https://DevOpsCloud.io -- Cloud Monk Losang Jinpa, Ph.D., MCSE/MCT, GitOps DevOps Engineer

The Kong Ingress Controller (KIC) is an open-source ingress controller for Kubernetes that leverages the power and flexibility of the Kong API Gateway. It allows you to manage and control external access to your Kubernetes services, providing advanced features like routing, load balancing, authentication, authorization, rate limiting, and transformations, all within a Kubernetes-native environment.

• **Kong Gateway Integration:** KIC seamlessly integrates with Kong Gateway, enabling you to utilize Kong's extensive plugin ecosystem and robust API management capabilities directly within your Kubernetes cluster.
• **Kubernetes CRD Support:** KIC utilizes Kubernetes Custom Resource Definitions (CRDs) to define ingress rules, API configurations, and plugin settings, providing a declarative and familiar way to manage Kong.
• **High Availability and Scalability:** KIC can be deployed in a highly available configuration, ensuring uninterrupted traffic routing and management. It also scales horizontally to handle increasing traffic volumes.
• **Dynamic Configuration:** KIC supports dynamic configuration updates, allowing you to modify ingress rules and API configurations without requiring restarts or downtime.
• **Seamless Kubernetes Integration:** KIC deeply integrates with Kubernetes, leveraging its native APIs and resources for configuration and management.

• **Robust API Management:** KIC empowers you to manage and control API traffic with Kong Gateway's comprehensive features, including routing, security, authentication, rate limiting, and transformations.
• **Flexibility and Extensibility:** Kong's vast plugin ecosystem allows you to extend KIC's functionality with various plugins, tailoring it to your specific needs.
• **Simplified Configuration:** KIC's declarative configuration using Kubernetes CRDs streamlines the management of ingress rules and API configurations.
• **High Availability and Scalability:** KIC's ability to deploy in a highly available configuration and scale horizontally ensures reliability and performance even under heavy traffic loads.
• **Kubernetes-Native Experience:** KIC's deep integration with Kubernetes simplifies deployment and management, allowing you to leverage familiar Kubernetes tools and workflows.

1. **Ingress Definition:**

```yaml apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1 kind: Ingress metadata:

 name: my-ingress
 annotations:
   kubernetes.io/ingress.class: kong # Use Kong Ingress Controller

 rules:
 - http:
     paths:
     - path: /api
       pathType: Prefix
       backend:
         service:
           name: my-service
           port: 
             number: 80

This configuration defines an Ingress resource that uses the `kong` ingress class to route traffic to the `/api` path to the `my-service` service on port 80.

2. **KongPlugin Custom Resource:**

```yaml apiVersion: configuration.konghq.com/v1 kind: KongPlugin metadata:

 name: rate-limiting

 second: 10 # Limit to 10 requests per second
 policy: local

This configuration defines a KongPlugin resource that applies rate limiting to incoming requests, allowing a maximum of 10 requests per second.

• **Kong for Kubernetes Documentation:** s://docs.konghq.com/kubernetes-ingress-controller/latest/(https://docs.konghq.com/kubernetes-ingress-controller/latest/)
• **Kong Ingress Controller GitHub Repository:** s://github.com/Kong/kubernetes-ingress-controller(https://github.com/Kong/kubernetes-ingress-controller)