/gateway

name: gateway
description: Start and manage the Kurtosis gateway for Kubernetes. The gateway forwards local ports to the Kurtosis engine and services running in a k8s cluster. Required when using Kurtosis with Kubernetes. Use when kurtosis engine status shows nothing on k8s or services aren't reachable.
compatibility: Requires kurtosis CLI with Kubernetes cluster access.
metadata:
  author: ethpandaops
  version: "1.0"

Gateway

The Kurtosis gateway creates local port forwards to the engine and services running in a Kubernetes cluster.

When you need it

The gateway is **required** when running Kurtosis on Kubernetes. Without it, the local CLI cannot reach the engine pod in the cluster.

Not needed when using Docker backend.

Start the gateway

# Run in the background
kurtosis gateway &

# Or in a separate terminal
kurtosis gateway

Verify it's working

kurtosis engine status

If this returns engine info, the gateway is working. If it says "No Kurtosis engine is running" but you know the engine pod is up, the gateway isn't running.

Stop the gateway

pkill -f "kurtosis gateway"

How it works

The gateway: 1. Finds the engine pod in the `kurtosis-engine-*` namespace 2. Creates a local port forward to the engine's gRPC port 3. When services are accessed, creates additional port forwards to service pods 4. Port mappings shown in `kurtosis enclave inspect` point to localhost via the gateway

Common issues

| Symptom | Fix | |---------|-----| | `No engine running` but engine pod is up | Start the gateway: `kurtosis gateway &` | | Gateway crashes or disconnects | Restart: `pkill -f "kurtosis gateway"; kurtosis gateway &` | | Port conflicts | Kill old gateway first: `pkill -f "kurtosis gateway"` | | Services unreachable after gateway restart | Re-inspect enclave for new port mappings |