Step 3 - Create an API Gateway

The instance is linked with NGINX Controller, but it needs to be configured as a Gateway to be used by NGINX Controller. A Gateway is an NGINX Controller object “grouping” instances (not to be confused with an API Gateway).

Note

In this lab, we have only one instance per Gateway, but we could have several instances per Gateway. For instance, I could have 3 NGINX Plus instances in front of my API Sentence app. All of these instances would have the same API Definition config.

Steps:

1. In NGINX Controller -> Select Home (the NGINX logo on the top left corner) -> Services -> Gateways -> Create Gateway. Use the following values:

• Name: apigw
• Environment: env_prod
• Placement: <your nginx1 instance>
• Hostname: http://api.name-generator.com
• Methods: POST, GET, PUT, DELETE, PATCH

1. Click Submit

   Note

   The hostname value is the listener. This Gateway will be dedicated to the API FQDN, so we set this FQDN at the Gateway level.

2. You might notice before submitting that NGINX Controller also gives you the API Spec call to create this gateway (via Postman for example):

PUT /api/v1/services/environments/env_prod/gateways/apigw

 {
   "metadata": {
     "name": "apigw",
     "tags": []
   },
   "desiredState": {
     "ingress": {
       "uris": {
         "http://api.name-generator.com": {}
       },
       "methods": [
         "POST",
         "GET",
         "PUT",
         "DELETE",
         "PATCH"
       ],
       "placement": {
         "instanceRefs": [
           {
             "ref": "/infrastructure/locations/unspecified/instances/nginx1"
           }
         ]
       }
     }
   }
 }

1. Congrats! You have configured your NGINX Plus instance as a Gateway, and we can now use it for ADC or API management (as an API Gateway) use cases.