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This guide explains how to use the ngrok Kubernetes Operator on Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) to add secure Kubernetes ingress to your apps or APIs. The ngrok Kubernetes Operator is the official open-source controller for adding public and secure ingress traffic to your k8s services. It works with a Google Kubernetes Engine cluster to provide ingress to your services as long as the cluster has outbound access to the ngrok service.

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What you’ll need

  • A GKE cluster.
  • An ngrok account.
  • kubectl and Helm 3.0.0+ installed on your local workstation.
  • The ngrok Kubernetes Operator installed on your cluster.
  • A reserved domain from the ngrok dashboard or API; this guide refers to it as <NGROK_DOMAIN>.

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Ensure kubectl can speak with your cluster

With a GKE cluster, authentication for kubectl uses a credential helper. To deploy the ngrok Kubernetes Operator, ensure you can use the gcloud CLI and that the credential helper is available. Ensure that you have the gcloud CLI installed and configured with your Google Cloud credentials. You can confirm this works and you’re authenticated correctly by running the following command: 
gcloud auth list
If you see your correct Google account listed, you should be all set. If not, you can run gcloud auth login to authenticate with your Google account. Next, ensure that the credential helper is available. Run the following command to confirm that the credential helper is available: 
gcloud components install gke-gcloud-auth-plugin
Finally, add the cluster to your KUBECONFIG: 
gcloud container clusters get-credentials --region <cluster-region> --project <cluster-project> <cluster-name>

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Install the ngrok Kubernetes Operator

Now install the ngrok Kubernetes Operator to provide ingress to your services. See the Operator installation doc for details on using Helm with your ngrok credentials.

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Install a sample application

Create a manifest file (for example ngrok-manifest.yaml) with the following contents. This deploys the tinyllama demo LLM application. Replace the NGROK_DOMAIN on line 45 with your reserved domain (the URL you’ll use to access your service). On a free account, use a static subdomain; on a paid account, you can use a custom domain or a subdomain of ngrok.app or ngrok.dev.
The first section creates the tinyllama demo app Service and Deployment; the highlighted section configures the ngrok Kubernetes Operator Ingress.
showLineNumbers
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: tinyllama
spec:
  ports:
    - name: http
      port: 80
      targetPort: 8080
  selector:
    app: tinyllama
---
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: tinyllama
spec:
  replicas: 1
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: tinyllama
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: tinyllama
    spec:
      containers:
        - name: tinyllama
          image: ghcr.io/ngrok-samples/tinyllama:main
          ports:
            - name: http
              containerPort: 8080
---
# highlight-start
# ngrok Kubernetes Operator Configuration
apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: Ingress
metadata:
  name: tinyllama-ingress
  namespace: ngrok-operator
spec:
  ingressClassName: ngrok
  rules:
    - host: <NGROK_DOMAIN>
      http:
        paths:
          - path: /
            pathType: Prefix
            backend:
              service:
                name: tinyllama
                port:
                  number: 80
# highlight-end
Apply the manifest file to your k8s cluster. 
kubectl apply -f ngrok-manifest.yaml
Troubleshooting: If you get an error when applying the manifest, double-check that you’ve updated the NGROK_DOMAIN value and try again.
Access your ingress URL using the subdomain you chose in the manifest (for example, https://my-awesome-k8s-cluster.ngrok.app) to confirm the tinyllama app is accessible from the internet.

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Add authentication to your app

With the Traffic Policy system and the oauth action, ngrok manages OAuth protection entirely at the ngrok cloud service. This means you don’t need to add any additional services to your cluster, nor alter any routes, to ensure ngrok’s edge authenticates and authorizes all requests before allowing ingress and access to your endpoint. To enable the oauth action, you’ll create a new NgrokTrafficPolicy custom resource and apply it to your entire Ingress with an annotation. You can also apply the policy to just a specific backend or as the default backend for an Ingress—see the documentation on using the Operator with Ingresses. Edit your existing ngrok-manifest.yaml manifest with the following, leaving the Service and Deployment as they were. Note the new annotations field and the NgrokTrafficPolicy CR. 
...
---
# Configuration for ngrok's Kubernetes Operator
apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: Ingress
metadata:
  name: tinyllama-ingress
  namespace: default
  annotations:
    k8s.ngrok.com/traffic-policy: oauth
spec:
  ingressClassName: ngrok
  rules:
    - host: <NGROK_DOMAIN>
      http:
        paths:
          - path: /
            pathType: Prefix
            backend:
              service:
                name: tinyllama
                port:
                  number: 80
---
# Traffic Policy configuration for OAuth
apiVersion: ngrok.k8s.ngrok.com/v1alpha1
kind: NgrokTrafficPolicy
metadata:
  name: oauth
  namespace: default
spec:
  policy:
    on_http_request:
      - type: oauth
        config:
          provider: google
  • Re-apply your ngrok-manifest.yaml configuration. 
    kubectl apply -f ngrok-manifest.yaml
  • When you open your demo app again, you’ll be asked to log in via Google. That’s a start, but what if you want to authenticate only yourself or colleagues?
  • Use expressions and CEL interpolation to filter out and reject OAuth logins that don’t contain example.com. Update the NgrokTrafficPolicy portion of your manifest after changing example.com to your domain. 
    # Traffic Policy configuration for OAuth
apiVersion: ngrok.k8s.ngrok.com/v1alpha1
kind: NgrokTrafficPolicy
metadata:
  name: oauth
  namespace: default
spec:
  policy:
    on_http_request:
      - type: oauth
        config:
          provider: google
      - expressions:
          - "!actions.ngrok.oauth.identity.email.endsWith('@example.com')"
        actions:
          - type: custom-response
            config:
              body: Hey, no auth for you ${actions.ngrok.oauth.identity.name}!
              status_code: 400
  • Check out your deployed tinyllama app once again. If you log in with an email that doesn’t match your domain, ngrok rejects your request.