There are **different ways to expose services** in Kubernetes so both **internal** endpoints and **external** endpoints can access them. This Kubernetes configuration is pretty critical as the administrator could give access to **attackers to services they shouldn't be able to access**.
Before starting enumerating the ways K8s offers tot expose services to the public, know that if you can list namespaces, services and ingresses, you can everything exposed to the public with:
```bash
kubectl get namespace -o custom-columns='NAME:.metadata.name' | grep -v NAME | while IFS='' read -r ns; do
A **ClusterIP** service is the **default** Kubernetes **service**. It gives you a **service inside** your cluster that other apps inside your cluster can access. There is **no external access**.
However, this can be accessed using the Kubernetes Proxy:
```
kubectl proxy --port=8080
```
Now, you can navigate through the Kubernetes API to access services using this scheme:
_This method requires you to run `kubectl` as an **authenticated user**._
### NodePort
**NodePort opens a specific port on all the Nodes** (the VMs), and any **traffic** that is sent to this port is **forwarded to the service**. This is a really bad option usually.
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An example of NodePort specification:
```yaml
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
name: my-nodeport-service
spec:
selector:
app: my-app
type: NodePort
ports:
- name: http
port: 80
targetPort: 80
nodePort: 30036
protocol: TCP
```
If you **don't specify** the **nodePort** in the yaml (it's the port that will be opened) a port in the **range 30000–32767 will be used**.
### LoadBalancer <a href="#0d96" id="0d96"></a>
Exposes the Service externally **using a cloud provider's load balancer**. On GKE, this will spin up a [Network Load Balancer](https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/load-balancing/network/) that will give you a single IP address that will forward all traffic to your service.
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You have to pay for a LoadBalancer per exposed service, which can get expensive.
### ExternalName
Services of type ExternalName **map a Service to a DNS name**, not to a typical selector such as `my-service` or `cassandra`. You specify these Services with the `spec.externalName` parameter.
This Service definition, for example, maps the `my-service` Service in the `prod` namespace to `my.database.example.com`:
```yaml
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
name: my-service
namespace: prod
spec:
type: ExternalName
externalName: my.database.example.com
```
When looking up the host `my-service.prod.svc.cluster.local`, the cluster DNS Service returns a `CNAME` record with the value `my.database.example.com`. Accessing `my-service` works in the same way as other Services but with the crucial difference that **redirection happens at the DNS level** rather than via proxying or forwarding.
Traffic that ingresses into the cluster with the **external IP** (as **destination IP**), on the Service port, will be **routed to one of the Service endpoints**. `externalIPs` are not managed by Kubernetes and are the responsibility of the cluster administrator.
In the Service spec, `externalIPs` can be specified along with any of the `ServiceTypes`. In the example below, "`my-service`" can be accessed by clients on "`80.11.12.10:80`" (`externalIP:port`)
```yaml
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
name: my-service
spec:
selector:
app: MyApp
ports:
- name: http
protocol: TCP
port: 80
targetPort: 9376
externalIPs:
- 80.11.12.10
```
### Ingress
Unlike all the above examples, **Ingress is NOT a type of service**. Instead, it sits i**n front of multiple services and act as a “smart router”** or entrypoint into your cluster.
You can do a lot of different things with an Ingress, and there are **many types of Ingress controllers that have different capabilities**.
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The default GKE ingress controller will spin up a [HTTP(S) Load Balancer](https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/load-balancing/http/) for you. This will let you do both path based and subdomain based routing to backend services. For example, you can send everything on foo.yourdomain.com to the foo service, and everything under the yourdomain.com/bar/ path to the bar service.
The YAML for a Ingress object on GKE with a [L7 HTTP Load Balancer](https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/load-balancing/http/) might look like this:
