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Expose Longhorn Dashboard using Traefik Ingress

Identify the Longhorn Dashboard Service​

When Longhorn is installed, it comes with a Service called longhorn-frontend. This service manages access to the Longhorn dashboard, which is used for monitoring and managing Longhorn volumes.

You can verify the service by running:

kubectl get svc -n longhorn-system

Look for the longhorn-frontend service in the output, which typically looks like this:

NAME                TYPE        CLUSTER-IP     EXTERNAL-IP   PORT(S)   AGE
longhorn-frontend   ClusterIP   10.43.75.105   <none>        80/TCP    4m

Create an Ingress Resource to Expose the Dashboard​

We will use Traefik Ingress to expose the Longhorn dashboard so that it is accessible via a browser.

Ingress YAML Configuration​

Create a YAML file (e.g., longhorn-ingress.yaml) with the following configuration:

apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: Ingress
metadata:
  name: longhorn-ingress
  namespace: longhorn-system
spec:
  ingressClassName: traefik  # We use Traefik as the ingress controller
  rules:
    - host: longhorn.local.host  # The domain by which we'll access Longhorn UI
      http:
        paths:
          - path: /
            pathType: Prefix
            backend:
              service:
                name: longhorn-frontend  # Service managing Longhorn dashboard
                port:
                  number: 80             # Service port where Longhorn UI runs

This configuration does the following:

  • It tells Traefik to expose the longhorn-frontend service (which runs the dashboard) under the host longhorn.local.host.

  • HTTP traffic to this host will be routed to the Longhorn dashboard running on port 80.

Apply the Ingress Resource:​

After creating the YAML file, apply it to your cluster:

kubectl apply -f longhorn-ingress.yaml

Configure Your /etc/hosts File for Local Access​

Since this is for local testing, we need to map the domain longhorn.local.host to the IP address of your Kubernetes cluster. We'll achieve this by updating your /etc/hosts file to resolve requests for longhorn.local.host to your cluster node's IP.

Get the Cluster Node's IP:​

Find the IP address of your cluster node (where Traefik or your load balancer is running). You can often use kubectl get nodes -o wide to retrieve the IP address. It might look something like this:

kubectl get nodes -o wide
NAME          STATUS   ROLES                 AGE   VERSION   INTERNAL-IP     EXTERNAL-IP     OS-IMAGE             KERNEL-VERSION   CONTAINER-RUNTIME
node-master   Ready    master,control-plane   12d   v1.22.2   192.168.1.100   <none>          Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS   5.4.0-89-generic   docker://20.10.8
node-worker   Ready    worker                11d   v1.22.2   192.168.1.101   <none>          Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS   5.4.0-89-generic   docker://20.10.8

In this example, suppose Traefik is running on the master node, which has the IP 192.168.1.100.

Update /etc/hosts:​

Edit the /etc/hosts file on your local machine using a text editor (e.g., vim, nano, etc.).

sudo nano /etc/hosts

Add the following entry, replacing 192.168.1.100 with your node's IP:

192.168.1.100 longhorn.local.host

This entry ensures that when you open http://longhorn.local.host in your browser, it will route the traffic to your cluster.

Access the Longhorn Dashboard​

Now that your ingress is configured and your /etc/hosts is updated, you should be able to access the Longhorn dashboard by navigating to:

http://longhorn.local.host

The Longhorn UI should load in your browser, allowing you to manage your Longhorn volumes and nodes.