Tyk Open Source Chart
Last updated: 12 minutes read.
tyk-oss
provides the default deployment of the Tyk Open Source stack.
It includes the following components:
- Tyk Gateway: An open source Enterprise API Gateway, supporting REST, GraphQL, TCP and gRPC protocols.
- Tyk Pump: An analytics purger that moves the data generated by your Tyk gateways to any back-end storage.
What components are deployed with Tyk OSS Chart?
By default, this chart installs following components as subcharts on a Kubernetes cluster using the Helm package manager.
Component | Enabled by Default | Flag |
---|---|---|
Tyk Gateway | true | n/a |
Tyk Pump | false | global.components.pump |
Tyk Operator | false | global.components.operator |
To enable or disable each component, change the corresponding enabled flag.
Also, you can set the version of each component through image.tag
. You could find the list of version tags available from Docker hub.
For quick start guide, please see Quick Start with Tyk OSS Helm Chart.
Prerequisites
- Kubernetes 1.19+
- Helm 3+
- Redis should already be installed or accessible by the gateway.
Tyk OSS Installations
Installing the Chart
To install the chart from the Helm repository in namespace tyk
with the release name tyk-oss
:
First, add our Helm repo and get default values:
helm repo add tyk-helm https://helm.tyk.io/public/helm/charts/
helm repo update
helm show values tyk-helm/tyk-oss > values.yaml
For further documentation relating to helm command usage, please refer to the helm docs.
See Configuration section for the available config options and modify your local values.yaml
file accordingly. Then install the chart:
helm install tyk-oss tyk-helm/tyk-oss -n tyk --create-namespace -f values.yaml
Uninstalling the Chart
helm uninstall tyk-oss -n tyk
This removes all the Kubernetes components associated with the chart and deletes the release.
Upgrading Chart
helm upgrade tyk-oss tyk-helm/tyk-oss -n tyk -f values.yaml
Configuration
To list all configurable options with detailed comments:
helm show values tyk-helm/tyk-oss > values.yaml
You can update any value in your local values.yaml
file and use -f [filename]
flag to override default values during installation.
Alternatively, you can use --set
flag to set it in Tyk installation.
To configure Tyk components, users can utilize both config files and environment variables. Notably, environment variables take precedence over config files. To maintain simplicity and consistency, the Tyk Helm Charts deploy components with an empty config file while setting container environment variables based on user-defined values. This approach ensures seamless integration with Kubernetes practices, allowing for efficient management of configurations. For a comprehensive overview of available configurations, please refer to the configuration documentation.
Setting Environment Variables
Should any environment variables not be set by the Helm Chart, users can easily add them under the extraEnvs
section within the charts for further customization. Values set under extraEnvs
would take precedence over all configurations.
Example of setting extra environment variable to gateway:
tyk-gateway:
gateway:
extraEnvs:
- name: TYK_GW_LOGLEVEL
value: debug
An example is listed below for setting extra environment variable using ConfigMap data, using gateway:
tyk-gateway:
gateway:
extraEnvs:
- name: CONFIG_USERNAME
valueFrom:
configMapKeyRef:
name: backend-user
key: backend-username
An example is listed below for setting extra environment variable using secret data, using gateway:
tyk-gateway:
gateway:
extraEnvs:
- name: SECRET_USERNAME
valueFrom:
secretKeyRef:
name: backend-user
key: backend-username
In the above example, an extra environment variable SECRET_USERNAME
will be added to the Gateway container, with a value of backend-username
associated with the secret backend-user
. It is useful if you want to access secret data from Tyk Gateway configuration file (tyk.conf) or API definitions.
Set Redis Connection Details (Required)
Tyk uses Redis for distributed rate-limiting and token storage. You may use the Bitnami chart to install or Tyk’s simple-redis
chart for POC purpose.
Set the following values after installing Redis:
Name | Description |
---|---|
global.redis.addrs |
Redis addresses |
global.redis.pass |
Redis password in plain text |
global.redis.passSecret.name |
If global.redis.pass is not provided, you can store it in a secret and provide the secret name here |
global.redis.passSecret.keyName |
key name to retrieve Redis password from the secret |
Recommended: via Bitnami chart
For Redis you can use these rather excellent charts provided by Bitnami. Copy the following commands to add it:
helm upgrade tyk-redis oci://registry-1.docker.io/bitnamicharts/redis -n tyk --create-namespace --install --version 19.0.2
Note
Please make sure you are installing Redis versions that are supported by Tyk. Please refer to Tyk docs to get list of supported versions.
Follow the notes from the installation output to get connection details and password.
Redis(TM) can be accessed on the following DNS names from within your cluster:
tyk-redis-master.tyk.svc.cluster.local for read/write operations (port 6379)
tyk-redis-replicas.tyk.svc.cluster.local for read-only operations (port 6379)
export REDIS_PASSWORD=$(kubectl get secret --namespace tyk tyk-redis -o jsonpath="{.data.redis-password}" | base64 --decode)
The Redis address as set by Bitnami is tyk-redis-master.tyk.svc.cluster.local:6379
You can reference the password secret generated by Bitnami chart by --set global.redis.passSecret.name=tyk-redis
and --set global.redis.passSecret.keyName=redis-password
, or just set global.redis.pass=$REDIS_PASSWORD
Evaluation only: via simple-redis chart
Another option for Redis, to get started quickly, is to use our simple-redis chart.
Warning
Please note that these provided charts must never be used in production or for anything but a quick start evaluation only. Use Bitnami Redis or Official Redis installation guides in any other case. We provide this chart, so you can quickly deploy Tyk gateway, but it is not meant for long term storage of data.
helm install redis tyk-helm/simple-redis -n tyk
The Tyk Helm Chart can connect to simple-redis
in the same namespace by default. You do not need to set Redis address and password in values.yaml
.
Protect Confidential Fields with Kubernetes Secrets
In the values.yaml
file, some fields are considered confidential, such as APISecret
, connection strings, etc.
Declaring values for such fields as plain text might not be desired for all use cases. Instead, for certain fields, Kubernetes secrets can be referenced and the chart will define container environment variables using Secret data.
This section describes how to use Kubernetes secrets to declare confidential fields.
APISecret
The global.secrets.APISecret
field configures a header value used in every interaction with Tyk Gateway API.
It can be configured via global.secrets.APISecret
as a plain text or Kubernetes secret which includes APISecret
key in it. Then, this secret must be referenced via global.secrets.useSecretName
.
global:
secrets:
APISecret: CHANGEME
useSecretName: "mysecret" # where mysecret includes `APISecret` key with the desired value.
Redis Password
Redis password can also be provided via a secret. Store Redis password in Kubernetes secret and refer to this secret
via global.redis.passSecret.name
and global.redis.passSecret.keyName
field, as follows:
global:
redis:
passSecret:
name: "yourSecret"
keyName: "redisPassKey"
Create a Kubernetes Secret for Tyk Operator
When operatorSecret.enabled
is set to true
, tyk-oss
chart will create a Kubernetes Secret named tyk-operator-conf
in the same namespace. It can be used by Tyk Operator to connect to Gateway to manage Tyk API resources.
# operatorSecret controls if a secret needed to connect to Operator will be created
operatorSecret:
# enabled if set to true creates secret
enabled: true
# OSS doesn't have concept of OrgID. But we need to support some features (eg. basic auth key) in OSS
# You can set it to any arbitary value
orgID: "orgid"
Gateway Configurations
Configure below inside tyk-gateway
section.
Update Tyk Gateway Version
Set version of gateway at tyk-gateway.gateway.image.tag
. You can find the list of version tags available from Docker hub. Please check Tyk Release notes carefully while upgrading or downgrading.
Enabling TLS
Enable TLS
We have provided an easy way to enable TLS via the global.tls.gateway
flag. Setting this value to true will
automatically enable TLS using the certificate provided under tyk-gateway/certs/.
Configure TLS secret
If you want to use your own key/cert pair, please follow the following steps:
- Create a TLS secret using your cert and key pair.
- Set
global.tls.gateway
to true. - Set
tyk-gateway.gateway.tls.useDefaultTykCertificate
to false. - Set
tyk-gateway.gateway.tls.secretName
to the name of the newly created secret.
Add Custom Certificates
To add your custom Certificate Authority(CA) to your containers, you can mount your CA certificate directly into /etc/ssl/certs folder.
extraVolumes:
- name: self-signed-ca
secret:
secretName: self-signed-ca-secret
extraVolumeMounts:
- name: self-signed-ca
mountPath: "/etc/ssl/certs/myCA.pem"
subPath: myCA.pem
Enabling gateway autoscaling
You can enable autoscaling of the gateway by --set tyk-gateway.gateway.autoscaling.enabled=true
. By default, it will enable the Horizontal Pod Autoscaler
resource with target average CPU utilization at 60%, scaling between 1 and 3 instances. To customize those values you can modify the tyk-gateway section of values.yaml
, as shown below:
tyk-gateway:
gateway:
autoscaling:
enabled: true
minReplicas: 3
maxReplicas: 30
Built-in rules include tyk-gateway.gateway.autoscaling.averageCpuUtilization
for CPU utilization (set by default at 60%) and tyk-gateway.gateway.autoscaling.averageMemoryUtilization
for memory (disabled by default). In addition to that you can define rules for custom metrics using tyk-gateway.gateway.autoscaling.autoscalingTemplate
list:
tyk-gateway:
gateway:
autoscaling:
autoscalingTemplate:
- type: Pods
pods:
metric:
name: nginx_ingress_controller_nginx_process_requests_total
target:
type: AverageValue
averageValue: 10000m
Accessing Gateway
Service port
Default service port of gateway is 8080. You can change this at global.servicePorts.gateway
.
Ingress
An Ingress resource is created if tyk-gateway.gateway.ingress.enabled
is set to true.
ingress:
# if enabled, creates an ingress resource for the gateway
enabled: true
# specify ingress controller class name
className: ""
# annotations for ingress
annotations: {}
# ingress rules
hosts:
- host: tyk-gw.local
paths:
- path: /
pathType: ImplementationSpecific
# tls configuration for ingress
# - secretName: chart-example-tls
# hosts:
# - chart-example.local
tls: []
Control Port
Set tyk-gateway.gateway.control.enabled
to true will allow you to run the Gateway API on a separate port and protect it behind a firewall if needed.
Mounting APIs, Policies, and Middlewares
By default, the Gateway stores API configurations at /mnt/tyk-gateway/apps
inside the Gateway container. There are a a few challenges:
- Multiple gateways do not share app configs
- The configuration is not persistent. i.e. it will not be retained whenever a pod restarts.
The same applies to security policies and middleware too, which are stored at /mnt/tyk-gateway/policies
and /mnt/tyk-gateway/middleware
respectively.
This can be solved by instantiating a Persistent Volume as shared storage for the gateway instances. As each gateway is reloaded, they would get the API configurations from the same storage, solving the synchronisation issue between gateways. Also, the storage is persistent and can be designed to be resilient to cluster failure, thus your API configurations can be maintained after pod restart.
You can configure persistent volume for APIs, Policies, and middlewares using extraVolumes
and extraVolumeMounts
:
extraVolumes:
- name: tyk-app-storage
persistentVolumeClaim:
claimName: tyk-app-claim
- name: tyk-policies-storage
persistentVolumeClaim:
claimName: tyk-policies-claim
- name: tyk-middleware-storage
persistentVolumeClaim:
claimName: tyk-middleware-claim
extraVolumeMounts:
- name: tyk-app-storage
mountPath: /mnt/tyk-gateway/apps
- name: tyk-policies-storage
mountPath: /mnt/tyk-gateway/policies
- name: tyk-middleware-storage
mountPath: /mnt/tyk-gateway/middleware
For further details for configuring Tyk Gateway, consult the Tyk Gateway Configuration Options guide.
Pump Configurations
To enable Pump, set global.components.pump
to true, and configure below inside tyk-pump
section.
Pump | Configuration |
---|---|
Prometheus Pump (Default) | Add prometheus to tyk-pump.pump.backend , and add connection details for prometheus under tyk-pump.pump.prometheusPump . |
Mongo Pump | Add mongo to tyk-pump.pump.backend , and add connection details for mongo under global.mongo . |
SQL Pump | Add postgres to tyk-pump.pump.backend , and add connection details for postgres under global.postgres . |
Uptime Pump | Set tyk-pump.pump.uptimePumpBackend to 'mongo' or 'postgres' |
Other Pumps | Add the required environment variables in tyk-pump.pump.extraEnvs |
Prometheus Pump
Add prometheus
to tyk-pump.pump.backend
, and add connection details for Prometheus under tyk-pump.pump.prometheusPump
.
We also support monitoring using Prometheus Operator. All you have to do is set tyk-pump.pump.prometheusPump.prometheusOperator.enabled
to true.
This will create a PodMonitor resource for your Pump instance.
See Configure Tyk Pump to expose analytics data to Prometheus for a step-by-step guide on setting up Prometheus Pump on Kubernetes.
Mongo Pump
If you are using the MongoDB pumps in the tyk-oss installation you will require MongoDB installed for that as well.
To install MongoDB you can use these rather excellent charts provided by Bitnami:
helm install tyk-mongo bitnami/mongodb --set "replicaSet.enabled=true" -n tyk --version 15.1.3
Note
Bitnami MongoDB image is not supported on darwin/arm64 architecture.
Note
Please make sure you are installing MongoDB versions that are supported by Tyk. Please refer to Tyk docs to get list of supported versions.
Follow notes from the installation output to get connection details and update them in the values.yaml
file.
NOTE: Please make sure you are installing a mongo helm chart that matches a supported version.
Important Note regarding MongoDB: This helm chart enables the PodDisruptionBudget for MongoDB with an arbiter replica-count of 1. If you intend to perform system maintenance on the node where the MongoDB pod is running and this maintenance requires for the node to be drained, this action will be prevented due the replica count being 1. Increase the replica count in the helm chart deployment to a minimum of 2 to remedy this issue.
Add the following configuration under the global
section in values.yaml
:
global:
# Set mongo connection details if you want to configure mongo pump.
mongo:
# The mongoURL value will allow you to set your MongoDB address.
# Default value: mongodb://mongo.{{ .Release.Namespace }}.svc:27017/tyk_analytics
# mongoURL: mongodb://mongo.tyk.svc:27017/tyk_analytics
# If your MongoDB has a password you can add the username and password to the url
# mongoURL: mongodb://root:[email protected]:27017/tyk_analytics?authSource=admin
mongoURL: <MongoDB address>
# mongo-go driver is supported for Tyk 5.0.2+.
# We recommend using the `mongo-go` driver if you are using MongoDB 4.4.x+.
# For MongoDB versions prior to 4.4, please use the `mgo` driver.
# Since Tyk 5.3 the default driver is mongo-go.
driver: mongo-go
# Enables SSL for MongoDB connection. MongoDB instance will have to support that.
# Default value: false
# useSSL: false
SQL Pump
If you are using the SQL Pumps in the tyk-oss installation you will require PostgreSQL installed for that as well.
To install PostgreSQL you can use these rather excellent charts provided by Bitnami:
helm install tyk-postgres bitnami/postgresql --set "auth.database=tyk_analytics" -n tyk --version 12.12.10
Note
Please make sure you are installing PostgreSQL versions that are supported by Tyk. Please refer to Tyk docs to get list of supported versions.
Follow the notes from the installation output to get connection details and update them in values.yaml
file.
Add the following configuration under the global
section in values.yaml
:
global:
# Postgres connection string parameters.
postgres:
# host corresponds to the host name of postgres
host: tyk-postgres-postgresql.tyk.svc
# port corresponds to the port of postgres
port: 5432
# user corresponds to the user of postgres
user: postgres
# password corresponds to the password of the given postgres user in selected database
password:
# database corresponds to the database to be used in postgres
database: tyk_analytics
# sslmode corresponds to if postgres runs in sslmode (https)
sslmode: disable
# Connection string can also be set using a secret. Provide the name of the secret and key below.
# connectionStringSecret:
# name: ""
# keyName: ""
Uptime Pump
Uptime Pump can be configured by setting tyk-pump.pump.uptimePumpBackend
in values.yaml file. It supports the following values
- mongo: Used to set Mongo Pump for uptime analytics. Mongo Pump should be enabled.
- postgres: Used to set Postgres Pump for uptime analytics. Postgres Pump should be enabled.
- empty: Used to disable uptime analytics.
Other Pumps
To setup other backends for pump, refer to this document and add the required environment variables in tyk-pump.pump.extraEnvs
Tyk Operator Configurations
In order to enable installing Tyk Operator along-side Tyk OSS installation, please set global.components.operator
to true
.
All other configurations related to Tyk Operator are available under tyk-operator
section of values.yaml
file.
Tyk Operator needs a cert-manager to be installed. Ensure that cert-manager is installed as described in the official documentation: Installing Tyk Operator.