mTLS with Ingress-Nginx Controller

Malcolm Pereira
13 min readMay 30, 2023

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Simple walk through to get up and running with mTLS; Mutual TLS — client certificate validation with Ingress-Nginx controller in a local Kubernetes cluster like DockerDesktop.

Photo by Philipp Katzenberger on Unsplash

TLDR;

Simple walk through to get up and running with M-TLS; Mutual TLS — client certificate validation with Ingress-Nginx controller in a local Kubernetes cluster like DockerDesktop.

Show me the code:

https://github.com/MalcolmPereira/clientcert

Sample Application

The sample application is a simple SpringBoot echo application that is accessed using a client certificate, echoing back subject associated with client certificate. This is then deployed on a local Kubernetes cluster with Ingress-Nginx controller configured for Mutual TLS.

mTLS, Mutual TLS, is a two-way TLS authentication mechanism where both client and server are authenticated using certificates. The client certificate is validated by server and server certificate is validated by client. This is different from the traditional TLS where only server is authenticated using a certificate.

Generate TLS Material

We will use CloudFlare CFSSL to generate trust material. CloudFlare cfssl can be easily installed on all operating systems or built from source.

Confirm cfssl version before running commands.

cfssl version

Version: 1.6.1
Runtime: go1.17

NOTE!!!!:

We are genrating are storing TLS artifacts in a source code repo, you will never do this in a real production setup, since this is just a simple walkthrough and trust material is throw away with no real usage or implications, I am proceeding this route. Please do not commit TLS keys or secrets in production set up.

1. Generate Root CA TLS material

Generate ca using cfssl, CA certificate definitions are in the tls/ca/malcolm_io_ca.json file. We generate CA certificate and then use that to sign server certificate and client certificates.

cfssl gencert -initca tls/ca/malcolm_io_ca.json | cfssljson -bare tls/ca/malcolm_io_ca

2023/05/28 17:08:47 [INFO] generating a new CA key and certificate from CSR
2023/05/28 17:08:47 [INFO] generate received request
2023/05/28 17:08:47 [INFO] received CSR
2023/05/28 17:08:47 [INFO] generating key: rsa-4096
2023/05/28 17:08:48 [INFO] encoded CSR
2023/05/28 17:08:48 [INFO] signed certificate with serial number 624223140328914857446330038995721436860516190018

Convert PEM to certificate which we can import in a custom trust store later.

openssl x509 -in tls/ca/malcolm_io_ca.pem -out tls/ca/malcolm_io_ca.crt -outform der

2. Generate CA Signed Server Certificate

Definitions for server certificate in tls/server/malcolm_io_sever.json file, profile.json contains tls signing profiles.

cfssl gencert -ca tls/ca/malcolm_io_ca.pem -ca-key tls/ca/malcolm_io_ca-key.pem -config tls/profile.json -profile=server tls/server/malcolm_io_sever.json | cfssljson -bare tls/server/malcolm_io_sever

2023/05/28 17:12:02 [INFO] generate received request
2023/05/28 17:12:02 [INFO] received CSR
2023/05/28 17:12:02 [INFO] generating key: rsa-4096
2023/05/28 17:12:02 [INFO] encoded CSR
2023/05/28 17:12:02 [INFO] signed certificate with serial number 307811460485197263130452639905424636572172501266

Convert PEM to certificate to PKCS12 format, use legacy flag to support breaking changes on macos ventura and above as of 05/29/2023.

openssl x509 -in tls/server/malcolm_io_sever.pem -out tls/server/malcolm_io_sever.crt -outform der

openssl pkcs12 -export -legacy -out tls/server/malcolm_io_sever.pfx -inkey tls/server/malcolm_io_sever-key.pem -in tls/server/malcolm_io_sever.pem -certfile tls/server/malcolm_io_sever.crt

Enter Export Password:
Verifying - Enter Export Password:

Password used is MalcolmIO

We also want to include a valid trust store for our application and can use cacerts that comes with JDK which is under JAVA_HOME/lib/security. We will use cacerts from JDK to create a trust store for our application.

Copy cacerts from JDK to the tls/server directory and execute the following to change default truststore password “changeit” for trust store to “MalcolmIO”

keytool -storepasswd -keystore tls/server/cacerts

Enter keystore password:
New keystore password:
Re-enter new keystore password:

Password used is MalcolmIO

We now want to import root ca certificate into trust store.

eytool -import -trustcacerts -alias MalcolmIORootCA -file tls/ca/malcolm_io_ca.crt -keystore tls/server/cacerts -storepass MalcolmIO

....
....
Trust this certificate? [no]: yes
Certificate was added to keystore

3. Generate CA Signed Client Certificates

Definitions for client certificate in tls/client/client_cert_1/malcolm.io.client_1.json, tls/client/client_cert_2/malcolm.io.client_2.json, and tls/client/client_cert_3/malcolm.io.client_3.json.

Profile.json contains tls signing profiles we will use client profile to sign client certificates.

cfssl gencert -ca tls/ca/malcolm_io_ca.pem -ca-key tls/ca/malcolm_io_ca-key.pem -config tls/profile.json -profile=client tls/client/client_cert_1/malcolm.io.client_1.json | cfssljson -bare tls/client/client_cert_1/malcolm.io.client_1

2023/05/28 17:14:28 [INFO] generate received request
2023/05/28 17:14:28 [INFO] received CSR
2023/05/28 17:14:28 [INFO] generating key: rsa-4096
2023/05/28 17:14:30 [INFO] encoded CSR
2023/05/28 17:14:30 [INFO] signed certificate with serial number 263370288378858811557447337505818292570861833150

Convert PEM to certificate to PKCS12 format, the legacy flag is to support breaking changes on macos ventura and above.

openssl x509 -in tls/client/client_cert_1/malcolm.io.client_1.pem -out tls/client/client_cert_1/malcolm.io.client_1.crt -outform der

openssl pkcs12 -export -legacy -out tls/client/client_cert_1/malcolm.io.client_1.pfx -inkey tls/client/client_cert_1/malcolm.io.client_1-key.pem -in tls/client/client_cert_1/malcolm.io.client_1.pem -certfile tls/client/client_cert_1/malcolm.io.client_1.crt

Enter Export Password:
Verifying - Enter Export Password:

Password used is MalcolmIO

Similarly generate client certificate for client_cert_2 and client_cert_3.


cfssl gencert -ca tls/ca/malcolm_io_ca.pem -ca-key tls/ca/malcolm_io_ca-key.pem -config tls/profile.json -profile=client tls/client/client_cert_2/malcolm.io.client_2.json | cfssljson -bare tls/client/client_cert_2/malcolm.io.client_2

2023/05/28 17:15:47 [INFO] generate received request
2023/05/28 17:15:47 [INFO] received CSR
2023/05/28 17:15:47 [INFO] generating key: rsa-4096
2023/05/28 17:15:48 [INFO] encoded CSR
2023/05/28 17:15:48 [INFO] signed certificate with serial number 424542369155348864657710916173222138684262639952


openssl x509 -in tls/client/client_cert_2/malcolm.io.client_2.pem -out tls/client/client_cert_2/malcolm.io.client_2.crt -outform der

openssl pkcs12 -export -legacy -out tls/client/client_cert_2/malcolm.io.client_2.pfx -inkey tls/client/client_cert_2/malcolm.io.client_2-key.pem -in tls/client/client_cert_2/malcolm.io.client_2.pem -certfile tls/client/client_cert_2/malcolm.io.client_2.crt

Enter Export Password:
Verifying - Enter Export Password:

Password used is MalcolmIO
cfssl gencert -ca tls/ca/malcolm_io_ca.pem -ca-key tls/ca/malcolm_io_ca-key.pem -config tls/profile.json -profile=client tls/client/client_cert_3/malcolm.io.client_3.json | cfssljson -bare tls/client/client_cert_3/malcolm.io.client_3

2023/05/28 17:16:29 [INFO] generate received request
2023/05/28 17:16:29 [INFO] received CSR
2023/05/28 17:16:29 [INFO] generating key: rsa-4096
2023/05/28 17:16:30 [INFO] encoded CSR
2023/05/28 17:16:31 [INFO] signed certificate with serial number 94329262698602084257749383602670123427873060358

openssl x509 -in tls/client/client_cert_3/malcolm.io.client_3.pem -out tls/client/client_cert_3/malcolm.io.client_3.crt -outform der

openssl pkcs12 -export -legacy -out tls/client/client_cert_3/malcolm.io.client_3.pfx -inkey tls/client/client_cert_3/malcolm.io.client_3-key.pem -in tls/client/client_cert_3/malcolm.io.client_3.pem -certfile tls/client/client_cert_3/malcolm.io.client_3.crt

Enter Export Password:
Verifying - Enter Export Password:

Password used is MalcolmIO

4. Generate CA Signed Ingress Certificate

We want to override the default Ingress-Nginx fake TLS certificate with one that we generate.

