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+---
+stage: configure
+group: configure
+info: To determine the technical writer assigned to the Stage/Group associated with this page, see https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/engineering/ux/technical-writing/#designated-technical-writers
+comments: false
+description: 'GitLab to Kubernetes communication'
+---
+
+# GitLab to Kubernetes communication
+
+The goal of this document is to define how GitLab can communicate with Kubernetes
+and in-cluster services through the GitLab Kubernetes Agent.
+
+## Challenges
+
+### Lack of network connectivity
+
+For various features that exist today, GitLab communicates with Kubernetes by directly
+or indirectly calling its API endpoints. This works well, as long as a network
+path from GitLab to the cluster exists, which isn't always the case:
+
+- GitLab.com and a self-managed cluster, where the cluster is not exposed to the Internet.
+- GitLab.com and a cloud-vendor managed cluster, where the cluster is not exposed to the Internet.
+- Self-managed GitLab and a cloud-vendor managed cluster, where the cluster is not
+  exposed to the Internet and there is no private peering between the cloud network
+  and the customer's network.
+
+  This last item is the hardest to address, as something must give to create a network
+  path. This feature gives the customer an extra option (exposing the `gitlab-kas` domain but
+  not the whole GitLab) in addition to the existing options (peering the networks,
+  or exposing one of the two sides).
+
+Even if technically possible, it's almost always undesirable to expose a Kubernetes
+cluster's API to the Internet for security reasons. As a result, our customers
+are reluctant to do so, and are faced with a choice of security versus the features
+GitLab provides for connected clusters.
+
+This choice is true not only for Kubernetes' API, but for all APIs exposed by services
+running on a customer's cluster that GitLab may need to access. For example,
+Prometheus running in a cluster must be exposed for the GitLab integration to access it.
+
+### Cluster-admin permissions
+
+Both current integrations - building your own cluster (certificate-based) and GitLab-managed
+cluster in a cloud - require granting full `cluster-admin` access to GitLab. Credentials
+are stored on the GitLab side and this is yet another security concern for our customers.
+
+For more discussion on these issues, read
+[issue #212810](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/212810).
+
+## GitLab Kubernetes Agent epic
+
+To address these challenges and provide some new features, the Configure group
+is building an active in-cluster component that inverts the
+direction of communication:
+
+1. The customer installs an agent into their cluster.
+1. The agent connects to GitLab.com or their self-managed GitLab instance,
+   receiving commands from it.
+
+The customer does not need to provide any credentials to GitLab, and
+is in full control of what permissions the agent has.
+
+For more information, visit the
+[GitLab Kubernetes Agent repository](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/cluster-integration/gitlab-agent) or
+[the epic](https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/epics/3329).
+
+### Request routing
+
+Agents connect to the server-side component called GitLab Kubernetes Agent Server
+(`gitlab-kas`) and keep an open connection that waits for commands. The
+difficulty with the approach is in routing requests from GitLab to the correct agent.
+Each cluster may contain multiple logical agents, and each may be running as multiple
+replicas (`Pod`s), connected to an arbitrary `gitlab-kas` instance.
+
+Existing and new features require real-time access to the APIs of the cluster
+and (optionally) APIs of components, running in the cluster. As a result, it's difficult to pass
+the information back and forth using the more traditional polling approach.
+
+A good example to illustrate the real-time need is Prometheus integration.
+If we wanted to draw real-time graphs, we would need direct access to the Prometheus API
+to make queries and quickly return results. `gitlab-kas` could expose the Prometheus API
+to GitLab, and transparently route traffic to one of the correct agents connected
+at the moment. The agent then would stream the request to Prometheus and stream the response back.
+
+## Proposal
+
+Implement request routing in `gitlab-kas`. Encapsulate and hide all related
+complexity from the main application by providing a clean API to work with Kubernetes
+and the agents.
+
+The above does not necessarily mean proxying Kubernetes' API directly, but that
+is possible should we need it.
+
+What APIs `gitlab-kas` provides depends on the features developed, but first
+we must solve the request routing problem. It blocks any and all features
+that require direct communication with agents, Kubernetes or in-cluster services.
+
+Detailed implementation proposal with all technical details is in
+[`kas_request_routing.md`](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/cluster-integration/gitlab-agent/-/blob/master/doc/kas_request_routing.md).
+
+```mermaid
+flowchart LR
+  subgraph "Kubernetes 1"
+    agentk1p1["agentk 1, Pod1"]
+    agentk1p2["agentk 1, Pod2"]
+  end
+
+  subgraph "Kubernetes 2"
+    agentk2p1["agentk 2, Pod1"]
+  end
+
+  subgraph "Kubernetes 3"
+    agentk3p1["agentk 3, Pod1"]
+  end
+
+  subgraph kas
+    kas1["kas 1"]
+    kas2["kas 2"]
+    kas3["kas 3"]
+  end
+
+  GitLab["GitLab Rails"]
+  Redis
+
+  GitLab -- "gRPC to any kas" --> kas
+  kas1 -- register connected agents --> Redis
+  kas2 -- register connected agents --> Redis
+  kas1 -- lookup agent --> Redis
+
+  agentk1p1 -- "gRPC" --> kas1
+  agentk1p2 -- "gRPC" --> kas2
+  agentk2p1 -- "gRPC" --> kas1
+  agentk3p1 -- "gRPC" --> kas2
+```
+
+### Iterations
+
+Iterations are tracked in [the dedicated epic](https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/epics/4591).
+
+## Who
+
+Proposal:
+
+<!-- vale gitlab.Spelling = NO -->
+
+| Role                         | Who
+|------------------------------|-------------------------|
+| Author                       |    Mikhail Mazurskiy    |
+| Architecture Evolution Coach |    Andrew Newdigate     |
+| Engineering Leader           |    Nicholas Klick       |
+| Domain Expert                |    Thong Kuah           |
+| Domain Expert                |    Graeme Gillies       |
+| Security Expert              | Vitor Meireles De Sousa |
+
+DRIs:
+
+| Role                         | Who
+|------------------------------|------------------------|
+| Product Lead                 |    Viktor Nagy         |
+| Engineering Leader           |    Nicholas Klick      |
+| Domain Expert                |    Mikhail Mazurskiy   |
+
+<!-- vale gitlab.Spelling = YES -->