K3s and RKE (Rancher)

This document explains how you can install APISIX ingress on k3S and Rancher RKE.

tip

K3s is built for IoT and edge computing applications. Apache APISIX also supports an MQTT Plugin and runs well on ARM processors. APISIX ingress is therefore a good choice to handle North-South traffic in K3s.

Prerequisites

• Install K3S or Rancher RKE.
• Install Helm.

Install APISIX and ingress controller

The script below installs APISIX and the ingress controller:

helm repo add apisix https://charts.apiseven.com
helm repo add bitnami https://charts.bitnami.com/bitnami
helm repo update
kubectl create ns ingress-apisix
helm install apisix apisix/apisix \
  --set gateway.type=NodePort \
  --set ingress-controller.enabled=true \
  --namespace ingress-apisix \
  --set ingress-controller.config.apisix.serviceNamespace=ingress-apisix \
  --kubeconfig /etc/rancher/k3s/k3s.yaml
kubectl get service --namespace ingress-apisix

IMPORTANT

If you are using K3s, the default kube config file is located in /etc/rancher/k3s/ and you make require root permission.

This will create the five resources mentioned below:

• apisix-gateway: dataplane the process the traffic.
• apisix-admin: control plane that processes all configuration changes.
• apisix-ingress-controller: ingress controller which exposes APISIX.
• apisix-etcd and apisix-etcd-headless: stores configuration and handles internal communication.

The gateway service type is set to NodePort. Clients can access APISIX through the Node IPs and the assigned port. To use a service of type LoadBalancer with K3s, use a bare-metal load balancer implementation like Klipper.

You should now be able to use APISIX ingress controller. You can try running this minimal example to see if everything is working perfectly.