Migrate Kubernetes Ingress from nginx-ingress to ingress-nginx

An ingress is a Kubernetes object who will allow you to route external access to an internal service. Nginx-ingress and ingress-nginx are both based on Nginx. Nginx-ingress is a popular ingress controller, it uses a ConfigMap to configure Nginx. It has been recently been deprecated in favor of the Kubernetes community chart ingress-nginx.

What are the differences?

Different repository for the Helm chart
Different configuration file

Let’s migrate

Add the Ingress-nginx repository

helm repo add ingress-nginx https://kubernetes.github.io/ingress-nginx

Get your ConfigMap, this is just an example, adapt it to your usecase.

kind: ConfigMap
apiVersion: v1
metadata:
  name: nginx-ingress-controller
  namespace: nginx-ingress
  labels:
    app.kubernetes.io/name: nginx-ingress
    app.kubernetes.io/part-of: nginx-ingress
data:
  proxy-protocol: "True"
  use-proxy-protocol: "True"
  real-ip-header: "proxy_protocol"
  ssl-protocols: "TLSv1.3 TLSv1.2"

Merge it in your configuration file, in controller.config. I have removed the TLS version, TLSv1.3 is now the default value.

controller:
  config: {
    proxy-protocol: "True",
    use-proxy-protocol: "True",
    real-ip-header: "proxy_protocol"
  }
  service:
    annotations: 
      metallb.universe.tf/address-pool: nginx-ingress
      nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/proxy-body-size: 8m
      externalTrafficPolicy: Local

Migration

With MetalLB

If like me you have determined an IP who will be used by the Load Balancer, the easiest way is to uninstall nginx-ingress and install ingress-nginx. The down time will be low, and you don’t have any extra configuration to do.
I use the nginx-ingress namespace and nginx-ingress as name too.

helm -n nginx-ingress uninstall nginx-ingress
helm install nginx-ingress ingress-nginx/ingress-nginx --namespace nginx-ingress -f nginx-values.yaml

With a Cloud provider

We will realize the operation in three parts:

Install ingress-nginx, to create the new Load Balancer
Redirect the domains to the new Load Balancer
Remove nginx-ingress

Install ingress-nginx

helm install nginx-ingress ingress-nginx/ingress-nginx --namespace nginx-ingress -f nginx-values.yaml

The Load balancer will be provisioned by your Cloud Provider. You can get its IP or domain name (depending of the provider) using kubectl.

kubectl -n nginx-ingress get svc -o wide

Redirect your DNS to the new Load balancer. Wait the DNS propagation, and remove the old chart.

helm -n nginx-ingress uninstall nginx-ingress

Conclusion

We have migrated from nginx-ingress to ingress-nginx, with a minimum of downtime. This one looks more flexible and it’s easier to have only one configuration file.