kubectl port-forward examples in Kubernetes


Written by - Deepak Prasad

We can use kubectl to set up a proxy that will forward all traffic from a local port we specify to a port associated with the Pod we determine. This can be performed using kubectl port-forward command. kubectl port-forward makes a specific Kubernetes API request. That means the system running it needs access to the API server, and any traffic will get tunneled over a single HTTP connection. We use this command to access container content by forwarding one (or more) local ports to a pod. This command is very useful mostly when you would want to troubleshoot a misbehaving pod.

 

kubectl port-forward syntax

The general syntax to forward ports using kubectl would be as shown below but we will explore all possible options:

kubectl port-forward <resource-type/resource-name> [local_port]:<pod_port>

Sample command to perform port forwarding on pod:

kubectl port-forward pods/my-pod 8080:80

Sample command to perform port forwarding on deployment:

kubectl port-forward deployment/my-deployment 8080:80

Sample command to perform port forwarding on replicaset:

kubectl port-forward replicaset/my-replicaset 8080:80

Sample command to perform port forwarding on service:

kubectl port-forward service/my-service 8080:80

Note that you will not have a Command Prompt back after executing these commands, which is because the command is actively running to keep this particular tunnel we've requested alive. If we cancel or quit the kubectl command, typically by pressing Ctrl + C, then port forwarding will immediately end.

 

Perform kubectl port-forward in background

To perform kubectl port-forward in background you can append the command with & as shown below

kubectl port-forward pods/my-pod 8080:80 &

This will print the PID of the process and then send the command to background and you will be able to use the terminal. Once your work is done, you can go ahead and kill the PID of the background process to close the tunnel.

 

Perform port-forwarding on Pods

Here I will create a simple pod with nginx server running on port 80:

kubectl port-forward examples in Kubernetes

Use kubectl create command to create the pod using the provided YAML file.

[root@controller ~]# kubectl create -f nginx.yaml
pod/nginx created

List the available pods:

[root@controller ~]# kubectl get pods
NAME    READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
nginx   1/1     Running   0          2m37s

To get more details such IP address of the pod,worker node on which the respective pod is running etc, we will combine the above command with -o wide:

[root@controller ~]# kubectl get pods -o wide
NAME    READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE   IP          NODE                   NOMINATED NODE   READINESS GATES
nginx   1/1     Running   0          3m    10.44.0.1   worker-2.example.com   <none>           <none>

 

Access nginx server without port forwarding

Now we know that our nginx container is running on worker-2 with an IP address of 10.44.0.1. But is this IP reachable from the controller node? We are using weave-net CNI and with this network plugin by default the internal network of worker nodes are not accessible by the controller node so we can't connect to the container directly.

kubectl port-forward examples in Kubernetes

 

But the same IP is reachable from the worker-2 node so we can access our nginx server container directly from worker-2 without performing any port forwarding:

kubectl port-forward examples in Kubernetes

But our requirement is to access this nginx web server from the container on the container node so we can use kubectl port-forward command.

 

Access nginx server with port forwarding

Method-1: Listen on port 8080 locally, forwarding to port 80 in the pod

In this method we will forward the traffic to port 8080 on localhost (on controller) to port 80 on worker-2 based nginx container. This is forwarding any and all traffic that gets created on your local machine at TCP port 8080 to TCP port 80 on the Pod nginx:

[root@controller ~]# kubectl port-forward pod/nginx 8080:80
Forwarding from 127.0.0.1:8080 -> 80

Now we attempt to access our nginx server using a different terminal:

kubectl port-forward examples in Kubernetes

Once done you can either kill the PID of the port-forward command or press ctrl+c on the terminal where kubectl port-forward is running.

 

Method-2: Listen on port 8080 on all addresses, forwarding to 80 in the pod

In this method we will perform port forwarding to all addresses on the controller node from port 8080 to port 80 in the pod. So you can use any IP address from the controller node with port 8080 to access the nginx container.

