Deploying MetalLB Load Balancer on Bare‑Metal Kubernetes Clusters

When a service is deployed on Kubernetes, exposing it to external users is trivial on cloud platforms (such as Alibaba Cloud, Tencent Cloud, AWS) using the cloud provider’s LoadBalancer service. However, on a self‑built bare‑metal Kubernetes cluster, the default networking does not support load balancing, so alternatives like Ingress, NodePort, or ExternalIPs must be used, each with its own drawbacks.

MetalLB addresses this pain point by providing a LoadBalancer implementation that integrates with standard network devices, allowing external services to run normally on bare‑metal clusters and reducing operational overhead.

Deployment Requirements

Kubernetes version 1.13.0 or higher without built‑in network load balancing.

A pool of IPv4 addresses for MetalLB allocation.

If using BGP mode, one or more routers that support BGP.

For Layer 2 mode, nodes must allow traffic on port 7946 for speaker communication.

The cluster network must be compatible with MetalLB (see compatibility table below).

Network Type

Compatibility

Antrea

Yes

Calico

Mostly

Canal

Yes

Cilium

Yes

Flannel

Yes

Kube‑ovn

Yes

Kube‑router

Mostly

Weave Net

Mostly

How MetalLB Works

MetalLB consists of two components: a Controller (deployed as a Deployment) and a Speaker (deployed as a DaemonSet on every node). The Controller watches Service objects; when a Service is set to LoadBalancer type, the Controller allocates an IP from the configured pool and manages its lifecycle. The Speaker advertises the allocated IP using either Layer 2 ARP announcements or BGP announcements, depending on the chosen mode. Traffic arriving at a node is first handled by kube‑proxy, which forwards it to the appropriate Pod.

Installation Steps

Enable ARP mode for kube‑proxy if the cluster uses IPVS (required from Kubernetes v1.14.2 onward):

$ kubectl edit configmap -n kube-system kube-proxy</code>
    <code># set strictARP to true</code>
    <code>apiVersion: kubeproxy.config.k8s.io/v1alpha1</code>
    <code>kind: KubeProxyConfiguration</code>
    <code>mode: "ipvs"</code>
    <code>ipvs:</code>
    <code>  strictARP: true

Install MetalLB components (default namespace metallb-system):

$ kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/metallb/metallb/v0.13.4/config/manifests/metallb-native.yaml

Configure the desired mode.

Layer 2 mode : create an IPAddressPool and a L2Advertisement.

apiVersion: metallb.io/v1beta1</code>
<code>kind: IPAddressPool</code>
<code>metadata:</code>
<code>  name: ip-pool</code>
<code>  namespace: metallb-system</code>
<code>spec:</code>
<code>  addresses:</code>
<code>  - 192.168.214.50-192.168.214.80   # IP pool for the LB

apiVersion: metallb.io/v1beta1</code>
<code>kind: L2Advertisement</code>
<code>metadata:</code>
<code>  name: l2adver</code>
<code>  namespace: metallb-system

BGP mode : define a BGPPeer, an IPAddressPool, and a BGPAdvertisement.

apiVersion: metallb.io/v1beta2</code>
<code>kind: BGPPeer</code>
<code>metadata:</code>
<code>  name: sample</code>
<code>  namespace: metallb-system</code>
<code>spec:</code>
<code>  myASN: 64500</code>
<code>  peerASN: 64501</code>
<code>  peerAddress: 10.0.0.1

apiVersion: metallb.io/v1beta1</code>
<code>kind: IPAddressPool</code>
<code>metadata:</code>
<code>  name: first-pool</code>
<code>  namespace: metallb-system</code>
<code>spec:</code>
<code>  addresses:</code>
<code>  - 192.168.10.0/24

apiVersion: metallb.io/v1beta1</code>
<code>kind: BGPAdvertisement</code>
<code>metadata:</code>
<code>  name: bgpadver</code>
<code>  namespace: metallb-system

Validate the installation by creating a sample Service and Deployment using LoadBalancer type, checking that an external IP is assigned, and accessing the application from a browser.

apiVersion: v1</code>
<code>kind: Service</code>
<code>metadata:</code>
<code>  name: myapp-svc</code>
<code>spec:</code>
<code>  selector:</code>
<code>    app: myapp</code>
<code>  ports:</code>
<code>  - protocol: TCP</code>
<code>    port: 80</code>
<code>    targetPort: 80</code>
<code>  type: LoadBalancer</code>
<code>---</code>
<code>apiVersion: apps/v1</code>
<code>kind: Deployment</code>
<code>metadata:</code>
<code>  name: myapp-deployment</code>
<code>spec:</code>
<code>  replicas: 2</code>
<code>  selector:</code>
<code>    matchLabels:</code>
<code>      app: myapp</code>
<code>  template:</code>
<code>    metadata:</code>
<code>      labels:</code>
<code>        app: myapp</code>
<code>    spec:</code>
<code>      containers:</code>
<code>      - name: nginx</code>
<code>        image: nginx:1.19.4</code>
<code>        ports:</code>
<code>        - containerPort: 80

Project Maturity

MetalLB is currently in beta but is already used by many individuals and companies in production and non‑production clusters. No major bugs have been reported based on the frequency of issue reports.

Thank you for reading. If you found this article helpful, feel free to share it with your friends or technical groups.