Kubernetes provides a feature called service discovery. It gives containers their own IP addresses and a single DNS name and can load-balance across them.
Services are responsible for communication between pods. You can see in architecture where serviceIP is actually a key component for the service discovery. It consists of DNS mapping with Pod IP(iptables).
Example of Kubernetes services:
Below is an example of the services. This example is for mysql deployment.
mysql-service.yml
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
name: mysqlauth-service
namespace: production-cloud
labels:
label: mysqlauth-service
spec:
type: NodePort
ports:
- port: 3306
nodePort: 32001
targetPort: 3306
protocol: TCP
name: http
selector:
name: mysqlauth-selector
mysql-deployment for this service:
mysql-deployment.yml
apiVersion: extensions/v1beta1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
labels:
service: mysqlauth-service #Name of service
name: mysqlauth-deployment #Name of deployment
namespace: production-cloud
spec:
template:
metadata:
labels:
name: mysqlauth-selector #Name of selector
spec:
containers:
-
env:
-
name: MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD
value: admin
-
name: MYSQL_DATABASE
value: admin
image: mysql:latest
name: mysqlauth-container
ports:
-
name: mysqlauth-port
containerPort: 3306
protocol: TCP
resources:
limits:
cpu: 500m
memory: 256Mi
requests:
cpu: 250m
memory: 128Mi
You can see in deployment labels
service: mysqlauth-service
Which actually connects deployment with mysql service. Selectors are used to establish this relationship.
selector:
name: mysqlauth-selector
Now we have a good understanding of the services. To communicate between pods using internal domain name system of Kubernetes:
Lets use above mysql in python app:
auth-deployment.yml
apiVersion: extensions/v1beta1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
labels:
service: authenticate-service # Name of the service
name: authenticate-deployment #Deployment Name
namespace: production-cloud #Namespace Name
spec:
template:
metadata:
labels:
name: authenticate-selector #Name of selector
spec:
containers:
-
command: ["/bin/sh","-c"]
args: ["python run.py"]
env:
-
name: DB_HOST
value: "mysqlauth-service.production-cloud.svc.cluster.local:3306"
-
name: DB_USER
value: admin
-
name: DB_PASS
value: admin
image: jakirpatel/authenticate
name: authservice-container
ports:
-
name: auth-port
containerPort: 5010
protocol: TCP
resources:
limits:
cpu: 500m
memory: 256Mi
requests:
cpu: 250m
memory: 128Mi
workingDir: /build/authenticate_service
We established connection between auth and mysql deployments using environment variable.
env:
-
name: DB_HOST
value: "mysqlauth-service.production-cloud.svc.cluster.local:3306"
Kubernetes Pods are mortal. A Kubernetes Service is an abstraction which defines a logical set of Pods and a policy by which to access them; sometimes called a micro-service. The set of Pods targeted by a Service is (usually) determined by a Label Selector.
Pod can access other Pods using fully classified DNS like:
"mysqlauth-service.production-cloud.svc.cluster.local:3306"
It consists structure like servicename.namespace.svc.cluster.local. Using environment variables are a good choice if microservice architecture is followed.
This is the standard way to communicate between the pods. K8S namespaces also plays the important role in terms of the communication. In Microservice architecture, it is possible to pass the environment variable to containerized image of the service. It is possible to pass the environment variable from K8S manifests. Check out our other blogs to know more about containers and K8S.
