I've been using MetalLB in BGP mode with my home router (OPNsense) for quite some time. I set it up so that I could allocate a VIP to nginx-ingress, and it's been working great. Recently, I had to revisit this configuration for some unrelated updates. While doing that, I started checking out some new features in Calico and stumbled across the known issues between Calico and MetalLB. This made me curious—do I really still need MetalLB? Calico now has a BGPConfiguration that handles BGP and even includes IPAM for LoadBalancer services. So, does Calico provide the same functionality as MetalLB in BGP mode? Are there any potential issues or gotchas that I should be aware of before deciding to remove MetalLB from my setup? I wonder if simplifying my cluster would be worth it or if I'd end up losing some critical features.
1 Answer
Nope, if the only thing you're looking for is a route to access your service from outside the cluster, Calico can handle that now on its own. It simplifies things quite a bit!
Cool, but what's the catch? Is there a long answer to this?