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Connect to NebulaGraph databases with Nebular Operator

After creating a NebulaGraph cluster with NebulaGraph Operator on Kubernetes, you can connect to NebulaGraph databases from within the cluster and outside the cluster.

Prerequisites

Create a NebulaGraph cluster with NebulaGraph Operator on Kubernetes. For more information, see Deploy NebulaGraph clusters with Kubectl or Deploy NebulaGraph clusters with Helm.

Connect to NebulaGraph databases from outside a NebulaGraph cluster via NodePort

You can create a NodePort type Service to access internal cluster services from outside the cluster using any node IP and the exposed node port. You can also utilize load balancing services provided by cloud vendors (such as Azure, AWS, etc.) by setting the Service type to LoadBalancer. This allows external access to internal cluster services through the public IP and port of the load balancer provided by the cloud vendor.

The Service of type NodePort forwards the front-end requests via the label selector spec.selector to Graphd pods with labels app.kubernetes.io/cluster: <cluster-name> and app.kubernetes.io/component: graphd.

After creating a NebulaGraph cluster based on the example template, where spec.graphd.service.type=NodePort, the NebulaGraph Operator will automatically create a NodePort type Service named <cluster-name>-graphd-svc in the same namespace. You can directly connect to the NebulaGraph database through any node IP and the exposed node port (see step 4 below). You can also create a custom Service according to your needs.

Steps:

  1. Create a YAML file named graphd-nodeport-service.yaml. The file contents are as follows:

    apiVersion: v1
    kind: Service
    metadata:
      labels:
        app.kubernetes.io/cluster: nebula
        app.kubernetes.io/component: graphd
        app.kubernetes.io/managed-by: nebula-operator
        app.kubernetes.io/name: nebula-graph
      name: nebula-graphd-svc-nodeport
      namespace: default
    spec:
      externalTrafficPolicy: Local
      ports:
      - name: thrift
        port: 9669
        protocol: TCP
        targetPort: 9669
      - name: http
        port: 19669
        protocol: TCP
        targetPort: 19669
      selector:
        app.kubernetes.io/cluster: nebula
        app.kubernetes.io/component: graphd
        app.kubernetes.io/managed-by: nebula-operator
        app.kubernetes.io/name: nebula-graph
      type: NodePort   # Set the type to NodePort.
    
    • NebulaGraph uses port 9669 by default. 19669 is the HTTP port of the Graph service in a NebulaGraph cluster.
    • The value of targetPort is the port mapped to the database Pods, which can be customized.
  2. Run the following command to create a NodePort Service.

    kubectl create -f graphd-nodeport-service.yaml
    
  3. Check the port mapped on all of your cluster nodes.

    kubectl get services -l app.kubernetes.io/cluster=<nebula> # <nebula> is the name of your NebulaGraph cluster.
    

    Output:

    NAME                           TYPE        CLUSTER-IP     EXTERNAL-IP   PORT(S)                                          AGE
    nebula-graphd-svc-nodeport     NodePort    10.107.153.129 <none>        9669:32236/TCP,19669:31674/TCP,19670:31057/TCP   24h
    ...
    

    As you see, the mapped port of NebulaGraph databases on all cluster nodes is 32236.

  4. Connect to NebulaGraph databases with your node IP and the node port above.

    kubectl run -ti --image vesoft/nebula-console:v3.4.0 --restart=Never -- <nebula_console_name> -addr <node_ip> -port <node_port> -u <username> -p <password>
    

    For example:

    kubectl run -ti --image vesoft/nebula-console:v3.4.0 --restart=Never -- nebula-console -addr 192.168.8.24 -port 32236 -u root -p vesoft
    If you don't see a command prompt, try pressing enter.
    
    (root@nebula) [(none)]>
    
    • --image: The image for the tool NebulaGraph Console used to connect to NebulaGraph databases.
    • <nebula-console>: The custom Pod name. The above example uses nebula-console.
    • -addr: The IP of any node in a NebulaGraph cluster. The above example uses 192.168.8.24.
    • -port: The mapped port of NebulaGraph databases on all cluster nodes. The above example uses 32236.
    • -u: The username of your NebulaGraph account. Before enabling authentication, you can use any existing username. The default username is root.
    • -p: The password of your NebulaGraph account. Before enabling authentication, you can use any characters as the password.

