Use an HTTP Proxy to Access the Kubernetes API

This page shows how to use an HTTP proxy to access the Kubernetes API.

Before you begin

You need to have a Kubernetes cluster, and the kubectl command-line tool mustbe configured to communicate with your cluster. It is recommended to run this tutorial on a cluster with at least two nodes that are not acting as control plane hosts. If you do not already have acluster, you can create one by usingminikubeor you can use one of these Kubernetes playgrounds:

• iximiuz Labs
• Killercoda
• KodeKloud
• Play with Kubernetes

To check the version, enterkubectl version.

If you do not already have an application running in your cluster, starta Hello world application by entering this command:

kubectl create deployment hello-app --image=gcr.io/google-samples/hello-app:2.0 --port=8080

Using kubectl to start a proxy server

This command starts a proxy to the Kubernetes API server:

kubectl proxy --port=8080

Exploring the Kubernetes API

When the proxy server is running, you can explore the API usingcurl,wget,or a browser.

Get the API versions:

curl http://localhost:8080/api/

The output should look similar to this:

{  "kind": "APIVersions",  "versions": [    "v1"  ],  "serverAddressByClientCIDRs": [    {      "clientCIDR": "0.0.0.0/0",      "serverAddress": "10.0.2.15:8443"    }  ]}

Get a list of pods:

curl http://localhost:8080/api/v1/namespaces/default/pods

The output should look similar to this:

{  "kind": "PodList",  "apiVersion": "v1",  "metadata": {    "resourceVersion": "33074"  },  "items": [    {      "metadata": {        "name": "kubernetes-bootcamp-2321272333-ix8pt",        "generateName": "kubernetes-bootcamp-2321272333-",        "namespace": "default",        "uid": "ba21457c-6b1d-11e6-85f7-1ef9f1dab92b",        "resourceVersion": "33003",        "creationTimestamp": "2016-08-25T23:43:30Z",        "labels": {          "pod-template-hash": "2321272333",          "run": "kubernetes-bootcamp"        },        ...}

What's next

Learn more aboutkubectl proxy.