Install an ingress controller for testing HTTP autoscaling

Install Traefik with Helm

To expose the sample application, you need an ingress controller to handle incoming traffic. One option is to use Traefik with the standard Kubernetes Ingress API and schedule Traefik on arm64 nodes.

Add the Traefik Helm repository:

    

        
        
helm repo add traefik https://traefik.github.io/charts
helm repo update

    

Install Traefik with a node selector and toleration for arm64 nodes. The chart creates an IngressClass named traefik and a LoadBalancer service. Set ingressClass.isDefaultClass=false so that the installation doesn’t change the default class for other ingress resources:

    

        
        
helm upgrade --install traefik traefik/traefik \
  --version 41.6.1 \
  --namespace traefik \
  --create-namespace \
  --set "nodeSelector.kubernetes\.io/arch=arm64" \
  --set "tolerations[0].key=kubernetes.io/arch" \
  --set "tolerations[0].operator=Equal" \
  --set "tolerations[0].value=arm64" \
  --set "tolerations[0].effect=NoSchedule" \
  --set ingressClass.isDefaultClass=false

    

Confirm the Traefik Deployment is available and its IngressClass exists:

    

        
        
kubectl wait --namespace traefik --for=condition=available deployment/traefik --timeout=300s
kubectl get ingressclass traefik

    

Managed clouds can take a few minutes to allocate a public IP address or hostname for the Traefik service.

Get the external endpoint

Retrieve the Traefik service’s external IP address or hostname and store it in an environment variable:

    

        
        
export INGRESS_ADDRESS=$(kubectl get service traefik --namespace traefik -o jsonpath='{.status.loadBalancer.ingress[0].ip}{.status.loadBalancer.ingress[0].hostname}')
echo "Ingress address: $INGRESS_ADDRESS"

    

The following are typical endpoint values by cloud provider:

• Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS): Load balancer hostname (for example, a1234567890abcdef-123456789.us-west-2.elb.amazonaws.com)
• Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE): IP address (for example, 34.102.136.180)
• Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS): IP address (for example, 20.62.196.123)

If no value is printed on a managed cluster, wait briefly and run the command again. For a local cluster such as k3d, forward a local port to Traefik in a separate terminal. Use this method even if the service reports an address on the cluster’s private container network:

    

        
        
kubectl port-forward --namespace traefik service/traefik 8080:80

    

Keep that terminal open. In your original terminal, use the local address for the remaining steps:

    

        
        
export INGRESS_ADDRESS=127.0.0.1:8080

    

Configure access to the applications

You have two options for configuring access:

• DNS (recommended for production): Create a DNS record pointing application.keda to the external IP address or hostname of your ingress controller.

• Host header (recommended for a quick test): Use INGRESS_ADDRESS with a Host: application.keda header when you test the application. The address can be Traefik’s external endpoint or your forwarded local port.

Verify the installation

List the controller pods and confirm that they’re running:

    

        
        
kubectl get pods --namespace traefik

    

You should see the traefik pod in Running status.

What you’ve accomplished and what’s next

You’ve installed Traefik with Helm, checked its Deployment, IngressClass, and pods, and prepared an ingress endpoint and access method for testing.

Next, you’ll deploy an HTTP application through Kubernetes Ingress and verify its HTTP response, then configure and test Kedify autoscaling.