Connect to NebulaGraph databases from within a NebulaGraph cluster

You can also create a ClusterIP type Service to provide an access point to the NebulaGraph database for other Pods within the cluster. By using the Service's IP and the Graph service's port number (9669), you can connect to the NebulaGraph database. For more information, see ClusterIP.

  1. Create a file named graphd-clusterip-service.yaml. The file contents are as follows:

    apiVersion: v1
    kind: Service
    metadata:
      labels:
        app.kubernetes.io/cluster: nebula
        app.kubernetes.io/component: graphd
        app.kubernetes.io/managed-by: nebula-operator
        app.kubernetes.io/name: nebula-graph
      name: nebula-graphd-svc
      namespace: default
    spec:
      externalTrafficPolicy: Local
      ports:
      - name: thrift
        port: 9669
        protocol: TCP
        targetPort: 9669
      - name: http
        port: 19669
        protocol: TCP
        targetPort: 19669
      selector:
        app.kubernetes.io/cluster: nebula
        app.kubernetes.io/component: graphd
        app.kubernetes.io/managed-by: nebula-operator
        app.kubernetes.io/name: nebula-graph
      type: ClusterIP  # Set the type to ClusterIP.
    
    • NebulaGraph uses port 9669 by default. 19669 is the HTTP port of the Graph service in a NebulaGraph cluster.
    • targetPort is the port mapped to the database Pods, which can be customized.
  2. Create a ClusterIP Service.

    kubectl create -f graphd-clusterip-service.yaml     
    
  3. Check the IP of the Service:

    $ kubectl get service -l app.kubernetes.io/cluster=<nebula>  # <nebula> is the name of your NebulaGraph cluster.
    NAME                       TYPE        CLUSTER-IP     EXTERNAL-IP   PORT(S)                                          AGE
    nebula-graphd-svc          ClusterIP   10.98.213.34   <none>        9669/TCP,19669/TCP,19670/TCP                     23h
    ...
    
  4. Run the following command to connect to the NebulaGraph database using the IP of the <cluster-name>-graphd-svc Service above:

    kubectl run -ti --image vesoft/nebula-console:v3.4.0 --restart=Never -- <nebula_console_name> -addr <cluster_ip>  -port <service_port> -u <username> -p <password>
    

    For example:

    kubectl run -ti --image vesoft/nebula-console:v3.4.0 --restart=Never -- nebula-console -addr 10.98.213.34  -port 9669 -u root -p vesoft
    
    - `--image`: The image for the tool NebulaGraph Console used to connect to NebulaGraph databases.
    - `<nebula-console>`: The custom Pod name.
    - `-addr`: The IP of the `ClusterIP` Service, used to connect to Graphd services.
    - `-port`: The port to connect to Graphd services, the default port of which is `9669`.
    - `-u`: The username of your NebulaGraph account. Before enabling authentication, you can use any existing username. The default username is root.
    - `-p`: The password of your NebulaGraph account. Before enabling authentication, you can use any characters as the password.
    
    A successful connection to the database is indicated if the following is returned:
    
    ```bash
    If you don't see a command prompt, try pressing enter.
    
    (root@nebula) [(none)]>
    

You can also connect to NebulaGraph databases with Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN). The domain format is <cluster-name>-graphd.<cluster-namespace>.svc.<CLUSTER_DOMAIN>. The default value of CLUSTER_DOMAIN is cluster.local.

kubectl run -ti --image vesoft/nebula-console:v3.4.0 --restart=Never -- <nebula_console_name> -addr <cluster_name>-graphd-svc.default.svc.cluster.local -port <service_port> -u <username> -p <password>

service_port is the port to connect to Graphd services, the default port of which is 9669.

Connect to NebulaGraph databases from outside a NebulaGraph cluster via Ingress

When dealing with multiple pods in a cluster, managing services for each pod separately is not a good practice. Ingress is a Kubernetes resource that provides a unified entry point for accessing multiple services. Ingress can be used to expose multiple services under a single IP address.

