kubernetes
Name
kubernetes - enables reading zone data from a Kubernetes cluster.
Description
This plugin implements the Kubernetes DNS-Based Service Discovery
Specification.
CoreDNS running the kubernetes plugin can be used as a replacement for kube-dns in a kubernetes
cluster. See the deployment repository for details on how
to deploy CoreDNS in Kubernetes.
stubDomains and upstreamNameservers
are implemented via the forward plugin. See the examples below.
This plugin can only be used once per Server Block.
Syntax
kubernetes [ZONES...]
With only the plugin specified, the kubernetes plugin will default to the zone specified in
the server's block. It will handle all queries in that zone and connect to Kubernetes in-cluster. It
will not provide PTR records for services or A records for pods. If ZONES is used it specifies
all the zones the plugin should be authoritative for.
kubernetes [ZONES...] {
endpoint URL
tls CERT KEY CACERT
kubeconfig KUBECONFIG [CONTEXT]
namespaces NAMESPACE...
labels EXPRESSION
pods POD-MODE
endpoint_pod_names
ttl TTL
noendpoints
fallthrough [ZONES...]
ignore empty_service
}
-
endpoint
specifies the URL for a remote k8s API endpoint.
If omitted, it will connect to k8s in-cluster using the cluster service account.
-
tls
CERT KEY CACERT are the TLS cert, key and the CA cert file names for remote k8s connection.
This option is ignored if connecting in-cluster (i.e. endpoint is not specified).
-
kubeconfig
KUBECONFIG [CONTEXT] authenticates the connection to a remote k8s cluster using a kubeconfig file.
[CONTEXT] is optional, if not set, then the current context specified in kubeconfig will be used.
It supports TLS, username and password, or token-based authentication.
This option is ignored if connecting in-cluster (i.e., the endpoint is not specified).
-
namespaces
NAMESPACE [NAMESPACE...] only exposes the k8s namespaces listed.
If this option is omitted all namespaces are exposed
-
namespace_labels
EXPRESSION only expose the records for Kubernetes namespaces that match this label selector.
The label selector syntax is described in the
Kubernetes User Guide - Labels. An example that
only exposes namespaces labeled as "istio-injection=enabled", would use:
labels istio-injection=enabled
.
-
labels
EXPRESSION only exposes the records for Kubernetes objects that match this label selector.
The label selector syntax is described in the
Kubernetes User Guide - Labels. An example that
only exposes objects labeled as "application=nginx" in the "staging" or "qa" environments, would
use: labels environment in (staging, qa),application=nginx
.
-
pods
POD-MODE sets the mode for handling IP-based pod A records, e.g.
1-2-3-4.ns.pod.cluster.local. in A 1.2.3.4
.
This option is provided to facilitate use of SSL certs when connecting directly to pods. Valid
values for POD-MODE:
disabled
: Default. Do not process pod requests, always returning NXDOMAIN
insecure
: Always return an A record with IP from request (without checking k8s). This option
is vulnerable to abuse if used maliciously in conjunction with wildcard SSL certs. This
option is provided for backward compatibility with kube-dns.
verified
: Return an A record if there exists a pod in same namespace with matching IP. This
option requires substantially more memory than in insecure mode, since it will maintain a watch
on all pods.
-
endpoint_pod_names
uses the pod name of the pod targeted by the endpoint as
the endpoint name in A records, e.g.,
endpoint-name.my-service.namespace.svc.cluster.local. in A 1.2.3.4
By default, the endpoint-name name selection is as follows: Use the hostname
of the endpoint, or if hostname is not set, use the dashed form of the endpoint
IP address (e.g., 1-2-3-4.my-service.namespace.svc.cluster.local.
)
If this directive is included, then name selection for endpoints changes as
follows: Use the hostname of the endpoint, or if hostname is not set, use the
pod name of the pod targeted by the endpoint. If there is no pod targeted by
the endpoint or pod name is longer than 63, use the dashed IP address form.
-
ttl
allows you to set a custom TTL for responses. The default is 5 seconds. The minimum TTL allowed is
0 seconds, and the maximum is capped at 3600 seconds. Setting TTL to 0 will prevent records from being cached.
-
noendpoints
will turn off the serving of endpoint records by disabling the watch on endpoints.
All endpoint queries and headless service queries will result in an NXDOMAIN.
-
fallthrough
[ZONES...] If a query for a record in the zones for which the plugin is authoritative
results in NXDOMAIN, normally that is what the response will be. However, if you specify this option,
the query will instead be passed on down the plugin chain, which can include another plugin to handle
the query. If [ZONES...] is omitted, then fallthrough happens for all zones for which the plugin
is authoritative. If specific zones are listed (for example in-addr.arpa
and ip6.arpa
), then only
queries for those zones will be subject to fallthrough.
-
ignore empty_service
returns NXDOMAIN for services without any ready endpoint addresses (e.g., ready pods).
This allows the querying pod to continue searching for the service in the search path.
The search path could, for example, include another Kubernetes cluster.
Enabling zone transfer is done by using the transfer plugin.
