Lab 3 - Routing workloads

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Lab 3 - Routing to other workloads

Gloo Platform EKS Workshop Architecture Lab 3

Let’s see how easy it is to expose another application. This time, we will match on URI prefix: /products and send to the productcatalogservice application.

kubectl apply -f - <<EOF
apiVersion: networking.gloo.solo.io/v2
kind: RouteTable
metadata:
  name: productcatalog
  namespace: online-boutique
spec:
  weight: 100
  workloadSelectors: []
  http:
    - matchers:
      - uri:
          exact: /products
      - uri:
          prefix: /products
      name: products
      labels:
        route: products
      forwardTo:
        destinations:
          - ref:
              name: productcatalogservice
              namespace: online-boutique
            port:
              number: 3555
EOF

Get products from the Product Catalog API.
```
curl $GLOO_GATEWAY/products
```
Next, let’s route to an endpoint (http://httpbin.org) that is external to the cluster. ExternalService resource defines a service that exists outside of the mesh. ExternalService provides a mechanism to tell Gloo Platform about its existance and how it should be communicated with. Once an ExternalService is created, a RouteTable can be used to send traffic to it. In this example, we will send traffic on URI prefix: /httpbin to this external service.
```
kubectl apply -f - <<EOF
apiVersion: networking.gloo.solo.io/v2
kind: ExternalService
metadata:
  name: httpbin
  namespace: online-boutique
spec:
  hosts:
  - httpbin.org
  ports:
  - name: https
    number: 443
    protocol: HTTPS
    clientsideTls: {}   ### upgrade outbound call to HTTPS
EOF
```

Create a new RouteTable that will match on requests containing the prefix /httpbin and route it to the httpbin ExternalService. You may have also noticed that we are rewriting the path using pathRewrite: / because httpbin.org is listening for /get.

kubectl apply -f - <<'EOF'
apiVersion: networking.gloo.solo.io/v2
kind: RouteTable
metadata:
  name: httpbin
  namespace: online-boutique
spec:
  weight: 150
  workloadSelectors: []
  http:
    - matchers:
      - uri:
          prefix: /httpbin
      name: httpbin-all
      labels:
        route: httpbin
      forwardTo:
        pathRewrite: /
        destinations:
        - ref:
            name: httpbin
          port: 
            number: 443
          kind: EXTERNAL_SERVICE
EOF

Let’s test it.
```
curl -v $GLOO_GATEWAY/httpbin/get
```
The expected results of the executed commands are illustrated in the screenshot below.

This lab has equipped us with practical knowledge on routing to various workloads, including external services. We’ve successfully exposed another application by matching URI prefixes and routing to services both within and outside our cluster. This lab has demonstrated the flexibility and power of the Gloo Platform in handling diverse routing scenarios, an essential skill in microservices architecture.

As we mastered routing to different workloads, we also gained insights into path rewriting and handling external services, setting a solid foundation for more advanced traffic management.