Static global IP on GKE using Nginx Ingress? - kubernetes-ingress

Question

I am trying to setup an nginx ingress controller in my GKE cluster and I'd like to use a static global IP address but I am struggling figuring it out how.
After a lot of research, most guides/stackoverflow/blogs just say "use the kubernetes.io/ingress.global-static-ip-name annotation on your ingress resource" however that does not do anything.
Below is an example of my Ingress resource
apiVersion: extensions/v1beta1
kind: Ingress
metadata:
name: my-ingress
namespace: my-namespace
annotations:
kubernetes.io/tls-acme: "true"
kubernetes.io/ingress.class: "nginx"
kubernetes.io/ingress.allow-http: "false"
nginx.org/websocket-services: "ws-svc"
kubernetes.io/ingress.global-static-ip-name: my-global-gce-ip
spec:
tls:
- secretName: my-secret
hosts:
- mysite.com
rules:
- host: mysite.com
http:
paths:
- path: /
backend:
serviceName: web
servicePort: 80
The service always get's an ephemeral IP address which is thrown away whenever I recreate the controller.
I suspect the issue at hand here is that annotation only works for GCE type of Ingress, not nginx (Even though this is stated nowhere)
Next I attempted setting the IP manually in my ingress resource as showsn in this guide yet when I look at the service created, the external IP address just shows as pending which some github issues seem to point is due to the fact that it is a global and not a regional IP.
With all this in mind, is there any way to have a static global ip on a GKE cluster using an nginx ingress controller?

Answer 1

You have to set the static IP as loadBalancerIP in nginx ingress controller, not in ingress-resource (as you did). As per the documentation, Load Balancer IP is the IP address to assign to load balancer (if supported).
https://github.com/helm/charts/tree/master/stable/nginx-ingress
spec:
...
externalTrafficPolicy: Cluster
loadBalancerIP: [your static IP]
sessionAffinity: None
type: LoadBalancer
And make sure your IP is regional and not global. Only GCP load balancers (GCP built-in ingress controller) support global IP.