NGINX Ingress Controller creates Load Balancer but no targets are added

[wanGiB]

I have set up the NGINX Ingress Controller on my Kubernetes cluster using the following configuration:

kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nginxinc/kubernetes-ingress/v3.7.0/deploy/crds.yaml
...
helm install nginx-ingress-controller oci://ghcr.io/nginxinc/charts/nginx-ingress \
    --namespace gateway-system \
    --version "$GATEWAY_CONTROLLER_VERSION" \
    --set controller.service.type=LoadBalancer \
    --set controller.service.externalTrafficPolicy=Local \
    --set controller.config.use-proxy-protocol=true \
    --set controller.service.annotations."load-balancer\.hetzner\.cloud/type"="External" \
    --set controller.service.annotations."load-balancer\.hetzner\.cloud/name"="$HETZNER_LOAD_BALANCER_NAME" \
    --set controller.service.annotations."load-balancer\.hetzner\.cloud/location"="$HETZNER_LOAD_BALANCER_LOCATION" \
    --set controller.gatewayClassName=nginx-gateway-class \
    --set controller.metrics.enabled=true

While the Load Balancer is created successfully, there are no targets (worker nodes) being added to it. Even though there are worker nodes in the cluster, no traffic can reach them through the load balancer.

I have manually added the targets myself, but as soon as I reinitialize the NGINX Ingress Controller, it removes the targets again.

This behavior is confusing, and I do not understand how the services are supposed to be exposed if the targets are consistently removed. Could you please provide clarification or guidance on why the NGINX Ingress Controller isn't properly associating targets with the load balancer?

I intend to use the Gateway API to expose my services and have created the following resources accordingly:

# Apply GatewayClass for NGINX Gateway
kubectl apply -f - <<EOF
apiVersion: gateway.networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: GatewayClass
metadata:
  name: nginx-gateway-class
spec:
  controllerName: k8s.nginx.org/gateway-controller
EOF

# Verify the Gateway Controller service
kubectl get services -n gateway-system || exit_on_error "Error: Failed to retrieve services in gateway-system namespace."

# Create the Gateway resource
kubectl apply -f - <<EOF
apiVersion: gateway.networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: Gateway
metadata:
  name: example-gateway
  namespace: gateway-system
spec:
  gatewayClassName: nginx-gateway-class
  listeners:
    - name: http
      protocol: HTTP
      port: 80
      allowedRoutes:
        namespaces:
          from: All
EOF

And right below I also attempted to create a custom service that I expect to be a target for the LoadBalancer service:

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: example
  namespace: socials
spec:
  replicas: 1
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: example
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: example
      annotations:
        kubernetes.io/change-cause: "Updated deployment at $(date)"
    spec:
      containers:
        - name: example
          image: yourusername/placeholder:example
          imagePullPolicy: Always
          ports:
            - containerPort: 8080
          readinessProbe:
            httpGet:
              path: /health
              port: 8080
            initialDelaySeconds: 5
            periodSeconds: 10
          resources:
            requests:
              cpu: "100m"
              memory: "1Gi"
            limits:
              cpu: "800m"
              memory: "2Gi"
      imagePullSecrets:
        - name: docker-registry-secret

---
apiVersion: autoscaling/v2
kind: HorizontalPodAutoscaler
metadata:
  name: example
  namespace: socials
spec:
  scaleTargetRef:
    apiVersion: apps/v1
    kind: Deployment
    name: example
  minReplicas: 1
  maxReplicas: 3
  metrics:
    - type: Resource
      resource:
        name: cpu
        target:
          type: Utilization
          averageUtilization: 80
    - type: Resource
      resource:
        name: memory
        target:
          type: Utilization
          averageUtilization: 80
---
apiVersion: gateway.networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: HTTPRoute
metadata:
  name: example-route
  namespace: socials
  labels:
    app: example
spec:
  parentRefs:
    - name: example-gateway
      namespace: gateway-system
  rules:
    - matches:
        - path:
            type: PathPrefix
            value: "/"
      backendRefs:
        - name: example-service
          port: 80
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: example-service
  namespace: socials
  labels:
    app: example
spec:
  selector:
    app: example
  ports:
    - port: 80
      targetPort: 8080
  type: ClusterIP

Request for Assistance:
Could you please provide clarification or guidance on the following?

1. Why isn’t the NGINX Ingress Controller properly associating targets with the LoadBalancer?
2. What steps can I take to ensure my services are correctly exposed using the Gateway API?

Thank you

[vepatel]

Hi @wanGiB, thanks for opening a discussion. If you intent to use Gateway API, may I direct you to https://github.com/nginxinc/nginx-gateway-fabric, this is the native Gateway API integration by NGINX. You can also directly reach out on #nginx-gateway-fabric channel on community slack.
We will not be adding support for Gateway API in Nginx Ingress Controller.