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Publish your website as a public secured service

Requirements

Overview

In this chapter we are going to, use a loadBalancer to host your abcdesktop service with a public IP Address, then configure dns zone file to use your domain name, and activate TLS to secure your service.

Create a new http-router service yaml file

The default install define the http-router service with as nodePort type. We are going to update the http-router service with a LoadBalancer type.

Create a file named http-router.yaml

kind: Service
apiVersion: v1
metadata:
  name: http-router
  labels:
    abcdesktop/role: router-od
  annotations:
    service.beta.kubernetes.io/do-loadbalancer-healthcheck-port: "80"
    service.beta.kubernetes.io/do-loadbalancer-healthcheck-protocol: "http"
    service.beta.kubernetes.io/do-loadbalancer-protocol: "http"
    service.beta.kubernetes.io/do-loadbalancer-tls-ports: "443"
    service.beta.kubernetes.io/do-loadbalancer-tls-passthrough: "true"
    service.beta.kubernetes.io/do-loadbalancer-healthcheck-path: "/healthz"
spec: 
  type: LoadBalancer
  selector:
    run: router-od
  ports:
  - protocol: TCP
    port: 443
    targetPort: 443
    name: https
  - protocol: TCP
    port: 80
    targetPort: 80
    name: http

Save your http-router.yaml file

Delete the previous service http-router

kubectl delete service http-router -n abcdesktop
service "http-router" deleted

Create your new service/http-router

kubectl apply -f http-router.yaml -n abcdesktop
service/http-router created

Wait for few minutes, the EXTERNAL-IP of service http-router stays in Pending state

kubectl get services http-router -n abcdesktop 

NAME          TYPE           CLUSTER-IP      EXTERNAL-IP   PORT(S)        AGE
http-router   LoadBalancer   10.245.73.189   <pending>     80:32155/TCP   3s

Check the EXTERNAL-IP of service http-router again

kubectl get services http-router -n abcdesktop

Great the service gets 157.230.202.250 as an EXTERNAL-IP

NAME          TYPE           CLUSTER-IP       EXTERNAL-IP       PORT(S)        AGE
http-router   LoadBalancer   10.245.245.242   157.230.202.250   80:30443/TCP   61s

You can open a web browser to reach your abcdesktop service with the IP address

web browser to reach your abcdesktop service

Web browser doesn't allow usage of websocket without secure protocol. To login you need https protocol

Update your DNS zone file

We will use a FQDN (Fully Qualified Domain Name) to replace the IP Address.

digitalocean networking

This screenshot describes the DigitalOcean network console. It shows the Domain informations, but your can manage your zone file from your own registrar.

Create new record

We are going to create a new record hello (hello.abcdekstop.pepins.net) to the A address 157.230.202.250. I prefer to define low TTL value to fix some changes quickly.

The IP Address is show by the DigitalOcean network console, it is the same address as the EXTERNAL-IP of your http-router service.

kubectl get services http-router -n abcdesktop
NAME          TYPE           CLUSTER-IP      EXTERNAL-IP       PORT(S)                      AGE
http-router   LoadBalancer   10.245.143.46   157.230.202.250   443:31196/TCP,80:32043/TCP   16m

digital ocean console domain overview

Press Create Record button, to update your zone file with the new record

digital ocean console domain overview

From your local device, you can open a web browser

reach your website from your new name

Web browser doesn't allow usage of websocket without secure protocol. To login you need https protocol.

As you can see, your website is Not Secured, we are going to add X509 SSL certificate to secure your service.

Obtain a certificat

If you already have a X509 certificat with a private and public certified key files for your web site, you can skip this chapter.

