What is the role of the ingress controller in Kubernetes architecture and what task does it solve?

The Ingress controller in Kubernetes is responsible for managing external access to services within the cluster. It implements routing rules for HTTP/HTTPS traffic based on Ingress objects.

Main tasks of the ingress controller:

• Accept incoming requests from outside the cluster.
• Route requests to the appropriate services based on URL, host, and other rules.
• Provide SSL/TLS termination (traffic encryption).
• Support load balancing and additional features (e.g., authentication, rate limiting).

The ingress controller is a component that listens for changes in Ingress resources and configures a proxy server (e.g., nginx, traefik) accordingly to provide access to applications.

Thus, the ingress controller solves the task of organizing flexible and centralized management of incoming network traffic in Kubernetes.