Kubernetes Setup

Deploy Gate on Kubernetes with proper configuration and prerequisites

Prerequisites

Before deploying Gate on Kubernetes, ensure you have:

• Kubernetes cluster (v1.19 or later)
• kubectl configured to communicate with your cluster
• Sufficient cluster resources:
  • At least 2 CPU cores and 4GB RAM for production workloads
  • Storage provisioner for persistent volumes (if using StatefulSets)
• Container registry access to ghcr.io/minekube/gate
• Kustomize (optional, for advanced configuration management)

Available Images

Gate provides two Docker image variants:

Standard Image (Distroless)

ghcr.io/minekube/gate:latest

Based on gcr.io/distroless/static-debian12, this is the recommended image for most deployments:

• Minimal attack surface
• Smaller image size
• Better security posture
• No shell access

JRE Variant

ghcr.io/minekube/gate:latest-jre

Based on eclipse-temurin:25.0.1_8-jre-alpine, use this variant if you need:

• Java plugin support
• Shell access for debugging
• Java-based extensions

Quick Start

Using Kustomize (Recommended)

The Gate repository includes ready-to-use Kustomize configurations:

# Clone the repository or copy the examples
git clone https://github.com/minekube/gate.git
cd gate/.examples/kubernetes

# Deploy using Kustomize
kubectl apply -k .

This deploys:

• Gate proxy deployment
• NodePort service (port 32556)
• ConfigMap for Gate configuration
• Example backend servers (StatefulSet)
• Headless service for server discovery

Verify Deployment

# Check deployment status
kubectl get deployments gate

# Check pods
kubectl get pods -l app.kubernetes.io/name=gate

# Check service
kubectl get svc gate

# View logs
kubectl logs -l app.kubernetes.io/component=proxy --tail=50

Configuration

Creating a ConfigMap

Create a ConfigMap with your Gate configuration:

apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
  name: gate-config
  labels:
    app.kubernetes.io/name: gate
data:
  config.yml: |
    config:
      bind: 0.0.0.0:25565
      servers:
        lobby: lobby.default.svc.cluster.local:25565
        survival: survival.default.svc.cluster.local:25565
        creative: creative.default.svc.cluster.local:25565
      try:
        - lobby
      motd: |
        &bWelcome to Gate!
        &7Running on Kubernetes

Apply Configuration

kubectl apply -f gate-config.yaml

Namespace Organization

For production deployments, use namespaces to organize resources:

# Create a namespace
kubectl create namespace minecraft

# Deploy to the namespace
kubectl apply -k . -n minecraft

# Set default namespace
kubectl config set-context --current --namespace=minecraft

Network Configuration

Gate requires network connectivity to:

1. External players: Ingress on port 25565 (TCP)
2. Backend servers: Internal cluster networking
3. API endpoints: If using external authentication/APIs

DNS Considerations

For Kubernetes service discovery:

config:
  servers:
    # Full DNS name for services in the same namespace
    server-0: server-0.servers.svc.cluster.local:25565
    
    # Short name if in same namespace
    server-1: server-1.servers:25565
    
    # Cross-namespace reference
    hub: hub.production.svc.cluster.local:25565

Resource Requirements

Minimal Configuration

resources:
  requests:
    memory: "512Mi"
    cpu: "250m"
  limits:
    memory: "1Gi"
    cpu: "1000m"

Production Configuration

resources:
  requests:
    memory: "1Gi"
    cpu: "500m"
  limits:
    memory: "2Gi"
    cpu: "2000m"

Adjust based on:

• Expected player count
• Number of backend servers
• Plugin/extension usage
• Network throughput

Security Best Practices

Pod Security Context

securityContext:
  runAsNonRoot: true
  runAsUser: 65532
  fsGroup: 65532
  seccompProfile:
    type: RuntimeDefault
  capabilities:
    drop:
      - ALL

Network Policies

Restrict network access to Gate:

apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: NetworkPolicy
metadata:
  name: gate-network-policy
spec:
  podSelector:
    matchLabels:
      app.kubernetes.io/component: proxy
  policyTypes:
    - Ingress
    - Egress
  ingress:
    - from:
        - namespaceSelector: {}
      ports:
        - protocol: TCP
          port: 25565
  egress:
    - to:
        - podSelector:
            matchLabels:
              app.kubernetes.io/component: server
      ports:
        - protocol: TCP
          port: 25565
    - to:
        - namespaceSelector: {}
      ports:
        - protocol: UDP
          port: 53

Next Steps

Manifests

Explore complete Kubernetes manifest examples

Scaling

Configure horizontal pod autoscaling and load balancing

Troubleshooting

Pod Not Starting

# Describe pod for events
kubectl describe pod <pod-name>

# Check logs
kubectl logs <pod-name>

# Check if ConfigMap exists
kubectl get configmap gate-config

Connection Issues

# Test internal connectivity
kubectl run -it --rm debug --image=busybox --restart=Never -- \
  nc -zv gate.default.svc.cluster.local 25565

# Check service endpoints
kubectl get endpoints gate

Configuration Not Loading

# Verify ConfigMap mount
kubectl exec <pod-name> -- cat /config.yml

# Check for mount issues
kubectl describe pod <pod-name> | grep -A 10 Mounts