Definitions for tls certificate in tls/ingress/malcolm_io_ingress.json, profile.json contains tls signing profiles.

cfssl gencert -ca tls/ca/malcolm_io_ca.pem -ca-key tls/ca/malcolm_io_ca-key.pem -config tls/profile.json -profile=server tls/ingress/malcolm_io_ingress.json | cfssljson -bare tls/ingress/malcolm_io_ingress

2023/05/28 20:05:58 [INFO] generate received request
2023/05/28 20:05:58 [INFO] received CSR
2023/05/28 20:05:58 [INFO] generating key: rsa-4096
2023/05/28 20:05:59 [INFO] encoded CSR
2023/05/28 20:05:59 [INFO] signed certificate with serial number 478058553914932456011571920989055938593421231890

Convert PEM to certificate to PKCS12 format, use legacy flag to support breaking changes on macos ventura and above.

openssl x509 -in tls/ingress/malcolm_io_ingress.pem -out tls/ingress/malcolm_io_ingress.crt -outform der

openssl pkcs12 -export -legacy -out tls/ingress/malcolm_io_ingress.pfx -inkey tls/ingress/malcolm_io_ingress-key.pem -in tls/ingress/malcolm_io_ingress.pem -certfile tls/ingress/malcolm_io_ingress.crt

Enter Export Password:
Verifying - Enter Export Password:

Password used is MalcolmIO

Now that we have all TLS material in place we can proceed by first integrating server side certificates to the spring boot application. Once we have validated desired behavior we can proceed Kubernetes deployment and Ingress-Nginx.

Server Application

The server application is a simple Spring Boot Application.

Copy tls/server/cacerts file, tls/server/malcolm_io_sever.pfx, tls/server/malcolm_io_sever.crt to the server application resources folder.

cp tls/server/cacerts src/main/resources/
cp tls/server/malcolm_io_sever.pfx src/main/resources/
cp tls/server/malcolm_io_sever.crt src/main/resources/

We could use pem keys for application as well, but we will just use pfx file.

Update the spring boot application properties for server TLS configuration.

server.port=${SERVERPORT:8443}
server.ssl.protocol=TLS
server.ssl.enabled-protocols=TLSv1.2,TLSv1.3
server.ssl.trust-store-type=${TRUSTSTORETYPE:JKS}
server.ssl.trust-store=${TRUSTSTORE:classpath:cacerts}
server.ssl.trust-store-password=${TRUSTSTORECRED:MalcolmIO}
server.ssl.key-store-type=${KEYSTORETYPE:PKCS12}
server.ssl.key-store=${KEYSTORE:classpath:malcolm_io_sever.pfx}
server.ssl.key-store-password=${KEYSTORECRED:MalcolmIO}
server.ssl.client-auth=want

The important setting here is server.ssl.client-auth=want i.e. if a client certificate is provided in the request we will use it else return no client certificate available, had we set this to “need” instead of “want” the server would have rejected the request if no client certificate was available.

Also note that in a production setup, credentials will come from some secret environment variable.

Start up the application.

mvn spring-boot:run

....
....
2023-05-29 14:54:41.260 INFO 1376 --- [ restartedMain] o.s.b.web.embedded.jetty.JettyWebServer : Jetty started on port(s) 8443 (ssl, http/1.1) with context path '/'
2023-05-29 14:54:41.265 INFO 1376 --- [ restartedMain] c.m.s.clientcert.ClientCertApplication : Started ClientCertApplication in 0.963 seconds (JVM running for 1.109)

Validate Server Details

Server Certificate Details — Spring Boot Application

Access Client Details without any client certificate which returns No Client Certificate found as expected.

Client Certificate Details Not Found — SpringBoot Application

Add client certificate to the browser;

Example for Chrome, go to settings -> Manage Certificates -> Import, on MAC OS use Keychain Access to import the client certificates, on windows certificate snap in can be used.

Access Client Details with client certificate in place , this will prompt for the client certificate to be used.

Select Client Certificate — SpringBoot Application

Select client certificate and click OK, we should now see subject for associated client certificate as output.

Client Certificate Details — SpringBoot Application

Java code just parses available client certificate and returns the subject name.

   private static final String SSL_CLIENT_CERT_ATTRIBUTE = "javax.servlet.request.X509Certificate";
...
...
X509Certificate[] certs = (X509Certificate[]) this.context.getAttribute(SSL_CLIENT_CERT_ATTRIBUTE);
LOGGER.info("Client Certificate from Request Attribute : {} {}", SSL_CLIENT_CERT_ATTRIBUTE, certs);
if(certs == null || certs.length == 0){
LOGGER.error("No Client Certificate found");
return "No Client Certificate found";
}
return certs[0].getSubjectX500Principal().getName();
...

Now that application functionality has been validated locally, lets make a docker image and validate in a local Kubernetes Cluster. The pom file includes google jib plugin to build the docker image locally.

mvn clean package

Validate that the docker image is created and push to dockerhub as needed.

docker images | grep malcolm
malcolmpereira/clientcert 1.0.0 0f413c1198da 2 minutes ago 482MB

docker push malcolmpereira/clientcert:1.0.0

The push refers to repository [docker.io/malcolmpereira/clientcert]
6684ecd9a315: Pushed
a9c4a6e8ecbd: Pushed
37931a967cd0: Pushed
e38e29fe8210: Pushed
bc45d2593239: Pushed
8e5f6d41b5a8: Pushed
1.0.0: digest: sha256:3441307fd5416994771480a6bd0a8119c9b9303fd790bddf8bda3af12f968d1c size: 1579

Note:

The pom file generates both ARM64 for Apple Silicon and AMD64 images, please uncomment the pom for specific architecture, default is AMD64.

<from>
<image>${base.image}</image>
<platforms>
<platform>
<architecture>amd64</architecture>
<os>linux</os>
</platform>
<!--
<platform>
<architecture>arm64</architecture>
<os>linux</os>
</platform>
-->
</platforms>
</from>

Kubernetes Cluster Configuration

Start up a local Kubernetes Cluster using Docker Desktop

We will first install application without any Ingress Controller and access service by port forwarding, we could use NodePort, but since we will use Ingress Controller later, lets just port forward for now.

Create a new namespace for the application and install the application

kubectl config use-context docker-desktop

kubectl create namespace malcolmio

kubectl apply -f malcolm_io_server.yaml --namespace=malcolmio

kubectl get pods --namespace malcolmio
NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE
clientcert-64ffb5fc4c-m58bf 1/1 Running 0 2m22s

kubectl get services --namespace malcolmio
NAME TYPE CLUSTER-IP EXTERNAL-IP PORT(S) AGE
clientcert ClusterIP 10.109.35.251 <none> 8443/TCP 2m53s

kubectl port-forward service/clientcert --namespace malcolmio 8443:8443

Forwarding from 127.0.0.1:8443 -> 8443
Forwarding from [::1]:8443 -> 8443

Accessing the service as before should prompt for client certificate and return client details as before only different service is now running in Kubernetes.

Client Certificate Details —Kubernetes Service
Server Certificate Details — Kubernetes Service

Ingress-Nginx Controller

Before we install the NGINX Ingress Controller, we will create a Kubernetes Secret for client certificate we created specifically for Ingress-Nginx Controller.

kubectl create secret tls malcolmio-ingress-tls --key tls/ingress/malcolm_io_ingress-key.pem --cert tls/ingress/malcolm_io_ingress.pem --namespace malcolmio

secret/malcolmio-ingress-tls created

Now we can install the Ingress-Nginx Controller using HELM as documented in Inginx Ingress Quick Start

Please note since we are installing via helm we need to set — set controller.extraArgs.default-ssl-certificate=”malcolmio/malcolmio-ingress-tls” to use client certificate secret we created earlier.

helm repo add ingress-nginx https://kubernetes.github.io/ingress-nginx

helm repo update ingress-nginx

helm upgrade --install --namespace ingress-nginx --create-namespace --set controller.extraArgs.default-ssl-certificate="malcolmio/malcolmio-ingress-tls" --version 4.6.1 ingress-nginx ingress-nginx/ingress-nginx

Release "ingress-nginx" does not exist. Installing it now.
NAME: ingress-nginx
LAST DEPLOYED: Sun May 28 20:24:12 2023
NAMESPACE: ingress-nginx
STATUS: deployed
REVISION: 1
TEST SUITE: None
NOTES:
The ingress-nginx controller has been installed.
It may take a few minutes for the LoadBalancer IP to be available.
You can watch the status by running 'kubectl --namespace ingress-nginx get services -o wide -w ingress-nginx-controller'

