Connect NGINX Gateway Fabric with Manifests

This document explains how to connect F5 NGINX Gateway Fabric to F5 NGINX One Console with Manifests. Connecting NGINX Gateway Fabric to NGINX One Console enables centralized monitoring of all controller instances.

Once connected, you’ll see a read-only configuration of NGINX Gateway Fabric. For each instance, you can review:

  • Read-only configuration file
  • Unmanaged SSL/TLS certificates for Control Planes

Before you begin

Log in to NGINX One Console. If you need more information, review our Get started guide.

To complete this guide, you’ll need to install:

If you’d like to use NGINX Plus, some additional setup is also required:

Create a data plane key

A data plane key is a security token that ensures only trusted NGINX instances can register and communicate with NGINX One.

To generate a data plane key, select Manage > Instances > Add Instance:

  • For a new key: In the Add Instance pane, select Generate Data Plane Key.
  • To reuse an existing key: If you already have a data plane key and want to use it again, select Use existing key. Then, enter the key’s value in the Data Plane Key box.
Data plane key guidelines

Data plane keys are displayed only once and cannot be retrieved later. Be sure to copy and store this key securely.

Data plane keys expire after one year. You can change this expiration date later by editing the key. If you revoke a data plane key you disconnect all instances registered with that key.

For more options associated with data plane keys, see Create and manage data plane keys.

Create a Kubernetes secret with the data plane key

To create a Kubernetes secret, you’ll need:

  • The Data Plane Key

  • The nginx-gateway namespace must exist. You can create it with the following command: kubectl create namespace nginx-gateway

    • Then create the secret with the following command. The key must be named dataplane.key:
    kubectl create secret generic dataplane-key \
  --from-literal=dataplane.key=<Your Dataplane Key> \
  -n nginx-gateway

Install Gateway API resources

The Gateway API resources from the standard channel must be installed before deploying NGINX Gateway Fabric. If they are already installed in your cluster, please ensure they are the correct version as supported by the NGINX Gateway Fabric - see the Technical Specifications.

To install the Gateway API resources, run the following:

kubectl kustomize "https://github.com/nginx/nginx-gateway-fabric/config/crd/gateway-api/standard?ref=v2.1.0" | kubectl apply -f -
If you plan to use the edge version of NGINX Gateway Fabric, you can replace the version in ref with main, for example ref=main.

Alternatively, you can install the Gateway API resources from the experimental channel. Installing Gateway API resources from the experimental channel includes everything in the standard release channel plus additional experimental resources and fields. NGINX Gateway Fabric currently supports a subset of the additional features provided by the experimental channel. To install from the experimental channel, run the following:

kubectl kustomize "https://github.com/nginx/nginx-gateway-fabric/config/crd/gateway-api/experimental?ref=v2.1.0" | kubectl apply -f -
To learn more about what Gateway API resources NGINX Gateway Fabric currently supports, visit our Gateway API Compatibility document.

Deploy NGINX Gateway Fabric CRDs

Stable release 

kubectl apply --server-side -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nginx/nginx-gateway-fabric/v2.1.0/deploy/crds.yaml

Edge version 

kubectl apply --server-side -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nginx/nginx-gateway-fabric/main/deploy/crds.yaml

Deploy NGINX Gateway Fabric

Specify the data plane key Secret name in the --nginx-one-dataplane-key-secret command-line argument of the nginx-gateway container.

By default, NGINX Gateway Fabric is installed in the nginx-gateway namespace. You can deploy in another namespace by modifying the manifest files.

Deploys NGINX Gateway Fabric with NGINX OSS.

kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nginx/nginx-gateway-fabric/v2.1.0/deploy/default/deploy.yaml

Deploys NGINX Gateway Fabric with NGINX OSS.

kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nginx/nginx-gateway-fabric/v2.1.0/deploy/default/deploy.yaml

To set up an AWS Network Load Balancer service, add these annotations to your Gateway infrastructure field:

spec:
  infrastructure:
    annotations:
      service.beta.kubernetes.io/aws-load-balancer-type: "external"
      service.beta.kubernetes.io/aws-load-balancer-nlb-target-type: "ip"

Deploys NGINX Gateway Fabric with NGINX OSS and nodeSelector to deploy on Linux nodes.

kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nginx/nginx-gateway-fabric/v2.1.0/deploy/azure/deploy.yaml

Deploys NGINX Gateway Fabric with NGINX Plus. The image is pulled from the NGINX Plus Docker registry, and the imagePullSecretName is the name of the Secret to use to pull the image. The NGINX Plus JWT Secret used to run NGINX Plus is also specified in a volume mount and the --usage-report-secret parameter. These Secrets are created as part of the Before you begin section.

kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nginx/nginx-gateway-fabric/v2.1.0/deploy/nginx-plus/deploy.yaml

Deploys NGINX Gateway Fabric with NGINX OSS and experimental features.

kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nginx/nginx-gateway-fabric/v2.1.0/deploy/experimental/deploy.yaml
Requires the Gateway APIs installed from the experimental channel.

Deploys NGINX Gateway Fabric with NGINX Plus and experimental features. The image is pulled from the NGINX Plus Docker registry, and the imagePullSecretName is the name of the Secret to use to pull the image. The NGINX Plus JWT Secret used to run NGINX Plus is also specified in a volume mount and the --usage-report-secret parameter. These Secrets are created as part of the Before you begin section.

kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nginx/nginx-gateway-fabric/v2.1.0/deploy/nginx-plus-experimental/deploy.yaml
Requires the Gateway APIs installed from the experimental channel.

Deploys NGINX Gateway Fabric with NGINX OSS using a Service type of NodePort.

kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nginx/nginx-gateway-fabric/v2.1.0/deploy/nodeport/deploy.yaml

Deploys NGINX Gateway Fabric with NGINX OSS on OpenShift.

kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nginx/nginx-gateway-fabric/v2.1.0/deploy/openshift/deploy.yaml

Provision an NGINX data plane

To deploy the NGINX data plane to connect to the NGINX One Console, follow this guide: Deploy a Gateway for data plane instances.

Verify a connection to NGINX One Console

After deploying NGINX Gateway Fabric with NGINX Agent, you can verify the connection to NGINX One Console. Log in to your F5 Distributed Cloud Console account.

  • Select NGINX One > Visit Service.
  • In the dashboard, select Manage > Control Planes. You should see your Control Planes listed by name, product, and version. Each control plane is associated with one or more instances.
  • Select the name of the Control Plane. In the Instances section, select the instance of your choice. You can review instance details, including the name of the Control Plane.

Troubleshooting

If you encounter issues connecting your instances to NGINX One Console, try the following commands:

Check the NGINX Agent version:

kubectl exec -it -n <namespace> <nginx_pod_name> -- nginx-agent -v

Check the NGINX Agent configuration:

kubectl exec -it -n <namespace> <nginx_pod_name> -- cat /etc/nginx-agent/nginx-agent.conf

Check NGINX Agent logs:

kubectl exec -it -n <namespace> <nginx_pod_name> -- nginx-agent

References

For more details, see: