3 years ago

Category: Software, Kubernetes, nginx

The HAProxy Kubernetes Ingress Controller has been around since the release of HAProxy 2.0 in 2019, with nearly 40 minor updates in the year and a half since, and now the project has its first major update with the release of HAProxy Kubernetes Ingress Controller 1.5. With the introduction of features around different types of authentication, configuration, and the ability to run the controller external to a Kubernetes cluster, the release marks a new release cadence for the software, said HAProxy director of product Daniel Corbett.

The HAProxy Ingress Controller offers a richer functionality, and one feature introduced with v1.5 harnesses that with the ability to add annotations to the Kubernetes Ingress, Service or ConfigMap files and apply them with kubectl instead of editing HAProxy’s configuration file by hand.

While this method of deployment means that the ingress controller won’t scale directly with Kubernetes and instead requires external management of scalability, it further reduces any overhead for users operating in a latency-sensitive environment, as it obviates the need for the external load balancer or proxy. Corbett explained that one benefit of HAProxy Ingress Controller is that it offers high availability by being able to reconfigure without causing downtime.