An example Ingress that makes use of the controller:
apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: Ingress
metadata:
name: example
namespace: foo
spec:
ingressClassName: nginx
rules:
- host: www.example.com
http:
paths:
- pathType: Prefix
backend:
service:
name: exampleService
port:
number: 80
path: /
# This section is only required if TLS is to be enabled for the Ingress
tls:
- hosts:
- www.example.com
secretName: example-tls

If TLS is enabled for the Ingress, a Secret containing the certificate and key must also be provided:

apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
name: example-tls
namespace: foo
data:
tls.crt: <base64 encoded cert>
tls.key: <base64 encoded key>
type: kubernetes.io/tls

Confirm that the Ingress-Nginx controller is provisioned and accessible


kubectl --namespace ingress-nginx get services -o wide -w ingress-nginx-controller

NAME TYPE CLUSTER-IP EXTERNAL-IP PORT(S) AGE SELECTOR
ingress-nginx-controller LoadBalancer 10.102.21.75 localhost 80:30834/TCP,443:30165/TCP 54s app.kubernetes.io/component=controller,app.kubernetes.io/instance=ingress-nginx,app.kubernetes.io/name=ingress-nginx

Note:

EXTERNAL-IP is localhost, this is because we are running in Docker Desktop, if you are running in a cloud provider, this will be the external IP of the LoadBalancer.

On Windows EXTERNAL-IP may not be provisioned in which case you will need to use port-forwarding to access the ingress service as documented in local testing section of the documentation.

Access localhost, 404 error code is valid since we haven’t created any ingress rules yet.

Validate Ingress

Now confirm certificate is ingress certificate we created.

Validate Ingress Certificate

Configure Ingress for Mutual TLS

We will create secrets for the Root CA certificate and Server Certificate this we will then use in the ingress rule.

First the secret for the CA certificate. The important piece here is the value “ca.crt” this has to be ca.crt and the value needs to be in PEM format.

kubectl create secret generic malcolmio-ca-tls --from-file=ca.crt=tls/ca/malcolm_io_ca.pem --namespace malcolmio

Next the secret for the server certificate. The important piece here is the value “tls.crt” and “tls.key” this has to be tls.crt and tls.key with values in PEM format.

kubectl create secret generic malcolmio-server-tls --from-file=tls.crt=tls/server/malcolm_io_sever.pem --from-file=tls.key=tls/server/malcolm_io_sever-key.pem --namespace malcolmio

Now with the TLS secrets in place lets look at the ingress that mandates use of client certificates and passes the client certificate to backend server.

piVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: Ingress
metadata:
annotations:
nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/auth-tls-secret: "malcolmio/malcolmio-ca-tls"
nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/auth-tls-verify-client: "on"
nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/auth-tls-verify-depth: "1"
nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/auth-tls-pass-certificate-to-upstream: "true"
nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/backend-protocol: "HTTPS"
name: clientcert-ingress
namespace: malcolmio
spec:
ingressClassName: nginx
tls:
- hosts:
- malcolm.io.client
secretName: malcolmio-server-tls
rules:
- host: malcolm.io.client
http:
paths:
- path: /
pathType: Prefix
backend:
service:
name: clientcert
port:
number: 8443

nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/auth-tls-verify-client: “on”

Mandates use of client certificates and returns 400 if no client certificate is available. Other values are off, optional and optional_no_ca

nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/auth-tls-pass-certificate-to-upstream: “true”

Passes the client certificate to the backend server. This is required if the backend server needs to validate the client certificate. The certificate is passed in the HTTP header “ssl-client-cert”. The value is URL Encoded.

nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/auth-tls-secret: “malcolmio/malcolmio-ca-tls”

Specifies the name of the secret that contains the CA certificate. The secret must be in the same namespace as the ingress resource. The secret must contain a single file named “ca.crt” that contains the CA certificate in PEM format.

secretName: malcolmio-server-tls

Specifies the name of the secret that contains the server certificate. The secret must be in the same namespace as the ingress resource. The secret must contain two files named “tls.crt” and “tls.key” that contain the server certificate and key in PEM format.

Apply the ingress.

kubectl apply -f malcolm_io_ingress.yaml --namespace=malcolmio

ingress.networking.k8s.io/clientcert-ingress created

kubectl get ingress --namespace malcolmio

NAME CLASS HOSTS ADDRESS PORTS AGE
clientcert-ingress nginx malcolm.io.server localhost 80, 443 59s

Add malcolm.io.client to your hosts file

::1             malcolm.io.client

Accessing Client Details will prompt to choose client certificates

Ingress Choose Client Certificate

Choose a client certificate and click OK to view client certificate details.

