Expose application using Ingress with Traefik

On k3s, the Traefik Ingress controller is installed by default and runs inside the cluster as a pod.

We will create an Ingress Resource using a YAML file which contains routing rules for forwarding incoming traffic from the ingress controller to the respective application pods based on the request URL.

We will expose the mealie application using Ingress.

Step 1: Create a deployment

k create deploy mealie --image=ghcr.io/mealie-recipes/mealie:v3.11.0 --port=9000 -n mealie --dry-run=client -o yaml > mealie.yaml

k apply -f mealie.yaml

## verify the deployment is created.
k get deploy -n mealie

k get pods -n mealie

Step 2: Expose the application with a service of type ClusterIP

k expose deployment mealie --port=9000 --target-port=9000 -n mealie --dry-run=client -o yaml >> mealie.yaml

k apply -f mealie.yaml

## verify the svc is created.
k get svc -n mealie

Step 3: Create an Ingress resource

k create ingress mealie-ing -n mealie --rule="mealie.homelab.com/=mealie:9000" --dry-run=client -o yaml >> mealie.yaml

Open mealie.yaml file and make pathType to Prefix :

apply the configuration:

k apply -f mealie.yaml

## Verify that the ingress was created correctly.
k get ingress -n mealie

Verify Ingress Host Routing within the cluster:

curl -H "Host: mealie.homelab.com" http://192.168.1.225

After this, open the mealie.yaml file and add three dashes like --- after each resource to separate multiple Kubernetes resources in a single YAML file so that kubectl can correctly parse and apply them individually.

Step 4: Get k3s Node IP

k get nodes -o wide

Output could look like this:

NAME        STATUS   ROLES           INTERNAL-IP
k3s-master  Ready    control-plane   192.168.1.225

Ingress will be reachable at:

192.168.1.225

Step 5: Add the fake domain to /etc/hosts

We will use a fake domain to simulate a real DNS hostname in our local environment, allowing us to test Kubernetes Ingress routing without needing a publicly registered domain.

On the machine where we will access the application (your laptop or desktop), edit this file:

/etc/hosts

In Linux: /etc/hosts
In Windows: C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts (Open it with Run as Administrator)

Add this line to the /etc/hosts file:

192.168.1.225 mealie.homelab.com

Save the file.

This makes the desktop's OS resolve the local domain to the Node's IP:

mealie.homelab.com → 192.168.1.225

Step 6: Verify DNS resolution

Test that the fake domain resolves correctly on desktop with:

ping mealie.homelab.com

Step 8: Open the application

Now open the application in a browser:

http://mealie.homelab.com

There we go! We can now access the mealie application from an external browser using a domain. We can access it from any desktop by simply resolving the k3s node IP to the domain name.

Architecture:

Flow of the request:

Browser (192.168.1.14)
↓
mealie.homelab.com
↓
/etc/hosts → 192.168.1.225
↓
k3s node IP (192.168.1.225)
↓
Traefik Service
↓
Traefik Ingress Controller Pod
↓
Mealie Service
↓
Mealie Pod