Ingress Controller

Requirements

• The EKS cluster is provisioned.

• The cluster is connected and the kubeconfig is properly configured.

Run the following command to connect a local environment to the EKS cluster.

aws eks update-kubeconfig --region <region> --name <cluster-name>

Configuration

This chart wraps the official ingress-nginx chart using the alias private-ingress and allows to customize the default certificate that is used on all TLS communications handled by this controller.

To configure TLS certificates, place the certificate files in the following folder.

ingress-controller/certs/tls.crt
ingress-controller/certs/tls.key

For more information about creating TLS certificates, refer to Create and configure certificates (AWS docs)

It is recommended not to edit the values.yaml file unless required. To customize configurations, create a values-override.yaml file with the desired changes and use the -f values-override.yaml flag during installation.

Installing the Component

cd helm/ingress-controller
helm repo add ingress-nginx https://kubernetes.github.io/ingress-nginx || true
helm repo update
helm dependency build
helm install ingress-controller . \
  --namespace ingress-nginx \
  --create-namespace \
  --set-file tls.crt=./certs/tls.crt \
  --set-file tls.key=./certs/tls.key

If TLS is not configured, ommit the --set-file tls lines in the command above.

For any custom configuration changes, create a values-override.yaml file and add -f values-override.yaml to the helm install command. It is not recommended to modify the configurations in the values.yaml file.

This deploys the controller (and a TLS secret if configured) under the ingress-nginx namespace and exposes it through an internal AWS NLB.

Verifying the Installation

Checking the controller pods

kubectl get pods -n ingress-nginx

Example output:

NAME                             READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
private-ingress-controller-xxx   1/1     Running   0          ...

Confirming the service is created

kubectl get svc -n ingress-nginx

Example output:

NAME                        TYPE           CLUSTER-IP     EXTERNAL-IP                                                               PORT(S)
private-ingress-controller  LoadBalancer   10.x.x.x       internal-<hash>.<region>.elb.amazonaws.com   443:xxxx/TCP

Checking the IngressClass

kubectl get ingressclass

Example output:

NAME             CONTROLLER             PARAMETERS   AGE
private-nginx    k8s.io/ingress-nginx   <none>       ...

This IngressClass is automatically used by any Ingress with no ingressClassName or one explicitly set to private-nginx.

Uninstalling the Component

Run the following command to uninstall the Ingress Controller.

helm uninstall ingress-controller \
  --namespace ingress-nginx

This will remove the AWS Load Balancer and make any applications using this ingress controller inaccessible from outside the cluster. Ensure all dependent services are stopped or reconfigured before removal.