Deploy Hybrid Gateways

Tyk Cloud hosts and manages the control planes for you. You can deploy the data planes across multiple locations:

• as Cloud Gateways: deployed and managed in Tyk Cloud, in any of 5 regions available. No need to care about deployment and operational concerns.
• as Hybrid Gateways: deployed locally and managed by you: in your own data centre, public or private cloud or even on your own machine

This page describes the deployment of hybrid data planes and how to connect them to Tyk Cloud, in both Kubernetes and Docker environments.

Pre-requisites

• Tyk Cloud Account, register here if you don’t have one yet: free trial
• A Redis instance for each data plane, used as temporary storage for distributed rate limiting, token storage and analytics. You will find instructions for a simple Redis installation in the steps below.
• No incoming firewalls rules are needed, as the connection between Hybrid Gateways and Tyk Cloud is always initiated from the Gateways, not from Tyk Cloud.

Create hybrid data plane configuration

The hybrid data plane can connect to control plane in Tyk Cloud by using the Tyk Dashboard API Access Credentials. Follow the guides below to create the configuration that we will be used in later sections to create a deployment:

Login to your Tyk Cloud account deployments section and click on ADD HYBRID DATA PLANE

Fill in the details and then click SAVE DATA PLANE CONFIG

This will open up a page that has the data plane configuration details that we need.

Those details are:

You can also click on OPEN DETAILS

This will reveal instructions that you can use to connect your hybrid data plane to Tyk Cloud.

Deploy with Docker

1. In your terminal, clone the demo application Tyk Gateway Docker repository

git clone https://github.com/TykTechnologies/tyk-gateway-docker.git

2. Configure Tyk Gateway and its connection to Tyk Cloud

You need to modify the following values in tyk.hybrid.conf configuration file:

• rpc_key - Organisation ID
• api_key - Tyk Dashboard API Access Credentials of the user created earlier
• connection_string: MDCB connection string
• group_id(optional) - if you have multiple data plane (e.g. in different regions), specify the data plane group (string) to which the gateway you are deploying belongs. The data planes in the same group share one Redis.

{
"rpc_key": "<ORG_ID>",
"api_key": "<API-KEY>",
"connection_string": "<MDCB-INGRESS>:443",
"group_id": "dataplane-europe",
}

• (optional) you can enable sharding to selectively load APIs to specific gateways, using the following:

{
  "db_app_conf_options": {
    "node_is_segmented": true,
    "tags": ["qa", "uat"]
  }
}

3. Configure the connection to redis

This example comes with a redis instance pre-configured and deployed with Docker compose. If you want to use another redis instance, you will have to update the storage part of tyk.hybrid.conf:

{
  "storage": {
        "type": "redis",
        "host": "tyk-redis",
        "port": 6379,
        "username": "",
        "password": "",
        "database": 0,
        "optimisation_max_idle": 2000,
        "optimisation_max_active": 4000
    }
}

4. Update docker compose file

Edit the <docker-compose.yml> file to use the tyk.hybrid.conf that you have just configured.

From:

- ./tyk.standalone.conf:/opt/tyk-gateway/tyk.conf

To:

- ./tyk.hybrid.conf:/opt/tyk-gateway/tyk.conf

5. Run docker compose

Run the following:

docker compose up -d

You should now have two running containers, a Gateway and a Redis.

6. Check that the gateway is up and running

Call the /hello endpoint using curl from your terminal (or any other HTTP client):

curl http://localhost:8080/hello -i

Expected result:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/json
Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2023 12:41:11 GMT
Content-Length: 59

{"status":"pass","version":"4.3.3","description":"Tyk GW"}

Deploy in Kubernetes with Helm

Tyk is working to provide a new set of Helm charts, and will progressively roll them out at tyk-charts. It will provide component charts for all Tyk Components, as well as umbrella charts as reference configurations for open source and Tyk Self Managed users.

Status of the New Charts

To deploy hybrid data planes using the new Helm chart, please use tyk-mdcb-data-plane chart.

Tyk MDCB Data Plane

tyk-mdcb-data-plane provides the default deployment of a Tyk data plane for Tyk Self Managed MDCB or Tyk Cloud users. It will deploy the data plane components that remotely connect to a MDCB control plane.

It includes the Tyk Gateway, an open source Enterprise API Gateway, supporting REST, GraphQL, TCP and gRPC protocols; and Tyk Pump, an analytics purger that moves the data generated by your Tyk gateways to any back-end. Furthermore, it has all the required modifications to easily connect to Tyk Cloud or Multi Data Center (MDCB) control plane.

Introduction

By default, this chart installs following components as subcharts on a Kubernetes cluster using the Helm package manager.

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.

Prerequisites

• Kubernetes 1.19+
• Helm 3+
• Redis should already be installed or accessible by the gateway. For Redis installations instruction, follow the Redis installation guide below.
• Connection details to remote control plane. See the section below for how to obtain them from Tyk Cloud.

