MetalLB 0.15: Bare Metal Load Balancing Enhancements

Introduction

MetalLB 0.15, released on August 22, 2024, advances bare metal load balancing with improved BGP support, enhanced L2 mode capabilities, better performance, and expanded configuration options. This release makes MetalLB more powerful for on-premises and bare metal Kubernetes deployments.

BGP Improvements

• BGP protocol enhancements provide better integration with network infrastructure.
• Route advertisement improvements enable more efficient IP address allocation.
• Multi-protocol support enables BGP for both IPv4 and IPv6.
• Community support enables better integration with network policies.

L2 Mode Enhancements

1. ARP/NDP improvements provide better handling of address resolution.
2. Failover enhancements enable faster failover during node failures.
3. Load balancing improvements provide better distribution of traffic.
4. Configuration simplifications make L2 mode easier to configure and manage.

Performance Optimizations

• Latency reductions minimize the overhead of load balancing operations.
• Throughput improvements enable better handling of high-traffic workloads.
• Resource usage optimizations reduce CPU and memory consumption.
• Scaling improvements enable better handling of large numbers of services.

Configuration Options

• IP address pools provide flexible IP address allocation strategies.
• Service annotations enable fine-grained control over load balancer behavior.
• Node selection improvements enable better control over which nodes handle load balancing.
• Monitoring integration provides visibility into load balancer operations.

Getting Started

# Install MetalLB
kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/metallb/metallb/v0.15.0/config/manifests/metallb-native.yaml

Create an IPAddressPool:

apiVersion: metallb.io/v1beta1
kind: IPAddressPool
metadata:
  name: default-pool
  namespace: metallb-system
spec:
  addresses:
  - 192.168.1.100-192.168.1.200
---
apiVersion: metallb.io/v1beta1
kind: L2Advertisement
metadata:
  name: default
  namespace: metallb-system
spec:
  ipAddressPools:
  - default-pool

Summary

MetalLB 0.15 continues to be the standard for bare metal load balancing, providing teams with powerful and flexible load balancing capabilities.