Gateway API Translator Design

The Gateway API translates external resources, e.g. GatewayClass, from the configured Provider to the Intermediate Representation (IR).

Assumptions

Initially target core conformance features only, to be followed by extended conformance features.

Inputs and Outputs

The main inputs to the Gateway API translator are:

• GatewayClass, Gateway, HTTPRoute, TLSRoute, Service, ReferenceGrant, Namespace, and Secret resources.

Note: ReferenceGrant is not fully implemented as of v0.2.

The outputs of the Gateway API translator are:

• Xds and Infra Internal Representations (IRs).
• Status updates for GatewayClass, Gateways, HTTPRoutes

Listener Compatibility

Envoy Gateway follows Gateway API listener compatibility spec:

Each listener in a Gateway must have a unique combination of Hostname, Port, and Protocol. An implementation MAY group Listeners by Port and then collapse each group of Listeners into a single Listener if the implementation determines that the Listeners in the group are “compatible”.

Note: Envoy Gateway does not collapse listeners across multiple Gateways.

Listener Compatibility Examples

Example 1: Gateway with compatible Listeners (same port & protocol, different hostnames)

kind: Gateway
apiVersion: gateway.networking.k8s.io/v1beta1
metadata:
  name: gateway-1
  namespace: envoy-gateway
spec:
  gatewayClassName: envoy-gateway
  listeners:
    - name: http
      protocol: HTTP
      port: 80
      allowedRoutes:
        namespaces:
          from: All
      hostname: "*.envoygateway.io"
    - name: http
      protocol: HTTP
      port: 80
      allowedRoutes:
        namespaces:
          from: All
      hostname: whales.envoygateway.io

Example 2: Gateway with compatible Listeners (same port & protocol, one hostname specified, one not)

kind: Gateway
apiVersion: gateway.networking.k8s.io/v1beta1
metadata:
  name: gateway-1
  namespace: envoy-gateway
spec:
  gatewayClassName: envoy-gateway
  listeners:
    - name: http
      protocol: HTTP
      port: 80
      allowedRoutes:
        namespaces:
          from: All
      hostname: "*.envoygateway.io"
    - name: http
      protocol: HTTP
      port: 80
      allowedRoutes:
        namespaces:
          from: All

Example 3: Gateway with incompatible Listeners (same port, protocol and hostname)

kind: Gateway
apiVersion: gateway.networking.k8s.io/v1beta1
metadata:
  name: gateway-1
  namespace: envoy-gateway
spec:
  gatewayClassName: envoy-gateway
  listeners:
    - name: http
      protocol: HTTP
      port: 80
      allowedRoutes:
        namespaces:
          from: All
      hostname: whales.envoygateway.io
    - name: http
      protocol: HTTP
      port: 80
      allowedRoutes:
        namespaces:
          from: All
      hostname: whales.envoygateway.io

Example 4: Gateway with incompatible Listeners (neither specify a hostname)

kind: Gateway
apiVersion: gateway.networking.k8s.io/v1beta1
metadata:
  name: gateway-1
  namespace: envoy-gateway
spec:
  gatewayClassName: envoy-gateway
  listeners:
    - name: http
      protocol: HTTP
      port: 80
      allowedRoutes:
        namespaces:
          from: All
    - name: http
      protocol: HTTP
      port: 80
      allowedRoutes:
        namespaces:
          from: All

Computing Status

Gateway API specifies a rich set of status fields & conditions for each resource. To achieve conformance, Envoy Gateway must compute the appropriate status fields and conditions for managed resources.

Status is computed and set for:

• The managed GatewayClass (gatewayclass.status.conditions).
• Each managed Gateway, based on its Listeners’ status (gateway.status.conditions). For the Kubernetes provider, the Envoy Deployment and Service status are also included to calculate Gateway status.
• Listeners for each Gateway (gateway.status.listeners).
• The ParentRef for each Route (route.status.parents).

The Gateway API translator is responsible for calculating status conditions while translating Gateway API resources to the IR and publishing status over the message bus. The Status Manager subscribes to these status messages and updates the resource status using the configured provider. For example, the Status Manager uses a Kubernetes client to update resource status on the Kubernetes API server.

Outline

The following roughly outlines the translation process. Each step may produce (1) IR; and (2) status updates on Gateway API resources.

1. Process Gateway Listeners

   • Validate unique hostnames, ports, and protocols.
   • Validate and compute supported kinds.
   • Validate allowed namespaces (validate selector if specified).
   • Validate TLS fields if specified, including resolving referenced Secrets.

2. Process HTTPRoutes

   • foreach route rule:
     • compute matches
       • [core] path exact, path prefix
       • [core] header exact
       • [extended] query param exact
       • [extended] HTTP method
     • compute filters
       • [core] request header modifier (set/add/remove)
       • [core] request redirect (hostname, statuscode)
       • [extended] request mirror
     • compute backends
       • [core] Kubernetes services
   • foreach route parent ref:
     • get matching listeners (check Gateway, section name, listener validation status, listener allowed routes, hostname intersection)
     • foreach matching listener:
       • foreach hostname intersection with route:
         • add each computed route rule to host

Context Structs

To help store, access and manipulate information as it’s processed during the translation process, a set of context structs are used. These structs wrap a given Gateway API type, and add additional fields and methods to support processing.

GatewayContext wraps a Gateway and provides helper methods for setting conditions, accessing Listeners, etc.

type GatewayContext struct {
	// The managed Gateway
	*v1beta1.Gateway

	// A list of Gateway ListenerContexts.
	listeners []*ListenerContext
}

ListenerContext wraps a Listener and provides helper methods for setting conditions and other status information on the associated Gateway.

type ListenerContext struct {
    // The Gateway listener.
	*v1beta1.Listener

	// The Gateway this Listener belongs to.
	gateway           *v1beta1.Gateway

	// An index used for managing this listener in the list of Gateway listeners.
	listenerStatusIdx int

	// Only Routes in namespaces selected by the selector may be attached
	// to the Gateway this listener belongs to.
	namespaceSelector labels.Selector

	// The TLS Secret for this Listener, if applicable.
	tlsSecret         *v1.Secret
}

RouteContext represents a generic Route object (HTTPRoute, TLSRoute, etc.) that can reference Gateway objects.

type RouteContext interface {
	client.Object

	// GetRouteType returns the Kind of the Route object, HTTPRoute,
	// TLSRoute, TCPRoute, UDPRoute etc.
	GetRouteType() string

	// GetHostnames returns the hosts targeted by the Route object.
	GetHostnames() []string

	// GetParentReferences returns the ParentReference of the Route object.
	GetParentReferences() []v1beta1.ParentReference

	// GetRouteParentContext returns RouteParentContext by using the Route
	// objects' ParentReference.
	GetRouteParentContext(forParentRef v1beta1.ParentReference) *RouteParentContext
}