NetBird Kubernetes Operator

For easily provisioning access to Kubernetes resources using NetBird.

netbird-ingress-preview.mp4

Description

This operator easily provides NetBird access on Kubernetes clusters, allowing users to access internal resources directly.

Getting Started

Prerequisites

• (Recommended) helm version 3+
• kubectl version v1.11.3+.
• Access to a Kubernetes v1.11.3+ cluster.
• (Recommended) Cert Manager.

Deployment

Note

Helm Installation method is recommended due to the automation of multiple settings within the deployment.

Using Helm

1. Add helm repository.

helm repo add netbirdio https://netbirdio.github.io/kubernetes-operator

2. (Recommended) Install cert-manager for k8s API to communicate with the NetBird operator.

kubectl apply -f https://github.com/cert-manager/cert-manager/releases/download/v1.17.0/cert-manager.yaml

3. Add NetBird API token

kubectl create namespace netbird
kubectl -n netbird create secret generic netbird-mgmt-api-key --from-literal=NB_API_KEY=$(cat ~/nb-pat.secret)

4. (Recommended) Create a values.yaml file, check helm show values netbirdio/kubernetes-operator for more info.
5. Install using helm install --create-namespace -f values.yaml -n netbird netbird-operator netbirdio/kubernetes-operator.
6. (Recommended) Check pod status using kubectl get pods -n netbird.
7. (Optional) Create an exposed-nginx.yaml file to create a Nginx service for testing.
8. (Optional) Apply the Nginx service:

kubectl apply -f exposed-nginx.yaml

Learn more about the values.yaml options here and Granting controller access to NetBird Management.

Using install.yaml

Important

install.yaml only includes a very basic template for deploying a stripped-down version of Kubernetes-operator. This excludes any and all configurations for ingress capabilities and requires the cert-manager to be installed.

kubectl create namespace netbird
kubectl apply -n netbird -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/netbirdio/kubernetes-operator/refs/heads/main/manifests/install.yaml

Version

We have developed and executed tests against Kubernetes v1.31, but it should work with most recent Kubernetes version.

Latest operator version: v0.1.1.

Tested against:

Distribution	Test status	Kubernetes Version
Google GKE	Pass	1.31.5
AWS EKS	Pass	1.31
Azure AKS	Not tested	N/A
OpenShift	Not tested	N/A

We would love community feedback to improve the test matrix. Please submit a PR with your test results.

Usage

Check the usage of usage.md and examples.

Contributing

Prerequisites

To be able to develop this project, you need to have the following tools installed:

• Git.
• Make.
• Go programming language.
• Docker CE.
• Kubernetes cluster (v1.16+). KIND is recommended.
• Kubebuilder.

Running tests

Running unit tests

make test

Running E2E tests

kind create cluster # If not already created, you can check with `kind get clusters`
make test-e2e