How to configure Traefik ingressroute to route requests to a url?

Question

I am trying to configure Traefik ingressRoute to route requests from a host to a url. The host and traefik is setup in region1 while the url is for the loadbalancer in region2 pointing to services in region2. See my ingressroute configuration below:

apiVersion: traefik.containo.us/v1alpha1
kind: IngressRoute
metadata:
  name: route-name
  namespace: default
spec:
  entryPoints:
    - web
  routes:
    - match: Host(`region1.domain.com`) && PathPrefix(`/`)
      kind: Rule
      services:
        test-service:
          loadBalancer:
            servers:
              - url: http://region2.domain.com/

I tried to follow the example here: https://doc.traefik.io/traefik/routing/services/ but I get the error:

IngressRoute in version "v1alpha1" cannot be handled as a IngressRoute: strict decoding error: unknown field "spec.routes[0].services.test-service"

I am able to access the url for the loadbalancer in region2,so just wondering if it is possible/how to configure the Ingressroute to route request to the url?

Answer 1

If you're looking to route requests from a Traefik IngressRoute in one region to a service or load balancer URL in another region, there are few different ways to achieve this.

option 1 create a Kubernetes Service of type ExternalName that points to your external URL. This service acts as a DNS alias to your external service.

apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: external-service
  namespace: default
spec:
  type: ExternalName
  externalName: Yourregion2.domain.com

and update your IngressRoute to route requests to the ExternalName Service you just created.

apiVersion: traefik.containo.us/v1alpha1
kind: IngressRoute
metadata:
  name: route-name
  namespace: default
spec:
  entryPoints:
    - web
  routes:
    - match: Host(`yourregion1.domain.com`) && PathPrefix(`/`)
      kind: Rule
      services:
        - name: external-service
          port: 80

This configuration assumes that requests to region1.domain.com will be routed to region2.domain.com through the external-service. The port should match the port your external service listens on. Since we're pointing to a URL, 80 is used for HTTP, but adjust accordingly if your service uses HTTPS or another port.

Verify your service.

kubectl get svc external-service -n default

Test the routing by accessing region1.domain.com from a browser or using a tool like curl. You should be redirected to the service hosted at region2.domain.com.