Publish your website as a public secured service

Requirements

read the previous chapter Deploy abcdesktop on Azure with Kubernetes
az command line interface azure-cli installed.
A running Azure Kubernetes Service cluster that is ready and running.
your own internet domain
kubectl command line
wget command line

Overview

In this chapter, you will use a LoadBalancer service to expose your abcdesktop instance with a public IP address, configure your DNS zone file to use your domain name, and enable TLS to secure the service.

Create a new `http-router` service yaml file

The default installation configures the http-router service as type NodePort. You will update it to type LoadBalancer to expose the service with a public IP address.

Create a file named http-router.yaml:

kind: Service
apiVersion: v1
metadata:
  name: http-router
  labels:
    abcdesktop/role: router-od
  annotations:
    service.beta.kubernetes.io/azure-load-balancer-health-probe-request-path: "/healthz"
    service.beta.kubernetes.io/port_80_health-probe_port: "80"
    service.beta.kubernetes.io/port_443_health-probe_port: "443"
spec:
  type: LoadBalancer
  selector:
    run: router-od
  ports:
  - protocol: TCP
    port: 443
    targetPort: 443
    name: https
  - protocol: TCP
    port: 80
    targetPort: 80
    name: http

Save your http-router.yaml file.

Delete the existing http-router service:

kubectl delete service http-router -n abcdesktop
service "http-router" deleted

Apply your new service/http-router:

kubectl apply -f http-router.yaml -n abcdesktop
service/http-router created

Wait a few minutes. The EXTERNAL-IP of the http-router service will initially remain in a Pending state:

kubectl get services http-router -n abcdesktop

NAME          TYPE           CLUSTER-IP     EXTERNAL-IP   PORT(S)                      AGE
http-router   LoadBalancer   10.0.165.172   <pending>     443:32562/TCP,80:30224/TCP   4s

Check the EXTERNAL-IP of the http-router service again:

kubectl get services http-router -n abcdesktop

The service has been assigned 48.194.112.87 as its EXTERNAL-IP.

NAME          TYPE           CLUSTER-IP     EXTERNAL-IP     PORT(S)                      AGE
http-router   LoadBalancer   10.0.165.172   48.194.112.87   443:32562/TCP,80:30224/TCP   22s

Open a web browser and navigate to your abcdesktop service using the IP address.

web browser to reach your abcdesktop service

Web browsers do not permit WebSocket connections over an insecure protocol. To log in, you must use the https protocol.

Update your DNS zone file

You will use an FQDN (Fully Qualified Domain Name) to replace the IP address.

azure networking

This screenshot shows the Microsoft Azure network console and displays the Domain configuration. You can also manage your zone file directly through your own domain registrar.

Create new record

Create a new A record named hello (e.g., hello.azure.pepins.net) pointing to 48.194.112.87. Set a low TTL value to allow DNS changes to propagate quickly.

The IP address is shown in the Microsoft Azure network console and corresponds to the EXTERNAL-IP of your http-router service.

kubectl get services http-router -n abcdesktop
NAME          TYPE           CLUSTER-IP     EXTERNAL-IP     PORT(S)                      AGE
http-router   LoadBalancer   10.0.165.172   48.194.112.87   443:32562/TCP,80:30224/TCP   22s

azure console domain overview

Press the Add button to update your zone file with the new record.

azure console domain overview

From your local device, open a web browser to confirm DNS resolution:

reach your website from your new name

Web browsers do not permit WebSocket connections over an insecure protocol. To log in, you must use the https protocol.

As you can see, the website is marked Not Secured. The next step adds an X.509 SSL certificate to secure the service.

Obtain a Certificate

If you already have an X.509 certificate with private and public key files for your website, you can skip this chapter.

To obtain an SSL certificate, this guide uses the Let's Encrypt service. You will need your public hostname and email address.