Nginx Ingress is an implementation of Kubernetes Ingress. Nginx Ingress watches the Ingress resource of a Kubernetes cluster and generates the Ingress rules into Nginx configurations that enable Nginx to forward 7 layers of traffic.

You can use Nginx Ingress to connect to a NebulaGraph cluster from outside the cluster using a combination of the host network and DaemonSet pattern.

As the host network is used, the Nginx Ingress pod cannot be scheduled to the same node. To avoid listening port conflicts, some nodes can be selected and labeled as edge nodes in advance, which are specially used for the Nginx Ingress deployment. Nginx Ingress is then deployed on these nodes in a DaemonSet mode.

Ingress does not support TCP or UDP services. For this reason, the nginx-ingress-controller pod uses the flags --tcp-services-configmap and --udp-services-configmap to point to an existing ConfigMap where the key refers to the external port to be used and the value refers to the format of the service to be exposed. The format of the value is <namespace/service_name>:<service_port>.

For example, the configurations of the ConfigMap named as tcp-services is as follows:

apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
  name: tcp-services
  namespace: nginx-ingress
data:
  # update 
  9769: "default/nebula-graphd-svc:9669"

Steps are as follows.

  1. Create a file named nginx-ingress-daemonset-hostnetwork.yaml.

    Click on nginx-ingress-daemonset-hostnetwork.yaml to view the complete content of the example YAML file.

    Note

    The resource objects in the YAML file above use the namespace nginx-ingress. You can run kubectl create namespace nginx-ingress to create this namespace, or you can customize the namespace.

  2. Label a node where the DaemonSet named nginx-ingress-controller in the above YAML file (The node used in this example is named worker2 with an IP of 192.168.8.160) runs.

    kubectl label node worker2 nginx-ingress=true
    
  3. Run the following command to enable Nginx Ingress in the cluster you created.

    kubectl create -f nginx-ingress-daemonset-hostnetwork.yaml
    

    Output:

    configmap/nginx-ingress-controller created
    configmap/tcp-services created
    serviceaccount/nginx-ingress created
    serviceaccount/nginx-ingress-backend created
    clusterrole.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/nginx-ingress created
    clusterrolebinding.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/nginx-ingress created
    role.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/nginx-ingress created
    rolebinding.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/nginx-ingress created
    service/nginx-ingress-controller-metrics created
    service/nginx-ingress-default-backend created
    service/nginx-ingress-proxy-tcp created
    daemonset.apps/nginx-ingress-controller created
    

    Since the network type that is configured in Nginx Ingress is hostNetwork, after successfully deploying Nginx Ingress, with the IP (192.168.8.160) of the node where Nginx Ingress is deployed and with the external port (9769) you define, you can access NebulaGraph.

  4. Use the IP address and the port configured in the preceding steps. You can connect to NebulaGraph with NebulaGraph Console.

    kubectl run -ti --image vesoft/nebula-console:v3.4.0 --restart=Never -- <nebula_console_name> -addr <host_ip> -port <external_port> -u <username> -p <password>
    

    Output:

    kubectl run -ti --image vesoft/nebula-console:v3.4.0 --restart=Never -- nebula-console -addr 192.168.8.160 -port 9769 -u root -p vesoft
    
    • --image: The image for the tool NebulaGraph Console used to connect to NebulaGraph databases.
    • <nebula-console> The custom Pod name. The above example uses nebula-console.
    • -addr: The IP of the node where Nginx Ingress is deployed. The above example uses 192.168.8.160.
    • -port: The port used for external network access. The above example uses 9769.
    • -u: The username of your NebulaGraph account. Before enabling authentication, you can use any existing username. The default username is root.
    • -p: The password of your NebulaGraph account. Before enabling authentication, you can use any characters as the password.

    A successful connection to the database is indicated if the following is returned:

    If you don't see a command prompt, try pressing enter.
    (root@nebula) [(none)]>
    

Last update: February 19, 2024