Deploy a Hosting Tunneler in Kubernetes

Reverse proxy cluster services with an OpenZiti tunneler pod

Requirements

Kubernetes: >= 1.20.0-0

Overview

You may use this chart to publish cluster services to your Ziti network. For example, if you create a Ziti service with a server address of tcp:kubernetes.default.svc:443 and write a Bind Service Policy assigning the service to the Ziti identity used with this chart, then your Ziti network's authorized clients will be able access this cluster's apiserver. You could do the same thing for any cluster service's domain name.

How this Chart Works

This chart deploys a pod running ziti-edge-tunnel, the OpenZiti Linux tunneler, in service hosting mode. The chart uses container image docker.io/openziti/ziti-host which runs ziti-edge-tunnel run-host. This puts the Linux tunneler in "hosting" mode which is useful for binding Ziti services without any need for elevated permissions and without any Ziti nameserver or intercepting proxy. You'll be able to publish any server that is known by an IP address or domain name that is reachable from the pod deployed by this chart.

The enrolled Ziti identity JSON is persisted in a volume, and the chart will migrate the identity from a secret to the volume if the legacy secret exists.

Installation

helm repo add openziti https://docs.openziti.io/helm-charts/

After adding the charts repo to Helm then you may enroll the identity and install the chart. You may supply a Ziti identity JSON file when you install the chart. This approach enables you to use any option available to the ziti edge enroll command.

ziti edge enroll --jwt /tmp/k8s-tunneler.jwt --out /tmp/k8s-tunneler.json
helm install ziti-host openziti/ziti-host --set-file zitiIdentity=/tmp/k8s-tunneler.json

Alternatively, you may supply the JWT directly to the chart. In this case, a private key will be generated on first run and the identity will be enrolled.

helm install ziti-host openziti/ziti-host --set-file zitiEnrollToken=/tmp/k8s-tunneler.jwt

Installation using an existing secret

Warning: this approach does not allow the tunneler to autonomously renew its identity certificate, so you must renew the identity certificate out of band and supply it as an existing secret.

Create the secret:

kubectl create secret generic k8s-tunneler-identity --from-file=persisted-identity=k8s-tunneler.json

Deploy the Helm chart, referring to the existing secret:

helm install ziti-host openziti/ziti-host --set secret.existingSecretName=k8s-tunneler-identity

If desired, change the key name persisted-identity with --set secret.keyName=myKeyName.

Identity Directory and Volume

The Ziti identity is stored in a directory inside the container, which is backed by a PersistentVolumeClaim (PVC) by default. This ensures that identity renewals and updates are preserved across pod restarts. If you use an existing secret instead, the identity directory will be read-only, and renewals will not be persisted.

Warning: If the identity directory is not writable or not backed by a persistent volume, identity renewals and updates will NOT be preserved across container restarts.

Values Reference

Key	Type	Default	Description
additionalVolumes	list	[]	additional volumes to mount to ziti-host container
affinity	object	{}
dnsPolicy	string	"ClusterFirstWithHostNet"
fullnameOverride	string	""
hostNetwork	bool	false	bool: host network mode
image.args	list	[]
image.pullPolicy	string	"Always"
image.repository	string	"openziti/ziti-host"
imagePullSecrets	list	[]
nameOverride	string	""
nodeSelector	object	{}
podAnnotations	object	{}
podSecurityContext.fsGroup	int	65534	int: fsGroup for podSecurityContext (default: nogroup)
podSecurityContext.runAsGroup	int	65534	int: GID to run the container as (default: nogroup)
podSecurityContext.runAsUser	int	65534	int: UID to run the container as (default: nobody)
ports	list	[]
replicas	int	1
resources	object	{}
secret	object	{}
securityContext	object	{}
serviceAccount.annotations	object	{}
serviceAccount.create	bool	true
serviceAccount.name	string	""
spireAgent.enabled	bool	false	if you are running a container with the spire-agent binary installed then this will allow you to add the hostpath necessary for connecting to the spire socket
spireAgent.spireSocketMnt	string	"/run/spire/sockets"	file path of the spire socket mount
tolerations	list	[]

helm upgrade {release} {source dir}