Startup
When CoreDNS starts with the kubernetes plugin enabled, it will delay serving DNS for up to 5 seconds
until it can connect to the Kubernetes API and synchronize all object watches. If this cannot happen within
5 seconds, then CoreDNS will start serving DNS while the kubernetes plugin continues to try to connect
and synchronize all object watches. CoreDNS will answer SERVFAIL to any request made for a Kubernetes record
that has not yet been synchronized.
Monitoring Kubernetes Endpoints
By default the kubernetes plugin watches Endpoints via the discovery.EndpointSlices
API. However the
api.Endpoints
API is used instead if the Kubernetes version does not support the EndpointSliceProxying
feature gate by default (i.e. Kubernetes version < 1.19).
Ready
This plugin reports readiness to the ready plugin. This will happen after it has synced to the
Kubernetes API.
Examples
Handle all queries in the cluster.local
zone. Connect to Kubernetes in-cluster. Also handle all
in-addr.arpa
PTR
requests for 10.0.0.0/17
. Verify the existence of pods when answering pod
requests.
10.0.0.0/17 cluster.local {
kubernetes {
pods verified
}
}
Or you can selectively expose some namespaces:
kubernetes cluster.local {
namespaces test staging
}
Connect to Kubernetes with CoreDNS running outside the cluster:
kubernetes cluster.local {
endpoint https://k8s-endpoint:8443
tls cert key cacert
}
stubDomains and upstreamNameservers
Here we use the forward plugin to implement a stubDomain that forwards example.local
to the nameserver 10.100.0.10:53
.
Also configured is an upstreamNameserver 8.8.8.8:53
that will be used for resolving names that do not fall in cluster.local
or example.local
.
cluster.local:53 {
kubernetes cluster.local
}
example.local {
forward . 10.100.0.10:53
}
. {
forward . 8.8.8.8:53
}
The configuration above represents the following Kube-DNS stubDomains and upstreamNameservers configuration.
stubDomains: |
{“example.local”: [“10.100.0.10:53”]}
upstreamNameservers: |
[“8.8.8.8:53”]
AutoPath
The kubernetes plugin can be used in conjunction with the autopath plugin. Using this
feature enables server-side domain search path completion in Kubernetes clusters. Note: pods
must
be set to verified
for this to function properly. Furthermore, the remote IP address in the DNS
packet received by CoreDNS must be the IP address of the Pod that sent the request.
cluster.local {
autopath @kubernetes
kubernetes {
pods verified
}
}
Wildcards
Some query labels accept a wildcard value to match any value. If a label is a valid wildcard (*,
or the word "any"), then that label will match all values. The labels that accept wildcards are:
- endpoint in an
A
record request: endpoint.service.namespace.svc.zone, e.g., *.nginx.ns.svc.cluster.local
- service in an
A
record request: service.namespace.svc.zone, e.g., *.ns.svc.cluster.local
- namespace in an
A
record request: service.namespace.svc.zone, e.g., nginx.*.svc.cluster.local
- port and/or protocol in an
SRV
request: _port._protocol.service.namespace.svc.zone.,
e.g., _http.*.service.ns.svc.cluster.local
- multiple wildcards are allowed in a single query, e.g.,
A
Request *.*.svc.zone.
or SRV
request *.*.*.*.svc.zone.
For example, wildcards can be used to resolve all Endpoints for a Service as A
records. e.g.: *.service.ns.svc.myzone.local
will return the Endpoint IPs in the Service service
in namespace default
:
*.service.default.svc.cluster.local. 5 IN A 192.168.10.10
*.service.default.svc.cluster.local. 5 IN A 192.168.25.15
The kubernetes plugin will publish the following metadata, if the metadata
plugin is also enabled:
kubernetes/endpoint
: the endpoint name in the query
kubernetes/kind
: the resource kind (pod or svc) in the query
kubernetes/namespace
: the namespace in the query
kubernetes/port-name
: the port name in an SRV query
kubernetes/protocol
: the protocol in an SRV query
kubernetes/service
: the service name in the query
kubernetes/client-namespace
: the client pod's namespace (see requirements below)
kubernetes/client-pod-name
: the client pod's name (see requirements below)
The kubernetes/client-namespace
and kubernetes/client-pod-name
metadata work by reconciling the
client IP address in the DNS request packet to a known pod IP address. Therefore the following is required:
pods verified
mode must be enabled
- the remote IP address in the DNS packet received by CoreDNS must be the IP address
of the Pod that sent the request.
Metrics
If monitoring is enabled (via the prometheus plugin) then the following metrics are exported:
coredns_kubernetes_dns_programming_duration_seconds{service_kind}
- Exports the
DNS programming latency SLI.
The metrics has the service_kind
label that identifies the kind of the
kubernetes service.
It may take one of the three values:
cluster_ip
headless_with_selector
headless_without_selector
Bugs
The duration metric only supports the "headless_with_selector" service currently.
See Also
See the autopath plugin to enable search path optimizations. And use the transfer plugin to
enable outgoing zone transfers.