[root@controller ~]# kubectl port-forward --address 0.0.0.0 pod/nginx 8080:80
Forwarding from 0.0.0.0:8080 -> 80

Since we are trying to access a new port, so we will need to enable this port in the firewall if we want to access this on external network:

[root@controller ~]# firewall-cmd --add-port 8080/tcp --permanent
success

[root@controller ~]# firewall-cmd --reload
success

Now we can access our nginx container on external network (here 192.168.0.150 is the IP of my controller node):

kubectl port-forward examples in Kubernetes

Once done you can either kill the PID of the port-forward command or press ctrl+c on the terminal where kubectl port-forward is running.

 

Method-3: Listen on a random port locally, forwarding to 80 in the pod

If you don't specify a local port then kubectl will randomly select a port for forwarding. For example, here I have not specified any local port so kubectl has randomly selected port 40159 for the forwarding.

[root@controller ~]# kubectl port-forward pod/nginx :80
Forwarding from 127.0.0.1:40159 -> 80
Forwarding from [::1]:40159 -> 80

So we can use this port to access the nginx container:

[root@controller ~]# curl 127.0.0.1:40159

Once done you can either kill the PID of the port-forward command or press ctrl+c on the terminal where kubectl port-forward is running.

 

Perform port-forwarding on Kubernetes Deployment Pods

Kubernetes services can be used to expose pods to external network. There are different Service Types available but to perform port forwarding we will use NodePort.

Here I have created a deployment using the following YAML file:

kubectl port-forward examples in Kubernetes

 

and we will also create a service to expose the deployment pods:

kubectl port-forward examples in Kubernetes

 

Let us create the deployment and the service:

[root@controller ~]# kubectl create -f nginx-deploy.yaml
deployment.apps/nginx-deploy created

[root@controller ~]# kubectl create -f nginx-service.yaml
service/nginx-deploy created

List the available pods and services:

[root@controller ~]# kubectl get svc
NAME           TYPE        CLUSTER-IP     EXTERNAL-IP   PORT(S)        AGE
kubernetes     ClusterIP   10.96.0.1      <none>        443/TCP        9d
nginx-deploy   NodePort    10.102.65.90   <none>        80:31957/TCP   6s

[root@controller ~]# kubectl get pods -o wide
NAME                            READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE     IP          NODE                   NOMINATED NODE   READINESS GATES
nginx-deploy-58f9bf94f7-4hngf   1/1     Running   0          7s      10.44.0.2   worker-2.example.com   <none>           <none>
nginx-deploy-58f9bf94f7-dmtfq   1/1     Running   0          2m40s   10.44.0.1   worker-2.example.com   <none>           <none>

As you can see under available services, our deployment is accessible over port 31957 so we can use the IP address of the respective worker node i.e. worker-2 where our pod is running along with port 31957 to access the nginx container:

kubectl port-forward examples in Kubernetes

 

But if you want to perform port forwarding on this pod then you can use service/<service-name> as it would be hard to get the pod name as it is not static and contains variables:

[root@controller ~]# kubectl port-forward service/nginx-deploy  8080:80
Forwarding from 127.0.0.1:8080 -> 80
Forwarding from [::1]:8080 -> 80

Here since it would be hard to get the pod name as it is not static and contains variables, n you can access the nginx deployment pod using following address from the container:

[root@controller ~]# curl 127.0.0.1:8080

 

Summary

In this tutorial we learned how to access container in an external network by performing port forwarding using kubectl. The port-forward utility is often used to create a tunnel to a pod inside the cluster. This utility creates a TCP stream to a specific port on your pod, making it accessible to your local host (or more if you wanted). This method is mostly used by developers for easy troubleshooting purpose to access the pod container. It also has some drawbacks as kubectl port-forward will open your cluster up to attacks from any script running locally so you must use this cautiously.

 

References

Forward a local port to a port on the Pod

 

Related Searches: kubectl port-forward in background. kubectl port-forward --address. kubectl port-forward options. run kubectl port-forward in background.

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Deepak Prasad

He is the founder of GoLinuxCloud and brings over a decade of expertise in Linux, Python, Go, Laravel, DevOps, Kubernetes, Git, Shell scripting, OpenShift, AWS, Networking, and Security. With extensive experience, he excels in various domains, from development to DevOps, Networking, and Security, ensuring robust and efficient solutions for diverse projects. You can reach out to him on his LinkedIn profile or join on Facebook page.

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