IPShield Operator for OpenShift simplifies IP access control for routes by automating the process of applying IP restriction annotations. OpenShift routes support IP filtering via haproxy.router.openshift.io/ip_whitelist annotation, but manually managing these can be cumbersome. With IPShield, users specify a label selector and a set of IP ranges, and the operator automatically applies the necessary annotations to all matching routes. This ensures consistency and reduces operational overhead.

• Automated IP Access Control: Dynamically applies IP restriction annotations based on user-defined label selectors and IP ranges

• Quick Enable/Disable: Only applies to routes with the annotation ipshield.stakater.cloud/enabled set to true.

• Configurable Watch Namespace: Users can configure the WATCH_NAMESPACE environment variable. Operator will apply CRDs only from this namespace.

• IP Configuration Preservation: If an IP restriction annotation exists before the CRD is applied, it is stored in a ConfigMap and restored when the CRD is removed.

• Continuous Monitoring: Watches for changes in routes and updates annotations accordingly.

• Reduced Manual Effort: Eliminates the need for users to manually update route annotations.

• Seamless Integration: Works with existing OpenShift route configurations.

• go version v1.21.0+
• docker version 17.03+.
• kubectl version v1.11.3+.
• Access to a Kubernetes v1.11.3+ cluster.

Build and push your image to the location specified by IMG:

make docker-build docker-push IMG=<some-registry>/ipshield-operator:tag

NOTE: This image ought to be published in the personal registry you specified. And it is required to have access to pull the image from the working environment. Make sure you have the proper permission to the registry if the above commands don’t work.

Install the CRDs into the cluster:

make install

Deploy the Manager to the cluster with the image specified by IMG:

make deploy IMG=<some-registry>/ipshield-operator:tag

NOTE: If you encounter RBAC errors, you may need to grant yourself cluster-admin privileges or be logged in as admin.

Create instances of your solution You can apply the samples (examples) from the config/sample:

kubectl apply -k config/samples/

NOTE: Ensure that the samples has default values to test it out.

Delete the instances (CRs) from the cluster:

kubectl delete -k config/samples/

Delete the APIs(CRDs) from the cluster:

make uninstall

UnDeploy the controller from the cluster:

make undeploy

Following are the steps to build the installer and distribute this project to users.

1. Build the installer for the image built and published in the registry:

make build-installer IMG=<some-registry>/ipshield-operator:tag

NOTE: The makefile target mentioned above generates an 'install.yaml' file in the dist directory. This file contains all the resources built with Kustomize, which are necessary to install this project without its dependencies.

2. Using the installer

Users can just run kubectl apply -f to install the project, i.e.:

kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/<org>/ipshield-operator/<tag or branch>/dist/install.yaml

1. Define a RouteAllowlist custom resource (CR) specifying the label selector and allowed IP ranges:

apiVersion: networking.stakater.com/v1alpha1
kind: RouteAllowlist
metadata:
  labels:
    app.kubernetes.io/name: ipshield-operator
    app.kubernetes.io/managed-by: kustomize
  name: routeallowlist-sample
spec:
  labelSelector:
    matchLabels:
      app: "ip-test"
  ipRanges:
    - 10.100.110.11
    - 10.100.110.12

2. Apply the ipshield.stakater.cloud/enabled label to the desired route e.g.

kubectl label routes nginx-deployment ipshield.stakater.cloud/enabled=true -n mywebserver --overwrite

3. Apply this IP access control configuration to a namespace watched by IPShield operator

kubectl apply -f allowlist.yaml -n $WATCH_NAMESPACE

Copyright 2025.

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at

http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.