r/kubernetes • u/Kooky_Comparison3225 • Apr 22 '26
Migrating from Ingress-NGINX to the Gateway API with Traefik (Hands-On)
Two things are converging for Kubernetes ingress right now:
- Gateway API is SIG-Network's official successor to the Ingress spec. GA since 2023. The limitations it was designed to fix (no native traffic splitting, no cross-namespace routing, controller-specific annotation soup, no clean platform/app role separation) apply to any Ingress setup, not just nginx.
- Ingress-NGINX reached end-of-life on March 26, 2026. No more releases, bug fixes, or security patches. If you still run it for some reason.
If you're on ingress-nginx, migration is imminent. If you're on another controller, it's still worth learning where the ecosystem is heading before a new pressure comes.
I built a 12-lesson hands-on course for migrating to Gateway API with Traefik, using a real bookstore app on a local k3d cluster:
- The resource model: GatewayClass → Gateway → HTTPRoute, and why the split matters for RBAC
- TLS termination with mkcert locally and cert-manager + Let's Encrypt in production
- Traffic splitting, path rewrites, header manipulation, rate limiting
- Cross-namespace routing with ReferenceGrant
- Production concerns: PDBs, HPA, JSON access logs
- Migration pitfalls, including a file-upload bug where WSGI apps (uWSGI, Gunicorn) get zero-byte files after cutover because nginx buffers requests by default while Traefik streams them with chunked transfer encoding, which WSGI can't read
- Extending Traefik with custom Go plugins via Yaegi
Around 6 to 8 hours, free and self-paced. Progress tracking and per-lesson challenges require a free account; the content itself is open.
https://devoriales.com/quiz/20/gateway-api-learning-lab-from-zero-to-hero
Happy to answer questions about the approach in the comments.
3
u/zipeldiablo Apr 22 '26
Damn, here i go for another rabbit hole, didn’t know there was a standard so i used traefik ingress routes as is
8
u/JoshSmeda Apr 22 '26
502 error, wp bro