HTTPRoute Request Mirroring

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The HTTPRoute resource allows one or more backendRefs to be provided. Requests will be routed to these upstreams. It is possible to divide the traffic between these backends using Traffic Splitting, but it is also possible to mirror requests to another Service instead. Request mirroring is accomplished using Gateway API’s HTTPRequestMirrorFilter on the HTTPRoute.

When requests are made to a HTTPRoute that uses a HTTPRequestMirrorFilter, the response will never come from the backendRef defined in the filter. Responses from the mirror backendRef are always ignored.

Installation

Follow the steps from the Quickstart to install Envoy Gateway and the example manifest. Before proceeding, you should be able to query the example backend using HTTP.

Mirroring the Traffic

Next, create a new Deployment and Service to mirror requests to. The following example will use a second instance of the application deployed in the quickstart.

cat <<EOF | kubectl apply -f -
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: ServiceAccount
metadata:
  name: backend-2
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: backend-2
  labels:
    app: backend-2
    service: backend-2
spec:
  ports:
    - name: http
      port: 3000
      targetPort: 3000
  selector:
    app: backend-2
---
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: backend-2
spec:
  replicas: 1
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: backend-2
      version: v1
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: backend-2
        version: v1
    spec:
      serviceAccountName: backend-2
      containers:
        - image: gcr.io/k8s-staging-gateway-api/echo-basic:v20231214-v1.0.0-140-gf544a46e
          imagePullPolicy: IfNotPresent
          name: backend-2
          ports:
            - containerPort: 3000
          env:
            - name: POD_NAME
              valueFrom:
                fieldRef:
                  fieldPath: metadata.name
            - name: NAMESPACE
              valueFrom:
                fieldRef:
                  fieldPath: metadata.namespace
EOF

Save and apply the following resources to your cluster:

---
apiVersion: v1
kind: ServiceAccount
metadata:
  name: backend-2
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: backend-2
  labels:
    app: backend-2
    service: backend-2
spec:
  ports:
    - name: http
      port: 3000
      targetPort: 3000
  selector:
    app: backend-2
---
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: backend-2
spec:
  replicas: 1
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: backend-2
      version: v1
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: backend-2
        version: v1
    spec:
      serviceAccountName: backend-2
      containers:
        - image: gcr.io/k8s-staging-gateway-api/echo-basic:v20231214-v1.0.0-140-gf544a46e
          imagePullPolicy: IfNotPresent
          name: backend-2
          ports:
            - containerPort: 3000
          env:
            - name: POD_NAME
              valueFrom:
                fieldRef:
                  fieldPath: metadata.name
            - name: NAMESPACE
              valueFrom:
                fieldRef:
                  fieldPath: metadata.namespace
Then create an HTTPRoute that uses a HTTPRequestMirrorFilter to send requests to the original service from the quickstart, and mirror request to the service that was just deployed.

cat <<EOF | kubectl apply -f -
apiVersion: gateway.networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: HTTPRoute
metadata:
  name: http-mirror
spec:
  parentRefs:
  - name: eg
  hostnames:
  - backends.example
  rules:
  - matches:
    - path:
        type: PathPrefix
        value: /
    filters:
    - type: RequestMirror
      requestMirror:
        backendRef:
          kind: Service
          name: backend-2
          port: 3000
    backendRefs:
    - group: ""
      kind: Service
      name: backend
      port: 3000
EOF

Save and apply the following resource to your cluster:

---
apiVersion: gateway.networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: HTTPRoute
metadata:
  name: http-mirror
spec:
  parentRefs:
  - name: eg
  hostnames:
  - backends.example
  rules:
  - matches:
    - path:
        type: PathPrefix
        value: /
    filters:
    - type: RequestMirror
      requestMirror:
        backendRef:
          kind: Service
          name: backend-2
          port: 3000
    backendRefs:
    - group: ""
      kind: Service
      name: backend
      port: 3000

The HTTPRoute status should indicate that it has been accepted and is bound to the example Gateway.

kubectl get httproute/http-mirror -o yaml

Get the Gateway’s address:

export GATEWAY_HOST=$(kubectl get gateway/eg -o jsonpath='{.status.addresses[0].value}')

Querying backends.example/get should result in a 200 response from the example Gateway and the output from the example app should indicate which pod handled the request. There is only one pod in the deployment for the example app from the quickstart, so it will be the same on all subsequent requests.

$ curl -v --header "Host: backends.example" "http://${GATEWAY_HOST}/get"
...
> GET /get HTTP/1.1
> Host: backends.example
> User-Agent: curl/7.81.0
> Accept: */*
> add-header: something
>
* Mark bundle as not supporting multiuse
< HTTP/1.1 200 OK
< content-type: application/json
< x-content-type-options: nosniff
< content-length: 474
< x-envoy-upstream-service-time: 0
< server: envoy
<
...

 "namespace": "default",
 "ingress": "",
 "service": "",
 "pod": "backend-79665566f5-s589f"
...

Check the logs of the pods and you will see that the original deployment and the new deployment each got a request:

$ kubectl logs deploy/backend && kubectl logs deploy/backend-2
...
Starting server, listening on port 3000 (http)
Echoing back request made to /get to client (10.42.0.10:41566)
Starting server, listening on port 3000 (http)
Echoing back request made to /get to client (10.42.0.10:45096)

Multiple BackendRefs

When an HTTPRoute has multiple backendRefs and an HTTPRequestMirrorFilter, traffic splitting will still behave the same as it normally would for the main backendRefs while the backendRef of the HTTPRequestMirrorFilter will continue receiving mirrored copies of the incoming requests.

cat <<EOF | kubectl apply -f -
apiVersion: gateway.networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: HTTPRoute
metadata:
  name: http-mirror
spec:
  parentRefs:
  - name: eg
  hostnames:
  - backends.example
  rules:
  - matches:
    - path:
        type: PathPrefix
        value: /
    filters:
    - type: RequestMirror
      requestMirror:
        backendRef:
          kind: Service
          name: backend-2
          port: 3000
    backendRefs:
    - group: ""
      kind: Service
      name: backend
      port: 3000
    - group: ""
      kind: Service
      name: backend-3
      port: 3000
EOF

Save and apply the following resource to your cluster:

---
apiVersion: gateway.networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: HTTPRoute
metadata:
  name: http-mirror
spec:
  parentRefs:
  - name: eg
  hostnames:
  - backends.example
  rules:
  - matches:
    - path:
        type: PathPrefix
        value: /
    filters:
    - type: RequestMirror
      requestMirror:
        backendRef:
          kind: Service
          name: backend-2
          port: 3000
    backendRefs:
    - group: ""
      kind: Service
      name: backend
      port: 3000
    - group: ""
      kind: Service
      name: backend-3
      port: 3000

Multiple HTTPRequestMirrorFilters

Multiple HTTPRequestMirrorFilters are not supported on the same HTTPRoute rule. When attempting to do so, the admission webhook will reject the configuration.

cat <<EOF | kubectl apply -f -
apiVersion: gateway.networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: HTTPRoute
metadata:
  name: http-mirror
spec:
  parentRefs:
  - name: eg
  hostnames:
  - backends.example
  rules:
  - matches:
    - path:
        type: PathPrefix
        value: /
    filters:
    - type: RequestMirror
      requestMirror:
        backendRef:
          kind: Service
          name: backend-2
          port: 3000
    - type: RequestMirror
      requestMirror:
        backendRef:
          kind: Service
          name: backend-3
          port: 3000
    backendRefs:
    - group: ""
      kind: Service
      name: backend
      port: 3000
EOF

Save and apply the following resource to your cluster:

---
apiVersion: gateway.networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: HTTPRoute
metadata:
  name: http-mirror
spec:
  parentRefs:
  - name: eg
  hostnames:
  - backends.example
  rules:
  - matches:
    - path:
        type: PathPrefix
        value: /
    filters:
    - type: RequestMirror
      requestMirror:
        backendRef:
          kind: Service
          name: backend-2
          port: 3000
    - type: RequestMirror
      requestMirror:
        backendRef:
          kind: Service
          name: backend-3
          port: 3000
    backendRefs:
    - group: ""
      kind: Service
      name: backend
      port: 3000

Error from server: error when creating "STDIN": admission webhook "validate.gateway.networking.k8s.io" denied the request: spec.rules[0].filters: Invalid value: "RequestMirror": cannot be used multiple times in the same rule

Last modified May 3, 2024: fix helm IfNotPresent (#3320) (1e4640a)