To create you SSL certificat, we are using let's encrypt service. You need your new hostname and your email address

Define the new variables ABCDESKTOP_PUBLIC_FQDN and USER_EMAIL_ADDRESS 

ABCDESKTOP_PUBLIC_FQDN=hello.digitalocean.pepins.net
USER_EMAIL_ADDRESS=alex@koumoula.com
ROUTER_POD_NAME=$(kubectl get pods -l run=router-od -o jsonpath={.items..metadata.name}  -n abcdesktop)
kubectl exec -n abcdesktop -it ${ROUTER_POD_NAME} -- /usr/bin/certbot certonly --webroot -w /var/lib/nginx/html -d ${ABCDESKTOP_PUBLIC_FQDN} -m "${USER_EMAIL_ADDRESS}" --agree-tos -n

You should read on stdout

Saving debug log to /var/log/letsencrypt/letsencrypt.log
Requesting a certificate for hello.digitalocean.pepins.net

Successfully received certificate.
Certificate is saved at: /etc/letsencrypt/live/hello.digitalocean.pepins.net/fullchain.pem
Key is saved at:         /etc/letsencrypt/live/hello.digitalocean.pepins.net/privkey.pem
This certificate expires on 2025-10-05.
These files will be updated when the certificate renews.

NEXT STEPS:
- The certificate will need to be renewed before it expires. Certbot can automatically renew the certificate in the background, but you may need to take steps to enable that functionality. See https://certbot.org/renewal-setup for instructions.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
If you like Certbot, please consider supporting our work by:
 * Donating to ISRG / Let's Encrypt:   https://letsencrypt.org/donate
 * Donating to EFF:                    https://eff.org/donate-le
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The files fullchain.pem and privkey.pem are located inside the container. 

Certificate is saved at: /etc/letsencrypt/live/hello.digitalocean.pepins.net/fullchain.pem
Key is saved at:         /etc/letsencrypt/live/hello.digitalocean.pepins.net/privkey.pem

We export the files and create a new secrets. 

kubectl exec -n abcdesktop -it  ${ROUTER_POD_NAME} -- cat /etc/letsencrypt/live/$ABCDESKTOP_PUBLIC_FQDN/fullchain.pem > fullchain.pem
kubectl exec -n abcdesktop -it  ${ROUTER_POD_NAME} -- cat /etc/letsencrypt/live/$ABCDESKTOP_PUBLIC_FQDN/privkey.pem > privkey.pem

Create a secret for X509 certificat

Create a secret named http-router-certificat with the fullchain.pem and privkey.pem file content

kubectl create secret tls http-router-certificat --cert=fullchain.pem --key=privkey.pem -n abcdesktop

You secret is created 

secret/http-router-certificat created

Update http-router ConfigMap to use the new http-router-certificat secret

Download abcdesktop-routehttp-config.4.1.yaml file 

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/abcdesktopio/conf/refs/heads/main/kubernetes/abcdesktop-routehttp-config.4.1.yaml

Open your abcdesktop-routehttp-config.4.1.yaml file, look for the ConfigMap abcdesktop-routehttp-config.

Remove the comments to enable https and change the value YOUR_SERVER_NAME_AND_DOMAIN by your own value. 

 # nginx server config
 server {
     ...

     ######
     # uncomment this to enable https
     #
     listen 443 ssl http2 default_server;
     listen [::]:443 ssl http2 default_server;
     server_name YOUR_SERVER_NAME_AND_DOMAIN; # change this too
     ssl_certificate     /etc/nginx/ssl/tls.crt;
     ssl_certificate_key /etc/nginx/ssl/tls.key;
     #
     # end of https section
     ######

     ...
     index index.html index.htm;

For example

     listen 443 ssl http2 default_server;
     listen [::]:443 ssl http2 default_server;
     server_name hello.digitalocean.pepins.net;
     ssl_certificate     /etc/nginx/ssl/tls.crt;
     ssl_certificate_key /etc/nginx/ssl/tls.key;

Apply your new nginx confguration file

kubectl apply -f routehttp-config-4.1.yaml -n abcdesktop`

Update deployment http-router

Update the deployment route to add certificat ssl entry

The abcdesktop-deployment-routehttps.4.1.yaml file adds mountPath: /etc/nginx/ssl to secretName: http-router-certificat

kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/abcdesktopio/conf/refs/heads/main/kubernetes/abcdesktop-deployment-routehttps.4.1.yaml -n abcdesktop

Reach your website using httpsprotocol

You can now connect to your abcdesktop desktop pulic web site using https protocol.

reach your website using https

The status is secured and we get some informations from the certificate

reach your website using https