Validate IPv4/IPv6 dual-stack

This document shares how to validate IPv4/IPv6 dual-stack enabled Kubernetes clusters.

Before you begin

  • Provider support for dual-stack networking (Cloud provider or otherwise must be able to provide Kubernetes nodes with routable IPv4/IPv6 network interfaces)
  • A network plugin that supports dual-stack (such as Calico, Cilium or Kubenet)
  • Dual-stack enabled cluster
Your Kubernetes server must be version v1.23. To check the version, enter kubectl version.

Validate addressing

Validate node addressing

Each dual-stack Node should have a single IPv4 block and a single IPv6 block allocated. Validate that IPv4/IPv6 Pod address ranges are configured by running the following command. Replace the sample node name with a valid dual-stack Node from your cluster. In this example, the Node's name is k8s-linuxpool1-34450317-0:

kubectl get nodes k8s-linuxpool1-34450317-0 -o go-template --template='{{range .spec.podCIDRs}}{{printf "%s\n" .}}{{end}}'

10.244.1.0/24
a00:100::/24

There should be one IPv4 block and one IPv6 block allocated.

Validate that the node has an IPv4 and IPv6 interface detected. Replace node name with a valid node from the cluster. In this example the node name is k8s-linuxpool1-34450317-0:

kubectl get nodes k8s-linuxpool1-34450317-0 -o go-template --template='{{range .status.addresses}}{{printf "%s: %s\n" .type .address}}{{end}}'

Hostname: k8s-linuxpool1-34450317-0
InternalIP: 10.240.0.5
InternalIP: 2001:1234:5678:9abc::5

Validate Pod addressing

Validate that a Pod has an IPv4 and IPv6 address assigned. Replace the Pod name with a valid Pod in your cluster. In this example the Pod name is pod01:

kubectl get pods pod01 -o go-template --template='{{range .status.podIPs}}{{printf "%s\n" .ip}}{{end}}'

10.244.1.4
a00:100::4

You can also validate Pod IPs using the Downward API via the status.podIPs fieldPath. The following snippet demonstrates how you can expose the Pod IPs via an environment variable called MY_POD_IPS within a container.

        env:
        - name: MY_POD_IPS
          valueFrom:
            fieldRef:
              fieldPath: status.podIPs

The following command prints the value of the MY_POD_IPS environment variable from within a container. The value is a comma separated list that corresponds to the Pod's IPv4 and IPv6 addresses.

kubectl exec -it pod01 -- set | grep MY_POD_IPS

MY_POD_IPS=10.244.1.4,a00:100::4

The Pod's IP addresses will also be written to /etc/hosts within a container. The following command executes a cat on /etc/hosts on a dual stack Pod. From the output you can verify both the IPv4 and IPv6 IP address for the Pod.

kubectl exec -it pod01 -- cat /etc/hosts

# Kubernetes-managed hosts file.
127.0.0.1    localhost
::1    localhost ip6-localhost ip6-loopback
fe00::0    ip6-localnet
fe00::0    ip6-mcastprefix
fe00::1    ip6-allnodes
fe00::2    ip6-allrouters
10.244.1.4    pod01
a00:100::4    pod01

Validate Services

Create the following Service that does not explicitly define .spec.ipFamilyPolicy. Kubernetes will assign a cluster IP for the Service from the first configured service-cluster-ip-range and set the .spec.ipFamilyPolicy to SingleStack.

service/networking/dual-stack-default-svc.yaml 
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: my-service
  labels:
    app: MyApp
spec:
  selector:
    app: MyApp
  ports:
    - protocol: TCP
      port: 80

Use kubectl to view the YAML for the Service.

kubectl get svc my-service -o yaml

The Service has .spec.ipFamilyPolicy set to SingleStack and .spec.clusterIP set to an IPv4 address from the first configured range set via --service-cluster-ip-range flag on kube-controller-manager.

apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: my-service
  namespace: default
spec:
  clusterIP: 10.0.217.164
  clusterIPs:
  - 10.0.217.164
  ipFamilies:
  - IPv4
  ipFamilyPolicy: SingleStack
  ports:
  - port: 80
    protocol: TCP
    targetPort: 9376
  selector:
    app: MyApp
  sessionAffinity: None
  type: ClusterIP
status:
  loadBalancer: {}

Create the following Service that explicitly defines IPv6 as the first array element in .spec.ipFamilies. Kubernetes will assign a cluster IP for the Service from the IPv6 range configured service-cluster-ip-range and set the .spec.ipFamilyPolicy to SingleStack.

service/networking/dual-stack-ipfamilies-ipv6.yaml 
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: my-service
  labels:
    app: MyApp
spec:
  ipFamilies:
  - IPv6
  selector:
    app: MyApp
  ports:
    - protocol: TCP
      port: 80

Use kubectl to view the YAML for the Service.

kubectl get svc my-service -o yaml

The Service has .spec.ipFamilyPolicy set to SingleStack and .spec.clusterIP set to an IPv6 address from the IPv6 range set via --service-cluster-ip-range flag on kube-controller-manager.

apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  labels:
    app: MyApp
  name: my-service
spec:
  clusterIP: fd00::5118
  clusterIPs:
  - fd00::5118
  ipFamilies:
  - IPv6
  ipFamilyPolicy: SingleStack
  ports:
  - port: 80
    protocol: TCP
    targetPort: 80
  selector:
    app: MyApp
  sessionAffinity: None
  type: ClusterIP
status:
  loadBalancer: {}

Create the following Service that explicitly defines PreferDualStack in .spec.ipFamilyPolicy. Kubernetes will assign both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses (as this cluster has dual-stack enabled) and select the .spec.ClusterIP from the list of .spec.ClusterIPs based on the address family of the first element in the .spec.ipFamilies array.

service/networking/dual-stack-preferred-svc.yaml 
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: my-service
  labels:
    app: MyApp
spec:
  ipFamilyPolicy: PreferDualStack
  selector:
    app: MyApp
  ports:
    - protocol: TCP
      port: 80

Validate that the Service gets cluster IPs from the IPv4 and IPv6 address blocks using kubectl describe. You may then validate access to the service via the IPs and ports.

kubectl describe svc -l app=MyApp

Name:              my-service
Namespace:         default
Labels:            app=MyApp
Annotations:       <none>
Selector:          app=MyApp
Type:              ClusterIP
IP Family Policy:  PreferDualStack
IP Families:       IPv4,IPv6
IP:                10.0.216.242
IPs:               10.0.216.242,fd00::af55
Port:              <unset>  80/TCP
TargetPort:        9376/TCP
Endpoints:         <none>
Session Affinity:  None
Events:            <none>

Create a dual-stack load balanced Service

If the cloud provider supports the provisioning of IPv6 enabled external load balancers, create the following Service with PreferDualStack in .spec.ipFamilyPolicy, IPv6 as the first element of the .spec.ipFamilies array and the type field set to LoadBalancer.

service/networking/dual-stack-prefer-ipv6-lb-svc.yaml 
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: my-service
  labels:
    app: MyApp
spec:
  ipFamilyPolicy: PreferDualStack
  ipFamilies:
  - IPv6
  type: LoadBalancer
  selector:
    app: MyApp
  ports:
    - protocol: TCP
      port: 80

Check the Service:

kubectl get svc -l app=MyApp

Validate that the Service receives a CLUSTER-IP address from the IPv6 address block along with an EXTERNAL-IP. You may then validate access to the service via the IP and port.

NAME         TYPE           CLUSTER-IP   EXTERNAL-IP        PORT(S)        AGE
my-service   LoadBalancer   fd00::7ebc   2603:1030:805::5   80:30790/TCP   35s
Last modified August 13, 2021 at 5:08 PM PST: Dual-stack to stable in 1.23 (a209e3d65e)