Configuration

MetalLB remains idle until configured. This is accomplished by creating and deploying various resources into the same namespace (metallb-system) MetalLB is deployed into.

There are various examples of the configuration CRs in configsamples.

Also, the API is fully documented here.

Defining the IPs to assign to the Load Balancer services

In order to assign an IP to the services, MetalLB must be instructed to do so via the IPAddressPool CR.

All the IPs allocated via IPAddressPools contribute to the pool of IPs that MetalLB uses to assign IPs to services.

apiVersion: metallb.io/v1beta1
kind: IPAddressPool
metadata:
  name: first-pool
  namespace: metallb-system
spec:
  addresses:
  - 192.168.10.0/24
  - 192.168.9.1-192.168.9.5
  - fc00:f853:0ccd:e799::/124

Multiple instances of IPAddressPools can co-exist and addresses can be defined by CIDR, by range, and both IPV4 and IPV6 addresses can be assigned.

Announce the service IPs

Once the IPs are assigned to a service, they must be announced.

The specific configuration depends on the protocol(s) you want to use to announce service IPs. Jump to:

• Layer 2 configuration
• BGP configuration
• Advanced BGP configuration
• Advanced L2 configuration
• Advanced IPAddressPool configuration

Note: it is possible to announce the same service both via L2 and via BGP (see the relative FAQ).

Layer 2 configuration

Layer 2 mode is the simplest to configure: in many cases, you don’t need any protocol-specific configuration, only IP addresses.

Layer 2 mode does not require the IPs to be bound to the network interfaces of your worker nodes. It works by responding to ARP requests on your local network directly, to give the machine’s MAC address to clients.

In order to advertise the IP coming from an IPAddressPool, an L2Advertisement instance must be associated to the IPAddressPool.

For example, the following configuration gives MetalLB control over IPs from 192.168.1.240 to 192.168.1.250, and configures Layer 2 mode:

apiVersion: metallb.io/v1beta1
kind: IPAddressPool
metadata:
  name: first-pool
  namespace: metallb-system
spec:
  addresses:
  - 192.168.1.240-192.168.1.250

apiVersion: metallb.io/v1beta1
kind: L2Advertisement
metadata:
  name: example
  namespace: metallb-system

Setting no IPAddressPool selector in an L2Advertisement instance is interpreted as that instance being associated to all the IPAddressPools available.

So in case there are specialized IPAddressPools, and only some of them must be advertised via L2, the list of IPAddressPools we want to advertise the IPs from must be declared (alternative, a label selector can be used).

apiVersion: metallb.io/v1beta1
kind: L2Advertisement
metadata:
  name: example
  namespace: metallb-system
spec:
  ipAddressPools:
  - first-pool

BGP configuration

MetalLB needs to be instructed on how to establish a session with one or more external BGP routers.

In order to do so, an instance of BGPPeer must be created for each router we want metallb to connect to.

For a basic configuration featuring one BGP router and one IP address range, you need 4 pieces of information:

• The router IP address that MetalLB should connect to,
• The router’s AS number,
• The AS number MetalLB should use,
• An IP address range expressed as a CIDR prefix.

As an example if you want to give MetalLB AS number 64500, and connect it to a router at 10.0.0.1 with AS number 64501, your configuration will look like:

apiVersion: metallb.io/v1beta2
kind: BGPPeer
metadata:
  name: sample
  namespace: metallb-system
spec:
  myASN: 64500
  peerASN: 64501
  peerAddress: 10.0.0.1

Given an IPAddressPool like:

apiVersion: metallb.io/v1beta1
kind: IPAddressPool
metadata:
  name: first-pool
  namespace: metallb-system
spec:
  addresses:
  - 192.168.1.240-192.168.1.250

MetalLB must be configured to advertise the IPs coming from it via BGP.

This is done via the BGPAdvertisement CR.

apiVersion: metallb.io/v1beta1
kind: BGPAdvertisement
metadata:
  name: example
  namespace: metallb-system

Setting no IPAddressPool selector in a BGPAdvertisement instance is interpreted as that instance being associated to all the IPAddressPools available.

So in case there are specialized AddressPools, and only some of them must be advertised via BGP, the list of ipAddressPools we want to advertise the IPs from must be declared (alternative, a label selector can be used).

apiVersion: metallb.io/v1beta1
kind: BGPAdvertisement
metadata:
  name: example
  namespace: metallb-system
spec:
  ipAddressPools:
  - first-pool

Enabling BFD support for BGP sessions

With the FRR mode, BGP sessions can be backed up by BFD sessions in order to provide a quicker path failure detection than BGP alone provides.

In order to enable BFD, a BFD profile must be added and referenced by a given peer:

apiVersion: metallb.io/v1beta1
kind: BFDProfile
metadata:
  name: testbfdprofile
  namespace: metallb-system
spec:
  receiveInterval: 380
  transmitInterval: 270

apiVersion: metallb.io/v1beta2
kind: BGPPeer
metadata:
  name: peersample
  namespace: metallb-system
spec:
  myASN: 64512
  peerASN: 64512
  peerAddress: 172.30.0.3
  bfdProfile: testbfdprofile

Configuration validation

MetalLB ships validation webhooks that check the validity of the CRs applied.

However, due to the fact that the global MetalLB configuration is composed by different pieces, not all of the invalid configurations are blocked by those webhooks. Because of that, if a non valid MetalLB configuration is applied, MetalLB discards it and keeps using the last valid configuration.

In future releases MetalLB will expose misconfigurations as part of Kubernetes resources, but currently the only way to understand why the configuration was not loaded is by checking the controller’s logs.