hands-on lab

Create Kubernetes Layer-7 Network Policies using Cilium CNI

Difficulty: Beginner

Duration: Up to 1 hour and 30 minutes

Students: 641

Rating: 4.6/5

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Description

If you're building and deploying cloud-native applications and microservices, then Kubernetes is the must-have platform. Kubernetes provides superior container-orchestration, deployment, scaling, and management. When it comes to securing application traffic within Kubernetes, consider using Network Policies.

A Network Policy resource can be implemented and deployed to enforce layer-3 segmentation of inter-pod network traffic. Network Policies crafted with layer-7 rulesets can also be achieved albeit through the use and deployment of a custom CNI implementation - such as that provided by Cilium.

This lab is designed to show you how to install and setup Kubernetes layer-7 Network Policies using Cilium. You will be walked through the process of deploying a sample Star Wars-themed API. You'll then learn how to secure inbound application traffic to the API by creating and deploying a layer-7 network policy.

Lab Objectives

Upon completion of this lab, you will be able to:

Install and setup the Cilium CNI
Deploy a ready-made StarWars themed API into a Kubernetes cluster
Create and deploy a layer-7 Network Policy
Test and validate the layer-7 Network Policy rules

You should:

Be comfortable with basic Linux command line administration
Be comfortable with basic Kubernetes cluster administration

Lab Environment

This lab will start with the following AWS resources provisioned automatically for you:

A single EC2 instance, named k8s.cluster.cloudacademy.platform.instance, which will have a public IP address attached. This will be the instance that you will connect to using your local workstation browser.

To achieve the lab end state, you will be walked through the process of:

Using your local workstation browser to remotely connect to k8s.cluster.cloudacademy.platform.instance
Install and setup the Cilium CNI
Deploy a ready-made StarWars themed API into a Kubernetes cluster
Create and deploy a layer-7 Network Policy to secure the API
Test and validate the layer-7 Network Policy rules - and confirm that the API is secured for certain types of HTTP traffic