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This guide walks you through launching a new cluster with Rafay and provisioning the ngrok Kubernetes Operator to route public traffic directly to a demo app through a secure tunnel. Once completed, you’ll have what you need to deploy your next production-ready Kubernetes app with Rafay, with the ngrok Kubernetes Operator giving you access to additional features, like observability and resiliency, with no extra configuration complexity. What you’ll build:
  • The ngrok Kubernetes Operator: ngrok’s official controller for adding secure public ingress and middleware execution to your Kubernetes apps with ngrok’s cloud service. With ngrok, you can manage and secure app traffic at every stage of the development lifecycle while benefiting from simpler configurations, security, and edge acceleration.
  • Rafay: A SaaS-based cloud controller that helps platform and DevOps teams manage their Kubernetes clusters and cloud environments. By plugging into existing Internal Developer Programs and CI/CD pipelines, Rafay helps enable more automation, consistency, and governance while also letting internal developers provision and deploy with ease.

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What you’ll need

  • A Rafay account.
  • An account with the necessary privileges to create a cluster on one of the following managed Kubernetes services: Amazon EKS, Azure AKS, Google GKE, or a data center/edge or private cloud where you can deploy an upstream Kubernetes cluster.
  • (Optional) Rafay’s RCTL utility installed and initialized on your local workstation.
  • An ngrok account.
  • kubectl and Helm 3.0.0+ installed on your local workstation.
  • A reserved domain, which you can get in the ngrok dashboard or with the ngrok API.
    • You can choose from an ngrok subdomain or bring your own custom branded domain, like https://api.example.com.
    • This guide refers to this domain as <NGROK_DOMAIN>.

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Create a new cluster with Rafay

The steps to deploying a cluster with Rafay are not detailed here. For more information, see the getting started guide for your Kubernetes service in Rafay’s documentation, then click Cluster Lifecycle Management for the steps required to create and manage a new cluster with Rafay. To prepare your cluster for the ngrok Kubernetes Operator and an app you’d like to make publicly accessible via a secure tunnel, you only need to finish the Provision part of Rafay’s provider-specific getting started docs.

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Prepare your cluster for the ngrok Kubernetes Operator

Before you create a Rafay blueprint for ingress managed by ngrok, you need to prepare your infrastructure in a way that works with Rafay’s blueprints.
  • In Rafay, create a namespace by clicking Infrastructure, then Namespaces, then New Namespace. Enter ngrok-operator, under Type select Wizard, and click Save. Place the new namespace on your cluster: click the Placement tab, select the cluster, and click Save & Go To Publish, then Publish.
  • Add a repository for the ngrok Kubernetes Operator by clicking Integrations, then Repositories. Give the repository a name like ngrok-kubernetes-operator, add https://charts.ngrok.com in the Endpoints field, and click Save.
  • Log in to the ngrok dashboard to get your ngrok authtoken and create an API key.
  • Create a file on your local workstation named ngrok-values.yaml with the values below, replacing the defaults with your authtoken and new API key. 
    credentials:
  apiKey: <API_KEY>
  authtoken: <AUTHTOKEN>
  • In the ngrok dashboard, create an ngrok static subdomain for ingress: go to the Domains section and click Create Domain or New Domain. This static subdomain (for example, example.ngrok.app) will be your NGROK_DOMAIN for the remainder of this guide.

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Create and apply a blueprint for the ngrok Kubernetes Operator

Rafay uses blueprints to streamline cluster deployments and configuration of common services. They help your organization standardize an approach to security and reliability, with the option of customization based on your specific needs. You’ll create a custom blueprint for the ngrok Kubernetes Operator that you or others could then quickly apply to any number of clusters managed by Rafay.
  • Create a new Add-On by clicking Infrastructure, then Add-Ons. Give it a name like ngrok-k8s, choose Helm 3 as the type, Pull files from repository, and Helm as the type. Click New Version, name it v1, and choose the repository you created in the previous step. Set Chart Name to ngrok-operator and Chart Version to 0.17.1 (or a more recent version). Under Values Files, upload the ngrok-values.yaml file with your credentials.
  • Go to Blueprints in the Rafay dashboard and click New Blueprint. Name it ngrok and click Save.
  • Give this blueprint a v1 version name and choose the minimal option from the Base Blueprint dropdown. Scroll to Add-Ons and add the ngrok Add-On you just created. Save your changes.
  • Click Infrastructure, then Clusters, then the ⚙ icon for your cluster. Select Update Blueprint and choose v1 of the ngrok blueprint. Rafay will apply the blueprint to your cluster and deploy the ngrok Kubernetes Operator.

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Deploy an app with Rafay

In Rafay, workloads operate like infrastructure blueprints but for app deployments. By defining a workload, you can deploy standardized clusters and apps in multiple clouds and clusters. You can deploy workloads directly from Rafay’s catalog, but in this example, you’ll create a custom workload using the AKS Store Demo, followed by an ingress configuration. Another option for creating workloads is Rafay’s RCTL CLI tool.
  • Download the Kubernetes manifest for the AKS Store to your local workstation. 
    curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Azure-Samples/aks-store-demo/main/aks-store-quickstart.yaml -o aks-store-workload.yaml
  • Add the following ingress configuration to the bottom of your aks-store-workload.yaml file. This configuration defines how the ngrok Kubernetes Operator will route traffic arriving on <NGROK_DOMAIN> to the store-front service on port 80 as defined in the manifest.
    showLineNumbers
    ---
apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: Ingress
metadata:
  name: store-ingress
  namespace: ngrok-operator
spec:
  ingressClassName: ngrok
  rules:
    - host: <NGROK_DOMAIN>
      http:
        paths:
          - path: /
            pathType: Prefix
            backend:
              service:
                name: store-front
                port:
                  number: 80
  • Create a new workload from Applications, then Workloads. Name it aks-store, choose K8s YAML as the package type, and specify ngrok-ingress-controller as the namespace.
  • In Upload Files, upload the aks-store-workload.yaml file you created. Under Placement, pick your cluster and publish the workload. Give your cluster a few minutes to provision the AKS Store resources and configure the ngrok Kubernetes Operator.
  • Navigate to your ngrok subdomain (for example, https://example.ngrok.app) in your browser to see your app as managed, deployed, and publicly networked via Rafay, Kubernetes, and ngrok. ngrok’s cloud service routes requests to the ngrok Kubernetes Operator, which forwards them to the store-front service.

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What’s next?

You’ve now used the open source ngrok Kubernetes Operator to add public ingress to a demo app on a cluster managed by Rafay. Because ngrok abstracts ingress and middleware execution to its cloud service, and you have saved your configuration to Rafay as a blueprint and workload, you can deploy and manage additional versions of this app in a few clicks. As you extend your internal catalog of blueprints and networks, you can enable self-service for developers who want to deploy apps without sacrificing on control or efficiency. Learn more about the ngrok Kubernetes Operator, or contribute to its ongoing development, by checking out the GitHub repository and the project-specific documentation.