Skip to main content

Exposing a virtual machine by using a service

You can expose a virtual machine (VM) within or outside the cluster by exposing a VM as a Kubernetes service. You can leverage native load balancing and observability tools that provide unified traffic management, consistent SSL termination, and centralized security policies across hybrid workloads.

About services​

A Kubernetes service exposes network access for clients to an application running on a set of pods. Services offer abstraction, load balancing, and, in the case of the NodePort and LoadBalancer types, exposure to the outside world.

ClusterIP
Exposes the service on an internal IP address and as a DNS name to other applications within the cluster. A single service can map to multiple virtual machines. When a client tries to connect to the service, the client’s request is load balanced among available backends. ClusterIP is the default service type.
NodePort
Exposes the service on the same port of each selected node in the cluster. NodePort makes a port accessible from outside the cluster, provided that the node itself is externally accessible to the client.
LoadBalancer
Creates an external load balancer in the current cloud (if supported) and assigns a fixed, external IP address to the service.
note

For on-premise clusters, you can configure a load balancing service by deploying the MetalLB Operator.

Dual-stack support​

If IPv4 and IPv6 dual-stack networking is enabled for your cluster, you can create a service that uses IPv4, IPv6, or both, by defining the spec.ipFamilyPolicy and the spec.ipFamilies fields in the Service object.

The spec.ipFamilyPolicy field can be set to one of the following values:

SingleStack
The control plane assigns a cluster IP address for the service based on the first configured service cluster IP range.
PreferDualStack
The control plane assigns both IPv4 and IPv6 cluster IP addresses for the service on clusters that have dual-stack configured.
RequireDualStack
This option fails for clusters that do not have dual-stack networking enabled. For clusters that have dual-stack configured, the behavior is the same as when the value is set to PreferDualStack. The control plane allocates cluster IP addresses from both IPv4 and IPv6 address ranges.

You can define which IP family to use for single-stack or define the order of IP families for dual-stack by setting the spec.ipFamilies field to one of the following array values:

  • [IPv4]
  • [IPv6]
  • [IPv4, IPv6]
  • [IPv6, IPv4]
note

IPv6 single stack and the [IPv6, IPv4] array are not supported in IBM Z(R) and IBM(R) LinuxONE.

Creating a service by using the CLI​

You can create a service and associate it with a virtual machine (VM) by using the command line.

Prerequisites

  • You configured the cluster network to support the service.
  • You have installed the OpenShift CLI (oc).

Procedure

  1. Edit the VirtualMachine manifest to add the label for service creation. Add special: key to the spec.template.metadata.labels stanza:

    apiVersion: kubevirt.io/v1
    kind: VirtualMachine
    metadata:
      name: example-vm
      namespace: example-namespace
    spec:
      runStrategy: Halted
      template:
        metadata:
          labels:
            special: key
    # ...
    note

    Labels on a virtual machine pass through to the pod. The special: key label must match the label in the spec.selector attribute of the Service manifest.

  2. Save the VirtualMachine manifest file to apply your changes.

  3. Create a Service manifest to expose the VM:

    apiVersion: v1
    kind: Service
    metadata:
      name: example-service
      namespace: example-namespace
    spec:
    # ...
      selector:
        special: key
      type: NodePort
      ports:
        protocol: TCP
        port: 80
        targetPort: 9376
        nodePort: 30000
    • spec.selector defines the label that you added to the spec.template.metadata.labels stanza of the VirtualMachine manifest.
    • spec.type defines the type of service by the way it is exposed. Choose one of ClusterIP, NodePort, or LoadBalancer.
    • spec.ports defines a collection of network ports and protocols to expose from the virtual machine.

  4. Save the Service manifest file.

  5. Create the service by running the following command:

    $ oc create -f example-service.yaml

  6. Restart the VM to apply the changes.

Verification

  • Query the Service object to verify that it is available: 
    $ oc get service -n example-namespace

Additional resources