Traefik 2.9: Gateway API Support and Enhanced Routing

Introduction

Traefik 2.9, released on September 10, 2022, continues the evolution of the cloud-native edge gateway. This release introduces Gateway API support, improves routing capabilities, and enhances security features, making Traefik an even more powerful solution for managing ingress traffic in Kubernetes environments.

Networking changes tend to show up under pressure: rolling upgrades, failovers, and the ‘why can’t it connect?’ moments. This release is worth a look if you care about predictable traffic behavior and simpler troubleshooting in real clusters.

Gateway API Support

• Gateway API implementation provides native support for the Kubernetes Gateway API standard.
• HTTPRoute support enables sophisticated routing rules and traffic management.
• TLSRoute capabilities enable secure routing with automatic certificate management.
• BackendRef improvements provide better service and endpoint selection.

Enhanced Routing & Load Balancing

1. Weighted round-robin improvements provide more sophisticated traffic distribution algorithms for canary deployments.
2. Sticky sessions enhancements enable better session affinity with configurable cookie-based routing.
3. Circuit breaker refinements improve resilience with configurable failure thresholds and recovery strategies.
4. Retry logic improvements enable automatic request retries with exponential backoff for transient failures.

Observability & Monitoring

• Access logs enhancements provide structured logging with customizable formats and field selection.
• Metrics expansion exposes detailed HTTP and TCP metrics for Prometheus integration.
• Tracing support improves distributed tracing integration with OpenTelemetry and Jaeger.
• Dashboard improvements in Traefik Pilot provide better visualization of configuration and traffic patterns.

Security Enhancements

• Rate limiting improvements support more sophisticated throttling strategies with per-IP and per-path limits.
• Authentication enhancements expand OAuth2, JWT, and basic auth support with better error handling.
• Headers manipulation provides fine-grained control over request and response headers for security and compatibility.
• TLS improvements provide better certificate management and rotation.

Kubernetes Integration

• IngressRoute improvements simplify complex routing scenarios with better path matching and header-based routing.
• Gateway API support enables modern ingress configuration aligned with Kubernetes Gateway API standards.
• Service discovery enhancements improve automatic detection and configuration of Kubernetes services.
• CRD validation provides better error messages and prevents misconfigurations during resource creation.

Getting Started

kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/traefik/traefik/v2.9/docs/content/reference/dynamic-configuration/kubernetes-crd.yaml

Define a Gateway:

apiVersion: gateway.networking.k8s.io/v1beta1
kind: Gateway
metadata:
  name: my-gateway
spec:
  gatewayClassName: traefik
  listeners:
  - name: web
    protocol: HTTP
    port: 80

Summary

Traefik 2.9 continues to evolve as a leading edge gateway, providing teams with the tools needed to manage complex ingress scenarios with confidence and ease.