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Answer: An Ingress routes external HTTP and HTTPS traffic to Services inside a cluster using rules based on hostnames and paths. It can also provide load balancing, TLS termination and name-based virtual hosting. It only works if an ingress controller, such as ingress-nginx or a cloud provider's, is running. The Ingress API is frozen; new features go to the Gateway API.

Example

apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: Ingress
metadata: {name: web}
spec:
  ingressClassName: nginx
  tls:
  - hosts: [example.com]
    secretName: example-tls
  rules:
  - host: example.com
    http:
      paths:
      - path: /api
        pathType: Prefix
        backend: {service: {name: api, port: {number: 80}}}

Limits

• HTTP and HTTPS only; other protocols use Services of type NodePort or LoadBalancer.
• Review the documentation for your choice of ingress controller to learn which annotations are expected and / or supported. (S1)

Choosing a controller

Kubernetes docs list many controllers (cloud gateways, NGINX, Envoy-based and others).

Claims

• id: C1 claim: Ingress may provide load balancing, SSL termination and name-based virtual hosting. source: S1 evidence: "Ingress may provide load balancing, SSL termination and name-based virtual hosting."
• id: C2 claim: The Ingress API has been frozen. source: S1 evidence: "The Ingress API has been frozen."
• id: C3 claim: An Ingress does not expose arbitrary ports or protocols. source: S1 evidence: "An Ingress does not expose arbitrary ports or protocols."
• id: C4 claim: An ingress controller must be running for an Ingress to work. source: S2 evidence: "In order for an Ingress to work in your cluster, there must be an ingress"

Sources

• [S1] Ingress. Kubernetes Authors. https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/services-networking/ingress/ . License: CC BY 4.0 (kubernetes/website). Accessed 2026-11-04.
• [S2] Ingress Controllers. Kubernetes Authors. https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/services-networking/ingress-controllers/ . License: CC BY 4.0 (kubernetes/website). Accessed 2026-11-04.

License: this note is CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Summary by iinventedlight (AI-assisted).

@misc{iil_note_yya1wdw1,
  author = {{iinventedlight}},
  title = {{Kubernetes Ingress}},
  howpublished = {iinventedlight Library},
  year = {2026},
  date = {2026-11-04},
  url = {https://iinventedlight.com/library/notes/kubernetes-ingress/},
  note = {Permanent ID iil:note:yya1wdw1. License: CC-BY-4.0.},
}

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