseCompressionEnables gzip response compression. Responses are only compressed when the client sends an Accept-Encoding: gzip header and the response content type matches one of the supported types.
  3. Send a request to the /html httpbin path with the Accept-Encoding: gzip header. Verify that the response includes a content-encoding: gzip header, indicating that the response body is compressed.

 

    curl -vik http://$INGRESS_GW_ADDRESS:8080/html \
  -H "host: compression.example:8080" \
  -H "Accept-Encoding: gzip"
    curl -vik http://localhost:8080/html \
  -H "host: compression.example" \
  -H "Accept-Encoding: gzip"
    Example output:
    < HTTP/1.1 200 OK
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
< content-type: text/html; charset=utf-8
content-type: text/html; charset=utf-8
< content-encoding: gzip
content-encoding: gzip
< transfer-encoding: chunked
transfer-encoding: chunked
< server: envoy
server: envoy

  4. Send the same request without the Accept-Encoding: gzip header. Verify that the response does not include a content-encoding: gzip header, confirming that compression is only applied when the client requests it.

 

    curl -vik http://$INGRESS_GW_ADDRESS:8080/html \
  -H "host: compression.example:8080"
    curl -vik http://localhost:8080/html \
  -H "host: compression.example"
    Example output:
    < HTTP/1.1 200 OK
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
< content-type: text/html; charset=utf-8
content-type: text/html; charset=utf-8
< content-length: 3741
content-length: 3741
< server: envoy
server: envoy

Request decompression 
Enable gzip decompression on a route so that Solo Enterprise for kgateway decompresses request bodies before forwarding them to the backend service. This setup is useful when clients send gzip-encoded request bodies.
  1. Create an HTTPRoute that routes requests from the decompression.example domain to the httpbin sample app.
    kubectl apply -f- <<EOF
apiVersion: gateway.networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: HTTPRoute
metadata:
  name: httpbin-decompression
  namespace: httpbin
spec:
  parentRefs:
  - name: http
    namespace: kgateway-system
  hostnames:
    - decompression.example
  rules:
    - backendRefs:
        - name: httpbin
          port: 8000
EOF
  2. Create a EnterpriseKgatewayTrafficPolicy that enables request decompression on the route.
    kubectl apply -f- <<EOF
apiVersion: enterprisekgateway.solo.io/v1alpha1
kind: EnterpriseKgatewayTrafficPolicy
metadata:
  name: request-decompression
  namespace: httpbin
spec:
  targetRefs:
  - group: gateway.networking.k8s.io
    kind: HTTPRoute
    name: httpbin-decompression
  compression:
    requestDecompression: {}
EOF
    SettingDescription
    spec.targetRefsThe HTTPRoute to apply this policy to.
    spec.compression.requestDecompressionEnables gzip request decompression. When a request arrives with a Content-Encoding: gzip header, Solo Enterprise for kgateway decompresses the body before forwarding the request to the backend.
  3. Create a gzip-compressed payload to use in the test.
    echo -n 'Hello, world!' | gzip > /tmp/payload.gz
  4. Send the compressed payload to the /post httpbin path with the Content-Encoding: gzip header. Verify that the data field in the response shows the decompressed string Hello, world!, confirming that Solo Enterprise for kgateway decompressed the request body before forwarding it to httpbin.

 

    curl -vik -X POST http://$INGRESS_GW_ADDRESS:8080/post \
  -H "host: decompression.example:8080" \
  -H "Content-Type: text/plain" \
  -H "Content-Encoding: gzip" \
  --data-binary @/tmp/payload.gz
    curl -vik -X POST http://localhost:8080/post \
  -H "host: decompression.example" \
  -H "Content-Type: text/plain" \
  -H "Content-Encoding: gzip" \
  --data-binary @/tmp/payload.gz
    Example output:
    {
  ...
  "data": "Hello, world!",
  "headers": {
    "Content-Type": [
      "text/plain"
    ],
    ...
  }
}
Other configurations 
Brotli and Zstd compression codecs 
By default, response compression uses Gzip only. You can offer additional codecs by setting the responseCompression.libraries field to an ordered list of codecs. Envoy negotiates the codec with the client by using the Accept-Encoding header. The configured order serves as a tiebreaker when the client accepts multiple codecs equally. Clients that do not accept any of the configured codecs receive an uncompressed response.
Supported codec values: Gzip, Brotli, Zstd.
The following example configures Brotli as the preferred codec with Gzip as a fallback.
kubectl apply -f- <<EOF
apiVersion: enterprisekgateway.solo.io/v1alpha1
kind: EnterpriseKgatewayTrafficPolicy
metadata:
  name: response-compression
  namespace: httpbin
spec:
  targetRefs:
  - group: gateway.networking.k8s.io
    kind: HTTPRoute
    name: httpbin-compression
  compression:
    responseCompression:
      libraries:
        - Brotli
        - Gzip
        - Zstd
EOF
Brotli and Zstd request decompression 
By default, request decompression handles only Gzip-encoded request bodies. You can add support for additional codecs by setting the requestDecompression.libraries field to an ordered list of codecs. Solo Enterprise for kgateway installs one Envoy decompressor filter per codec and selects the appropriate one based on the Content-Encoding header of the incoming request.
Supported codec values: Gzip, Brotli, Zstd.
The following example configures Brotli and Zstd in addition to Gzip for request decompression.
kubectl apply -f- <<EOF
apiVersion: enterprisekgateway.solo.io/v1alpha1
kind: EnterpriseKgatewayTrafficPolicy
metadata:
  name: request-decompression
  namespace: httpbin
spec:
  targetRefs:
  - group: gateway.networking.k8s.io
    kind: HTTPRoute
    name: httpbin-decompression
  compression:
    requestDecompression:
      libraries:
        - Brotli
        - Gzip
        - Zstd
EOF
Cleanup 
You can remove the resources that you created in this guide.
kubectl delete EnterpriseKgatewayTrafficPolicy response-compression -n httpbin
kubectl delete httproute httpbin-compression -n httpbin
kubectl delete EnterpriseKgatewayTrafficPolicy request-decompression -n httpbin
kubectl delete httproute httpbin-decompression -n httpbin
BufferingDirect response
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