How to expose external ip in Kubernetes? - kubernetes

Question

I want to expose my kubernetes cluster with minikube.
consider my tree
.
├── deployment.yaml
├── Dockerfile
├── server.js
└── service.yaml
I build my docker image locally and am able to run all pods via
kubectl create -f deployment.yaml
kubectl create -f service.yaml
. However when I run
$ kubectl get services
NAME TYPE CLUSTER-IP EXTERNAL-IP PORT(S) AGE
kubernetes ClusterIP 10.96.0.1 <none> 443/TCP 2h
nodeapp LoadBalancer 10.110.106.83 <pending> 80:32711/TCP 9m
There is no external ip to be able to connect to the cluster. Tried to expose one pod but the the external Ip stays none. Why Is there no external ip?
$ cat deployment.yaml
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
name: nodeapp
labels:
app: nodeapp
spec:
replicas: 2
selector:
matchLabels:
app: nodeapp
template:
metadata:
labels:
app: nodeapp
spec:
containers:
- name: hello-node
image: hello-node:v2
imagePullPolicy: IfNotPresent
ports:
- containerPort: 3000
and
cat service.yaml
kind: Service
apiVersion: v1
metadata:
name: nodeapp
spec:
selector:
app: nodeapp
ports:
- name: http
port: 80
targetPort: 3000
protocol: TCP
type: LoadBalancer
$ cat server.js
var http = require('http');
var handleRequest = function(request, response) {
console.log('Received request for URL: ' + request.url);
response.writeHead(200);
response.end('Hello User');
};
var www = http.createServer(handleRequest);

Answer 1

According to the K8S documentation here. So, type=LoadBalancer can be used on AWS, GCP and other supported Clouds, not on Minikube.
On cloud providers which support external load balancers, setting the type field to LoadBalancer will provision a load balancer for your Service.
Specify type as NodePort as mentioned here and the service will be exposed on a port on the Minikube. Then the service can be accessed by using url from the host OS.
minikube service nodeapp --url

Answer 2

A load balancer type service can be achieved in minikube using the metallb project https://github.com/google/metallb
This allows you to use external ip offline and in minikube and not only with a cloud provider.
Good luck!

Answer 3

If you run the following command:
kubectl expose deployment nodeapp --type=NodePort
Then run:
kubectl get services
It should show you the service and what port it's exposed on.
You can get your Minikube IP using:
curl $(minikube service nodeapp --url)