--- title: One thing I don't think enough Kubernetes engineers talk... description: Outbound pod traffic in Kubernetes is often overlooked compared to ingress. When a pod makes an external request, the external service sees a specific public... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/one-thing-i-don-t-think-enough-kubernetes-engineers-talk-about-is-outbound-pod-traffic--tr4acaviv twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: One thing I don't think enough Kubernetes engineers talk about is outbound pod traffic. | daily.dev og:description: Outbound pod traffic in Kubernetes is often overlooked compared to ingress. When a pod makes an external request, the external service sees a specific public... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/one-thing-i-don-t-think-enough-kubernetes-engineers-talk-about-is-outbound-pod-traffic--tr4acaviv og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/TR4AcAviV.png og:image:alt: One thing I don't think enough Kubernetes engineers talk about is outbound pod traffic. og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # One thing I don't think enough Kubernetes engineers talk about is outbound pod traffic. **[Kubernetes & Cloud Native Community](https://daily.dev/sources/kubernetescloudnativecommunity)** · [@divyansh30](https://daily.dev/divyansh30) · 1 min read · 10 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Outbound pod traffic in Kubernetes is often overlooked compared to ingress. When a pod makes an external request, the external service sees a specific public IP — typically the cluster's NAT/SNAT address — which matters for API whitelisting, firewall rules, and third-party integrations. A linked article explains how Civo Kubernetes handles egress via SNAT, why all pods share the same public IP for outbound traffic, and what to whitelist when integrating with external services. The post also raises questions about how different providers (EKS, GKE, AKS, Civo) handle egress networking and whether dedicated egress gateways are used. ## Content Most of us understand how traffic gets _into_ a Kubernetes cluster through Ingress or a LoadBalancer, but what happens when a pod makes an outbound request to an external API or database? Which IP does the external service actually see? That question becomes important when you're working with API whitelisting, third-party integrations, firewalls, or security policies. I recently came across a practical article that explains how Civo Kubernetes handles outbound pod traffic, SNAT, and why every pod in the cluster appears to use the same public IP for internet access. It also covers what you should (and shouldn't) whitelist when integrating with external services. It made me wonder how different Kubernetes providers handle egress networking. - Have you ever had issues with outbound IP whitelisting? - Do you use a dedicated egress gateway, NAT Gateway, or the default cluster behaviour? - Have you noticed differences between providers like EKS, GKE, AKS, or Civo? Here's the article if you'd like to read it: [https://www.kubeblogs.com/civo-kubernetes-where-does-your-pods-traffic-actually-go/](https://www.kubeblogs.com/civo-kubernetes-where-does-your-pods-traffic-actually-go/) ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Kubernetes Networking Explained Without the Hand-Waving](https://daily.dev/posts/kubernetes-networking-explained-without-the-hand-waving-b9yscwngi) · Medium · 5 upvotes · 1 comments - [Kubernetes Networking Explained: From ClusterIP to Cilium Service Mesh](https://daily.dev/posts/kubernetes-networking-explained-from-clusterip-to-cilium-service-mesh-rhwqkcwdn) · freeCodeCamp · 5 upvotes · 1 comments - [Understanding Kubernetes Networking](https://daily.dev/posts/understanding-kubernetes-networking-oooxha7or) · cilium · 22 upvotes · 1 comments - [What Is Kubernetes Networking?](https://daily.dev/posts/what-is-kubernetes-networking--1qghzles9) · Isovalent · 15 upvotes · 0 comments - [AWS Stretches Elastic Kubernetes Service to Full Private Networking](https://daily.dev/posts/aws-stretches-elastic-kubernetes-service-to-full-private-networking-ejtb3vk9q) · Cloud Native Now · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#kubernetes](https://daily.dev/tags/kubernetes) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/one-thing-i-don-t-think-enough-kubernetes-engineers-talk-about-is-outbound-pod-traffic--tr4acaviv) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"DiscussionForumPosting","mainEntityOfPage":"https://daily.dev/posts/one-thing-i-don-t-think-enough-kubernetes-engineers-talk-about-is-outbound-pod-traffic--tr4acaviv","headline":"One thing I don't think enough Kubernetes engineers talk about is outbound pod traffic.","text":"Outbound pod traffic in Kubernetes is often overlooked compared to ingress. 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