Ingress Client Cert Details

Java code reads the ssl-client-cert request header and parses the URL encode certificate forwarded by Ingress-Nginx.

      private static final String DEFAULT_CERT_TYPE = "X.509";
private static final String SSL_CLIENT_CERT_HEADER = "ssl-client-cert";
private static final String LINE_BREAK_URL_ENCODED = "%0A";
private static final String LINE_BREAK_REPLACE = "\n";
private static final String EQUAL_ENCODED = "%3D";
private static final String EQUAL_REPLACE = "=";

....
....
Object clientCert = this.context.getHeader(SSL_CLIENT_CERT_HEADER);
LOGGER.info("Client Certificate from Request Header : {}", clientCert);

if(clientCert != null && clientCert.toString().length() > 0) {
try (InputStream inputStream = new ByteArrayInputStream(
URLDecoder.decode(
clientCert.toString()
.replaceAll(LINE_BREAK_URL_ENCODED, LINE_BREAK_REPLACE), StandardCharsets.UTF_8.name())
.replaceAll(EQUAL_ENCODED, EQUAL_REPLACE).getBytes()
)
) {
CertificateFactory certificateFactory = CertificateFactory.getInstance(DEFAULT_CERT_TYPE);
X509Certificate certificate = (X509Certificate) certificateFactory.generateCertificate(inputStream);
return certificate.getSubjectX500Principal().getName();
} catch (CertificateException | IOException err) {
LOGGER.error("Error while getting client certificate details", err);
}
}

Now let’s delete client certificate from the browser and try to access the client details page again.

For macOS remove previously imported certificate from the keychain access, in case of windows remove it from certificate snap-in.

Accessing Client Details will now display error code 400, no required SSL certificate was sent.

You may have to restart browser to see 400 bad request error, browser may cache previous response.

Ingress No Required Client Certificate

Apply another ingress that makes client certificate optional i.e. we are setting nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/auth-tls-verify-client to optional and using another hostname namely, malcolm.io.server this time.

apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: Ingress
metadata:
annotations:
nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/auth-tls-secret: "malcolmio/malcolmio-ca-tls"
nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/auth-tls-verify-client: "optional"
nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/auth-tls-verify-depth: "1"
nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/auth-tls-pass-certificate-to-upstream: "true"
nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/backend-protocol: "HTTPS"
name: clientcert-ingress-server
namespace: malcolmio
spec:
ingressClassName: nginx
tls:
- hosts:
- malcolm.io.server
secretName: malcolmio-server-tls
rules:
- host: malcolm.io.server
http:
paths:
- path: /
pathType: Prefix
backend:
service:
name: clientcert
port:
number: 8443

Apply ingress with optional client certificate.

kubectl apply -f malcolm_io_ingress_server.yaml --namespace=malcolmio

ingress.networking.k8s.io/clientcert-ingress-server created

kubectl get ingress --namespace malcolmio

NAME CLASS HOSTS ADDRESS PORTS AGE
clientcert-ingress nginx malcolm.io.client localhost 80, 443 13m
clientcert-ingress-server nginx malcolm.io.server 80, 443 12s

Add malcolm.io.server to your hosts file

::1             malcolm.io.server

Accessing Server Details will display server certificate details without prompting to choose client certificates

Ingress Optional Client Certificate — Server Details

Access Client Details will display No Client Certificate found as expected but no error code 400 this time.

Ingress Optional Client Certificate — Server Details

Hope this walk through was helpful, Thank you for reading and following through.

Clean Up


#Delete the ingress
kubectl delete -f malcolm_io_ingress.yaml --namespace=malcolmio
kubectl delete -f malcolm_io_ingress_server.yaml --namespace=malcolmio

#Delete the application
kubectl delete -f malcolm_io_server.yaml --namespace=malcolmio

#Uninstall the ingress controller
helm uninstall ingress-nginx --namespace ingress-nginx

#Delete the secrets
kubectl delete secret malcolmio-ca-tls --namespace malcolmio
kubectl delete secret malcolmio-server-tls --namespace malcolmio
kubectl delete secret malcolmio-ingress-tls --namespace malcolmio

#Delete the namespace
kubectl delete namespace malcolmio

References

Ingress-Nginx Quick Start

Ingress-Nginx Client Authentication

Ingress-Nginx Annotations

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Malcolm Pereira
Malcolm Pereira

Written by Malcolm Pereira

Agile Practitioner, Cloud and Programing Enthusiast. Experiments with technologies : Languages, Concepts, Tools and Utilities