Quick Start

Quick start using tyk-mdcb-data-plane and Bitnami Redis chart

NAMESPACE=tyk
APISecret=foo
MDCB_UserKey=9d20907430e440655f15b851e4112345
MDCB_OrgId=64cadf60173be90001712345
MDCB_ConnString=mere-xxxxxxx-hyb.aws-euw2.cloud-ara.tyk.io:443
MDCB_GroupId=dc-uk-south

helm upgrade tyk-redis oci://registry-1.docker.io/bitnamicharts/redis -n $NAMESPACE --create-namespace --install --set image.tag=6.2.13

helm upgrade hybrid-dp tyk-helm/tyk-mdcb-data-plane -n $NAMESPACE --create-namespace \
  --install \
  --set global.remoteControlPlane.userApiKey=$MDCB_UserKey \
  --set global.remoteControlPlane.orgId=$MDCB_OrgId \
  --set global.remoteControlPlane.connectionString=$MDCB_ConnString \
  --set global.remoteControlPlane.groupID=$MDCB_GroupId \
  --set global.secrets.APISecret="$APISecret" \
  --set global.redis.addrs="{tyk-redis-master.$NAMESPACE.svc.cluster.local:6379}" \
  --set global.redis.passSecret.name=tyk-redis \
  --set global.redis.passSecret.keyName=redis-password

Gateway is now accessible through service gateway-svc-hybrid-dp-tyk-gateway at port 8080.

Pump is also configured with Hybrid Pump which sends aggregated analytics to MDCB or Tyk Cloud, and Prometheus Pump which expose metrics locally at :9090/metrics.

Obtain your Remote Control Plane Connection Details

You can easily obtain your remote control plane connection details on Tyk Cloud.

1. Go to Deployment tab and create a Hybrid data plane configuration. You can also select from an existing one.
2. Copy Key, Org ID, and Data Planes Connection String (MDCB) as global.remoteControlPlane’s userApiKey, orgId, and connectionString respectively.

Installing the Chart

To install the chart from the Helm repository in namespace tyk with the release name tyk-data-plane:

    helm repo add tyk-helm https://helm.tyk.io/public/helm/charts/
    helm repo update
    helm show values tyk-helm/tyk-mdcb-data-plane > values-data-plane.yaml

See Configuration section for the available config options and modify your local values-data-plane.yaml file accordingly. Then install the chart:

    helm install tyk-data-plane tyk-helm/tyk-mdcb-data-plane -n tyk --create-namespace -f values-data-plane.yaml

Uninstalling the Chart

helm uninstall tyk-data-plane -n tyk

This removes all the Kubernetes components associated with the chart and deletes the release.

Upgrading Chart

helm upgrade tyk-data-plane tyk-helm/tyk-mdcb-data-plane -n tyk

Configuration

To get all configurable options with detailed comments:

helm show values tyk-helm/tyk-mdcb-data-plane > 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.

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:

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 --set image.tag=6.2.13

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.

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.

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:

1. Create a TLS secret using your cert and key pair.
2. Set global.tls.gateway to true.
3. Set tyk-gateway.gateway.tls.useDefaultTykCertificate to false.
4. 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

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

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.

Sharding

Configure the gateways to load APIs with specific tags only by enabling tyk-gateway.gateway.sharding.enabled, and set tags to comma separated lists of matching tags.

    # Sharding gateway allows you to selectively load APIs to specific gateways.
    # If enabled make sure you have at least one gateway that is not sharded.
    # Also be sure to match API segmentation tags with the tags selected below.
    sharding:
      enabled: true
      tags: "edge,dc1,product"

Setting Environment Variable

You can add environment variables for Tyk Gateway under extraEnvs. This can be used to override any default settings in the chart, e.g.

    extraEnvs:
      - name: TYK_GW_HASHKEYS
        value: "false"

Here is a reference of all Tyk Gateway Configuration Options.

Pump Configurations

To enable Pump, set global.components.pump to true, and configure below inside tyk-pump section.

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.

Hybrid Pump

Add hybrid to tyk-pump.pump.backend, and add remoteControlPlane details under global.remoteControlPlane.

  # Set remoteControlPlane connection details if you want to configure hybrid pump.
  remoteControlPlane:
      # connection string used to connect to an MDCB deployment. For Tyk Cloud users, you can get it from Tyk Cloud Console and retrieve the MDCB connection string.
      connectionString: ""
      # orgID of your dashboard user
      orgId: ""
      # API key of your dashboard user
      userApiKey: ""
      # needed in case you want to have multiple data-planes connected to the same redis instance
      groupID: ""
      # enable/disable ssl
      useSSL: true
      # Disables SSL certificate verification
      sslInsecureSkipVerify: true

  # hybridPump configures Tyk Pump to forward Tyk metrics to a Tyk Control Plane.
  # Please add "hybrid" to .Values.pump.backend in order to enable Hybrid Pump.
  hybridPump: 
    # Specify the frequency of the aggregation in minutes or simply turn it on by setting it to true
    enableAggregateAnalytics: true
    # Hybrid pump RPC calls timeout in seconds.
    callTimeout: 10
    # Hybrid pump connection pool size.
    poolSize: 5

Other Pumps

To setup other backends for pump, refer to this document and add the required environment variables in tyk-pump.pump.extraEnvs

Remove hybrid data plane configuration

Then click on REMOVE DATA PLANE CONFIGS

Confirm the removal by clicking DELETE HYBRID DATA PLANE