Define the environment variables ABCDESKTOP_PUBLIC_FQDN and USER_EMAIL_ADDRESS:

ABCDESKTOP_PUBLIC_FQDN=hello.azure.pepins.net
USER_EMAIL_ADDRESS=thisisyouremail@domain.com
ROUTER_POD_NAME=$(kubectl get pods -l run=router-od -o jsonpath={.items..metadata.name}  -n abcdesktop)
kubectl exec -n abcdesktop -it ${ROUTER_POD_NAME} -- /usr/bin/certbot certonly --webroot -w /var/lib/nginx/html -d ${ABCDESKTOP_PUBLIC_FQDN} -m "${USER_EMAIL_ADDRESS}" --agree-tos -n

You should see the following output on stdout:

Saving debug log to /var/log/letsencrypt/letsencrypt.log
Account registered.
Requesting a certificate for hello.azure.pepins.net

Successfully received certificate.
Certificate is saved at: /etc/letsencrypt/live/hello.azure.pepins.net/fullchain.pem
Key is saved at:         /etc/letsencrypt/live/hello.azure.pepins.net/privkey.pem
This certificate expires on 2026-04-20.
These files will be updated when the certificate renews.

NEXT STEPS:
- The certificate will need to be renewed before it expires. Certbot can automatically renew the certificate in the background, but you may need to take steps to enable that functionality. See https://certbot.org/renewal-setup for instructions.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
If you like Certbot, please consider supporting our work by:
 * Donating to ISRG / Let's Encrypt:   https://letsencrypt.org/donate
 * Donating to EFF:                    https://eff.org/donate-le
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The files fullchain.pem and privkey.pem are located inside the container.

Certificate is saved at: /etc/letsencrypt/live/hello.azure.pepins.net/fullchain.pem
Key is saved at:         /etc/letsencrypt/live/hello.azure.pepins.net/privkey.pem

Export the certificate files and create a new Kubernetes secret.

kubectl exec -n abcdesktop -it  ${ROUTER_POD_NAME} -- cat /etc/letsencrypt/live/$ABCDESKTOP_PUBLIC_FQDN/fullchain.pem > fullchain.pem
kubectl exec -n abcdesktop -it  ${ROUTER_POD_NAME} -- cat /etc/letsencrypt/live/$ABCDESKTOP_PUBLIC_FQDN/privkey.pem > privkey.pem

Create a Secret for the X.509 Certificate

Create a Kubernetes secret named http-router-certificat using the fullchain.pem and privkey.pem file contents.

kubectl create secret tls http-router-certificat --cert=fullchain.pem --key=privkey.pem -n abcdesktop

The secret has been created.

secret/http-router-certificat created

Update `http-router` ConfigMap to use the new `http-router-certificat` secret

Download abcdesktop-routehttp-config.4.4.yaml file

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/abcdesktopio/conf/refs/heads/main/kubernetes/abcdesktop-routehttp-config.4.4.yaml

Open your abcdesktop-routehttp-config.4.4.yaml file and locate the ConfigMap abcdesktop-routehttp-config.

Uncomment the HTTPS directives and replace YOUR_SERVER_NAME_AND_DOMAIN with your actual domain name.

 # nginx server config
 server {
     ...

     ######
     # uncomment this to enable https
     #
     listen 443 ssl http2 default_server;
     listen [::]:443 ssl http2 default_server;
     server_name YOUR_SERVER_NAME_AND_DOMAIN; # change this too
     ssl_certificate     /etc/nginx/ssl/tls.crt;
     ssl_certificate_key /etc/nginx/ssl/tls.key;
     #
     # end of https section
     ######

     ...
     index index.html index.htm;

For example

     listen 443 ssl http2 default_server;
     listen [::]:443 ssl http2 default_server;
     server_name hello.azure.pepins.net;
     ssl_certificate     /etc/nginx/ssl/tls.crt;
     ssl_certificate_key /etc/nginx/ssl/tls.key;

Apply your new NGINX configuration file

kubectl apply -f abcdesktop-routehttp-config.4.4.yaml -n abcdesktop

Update `deployment` http-router

Update the deployment route to add the SSL certificate entry.

The abcdesktop-deployment-routehttps.4.4.yaml file adds mountPath: /etc/nginx/ssl mapped to secretName: http-router-certificat:

kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/abcdesktopio/conf/refs/heads/main/kubernetes/abcdesktop-deployment-routehttps.4.4.yaml -n abcdesktop

Reach your website using `https` protocol

You can now connect to your abcdesktop public website using the https protocol.

reach your website using https

The connection is secured, and the certificate information is visible in the browser.