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.

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