Port Forwarding

Port forwarding lets you access Kubernetes services on your local machine through managed, auto-reconnecting connections.

TCP forwarding

{
  "service": "api-gateway",
  "namespace": "production",
  "local_port": 8080,
  "remote_port": 80,
  "context": "prod-cluster",
  "alias": "Production API"
}

This forwards localhost:8080 to port 80 on the api-gateway service in the production namespace. You can now access the service at http://localhost:8080.

TCP is the default protocol and works for HTTP, databases, gRPC, and most other services.

UDP forwarding

{
  "service": "dns-service",
  "namespace": "kube-system",
  "local_port": 5353,
  "remote_port": 53,
  "context": "dev-cluster",
  "protocol": "udp",
  "workload_type": "proxy"
}

UDP forwarding requires the kftray-server proxy component running in your cluster. See proxy forwarding for setup details.

Automatic reconnection

kftray monitors all active port forwards and reconnects automatically when:

• Network connectivity drops
• Pods restart or get rescheduled
• Kubernetes API server becomes temporarily unavailable
• The forwarded service scales or updates

Reconnection uses exponential backoff starting at 1 second, doubling up to 30 seconds between attempts. You'll see connection status updates in the interface during reconnection.

For a detailed breakdown of each workload type (service, pod, proxy, expose), see Workload Types.

Practical examples

Web service debugging

{
  "service": "frontend",
  "local_port": 3000,
  "remote_port": 3000,
  "context": "staging",
  "alias": "Staging Frontend"
}

Access your staging frontend at http://localhost:3000 to test changes before production deployment.

Database access

{
  "service": "mysql",
  "namespace": "databases",
  "local_port": 3306,
  "remote_port": 3306,
  "context": "prod-cluster",
  "alias": "Production MySQL"
}

Connect your local database client to localhost:3306 to query production data. Remember to use read-only credentials when possible.

Microservices debugging

[
  {
    "service": "auth-service",
    "local_port": 8001,
    "remote_port": 8080,
    "context": "dev"
  },
  {
    "service": "user-service",
    "local_port": 8002,
    "remote_port": 8080,
    "context": "dev"
  },
  {
    "service": "payment-service",
    "local_port": 8003,
    "remote_port": 8080,
    "context": "dev"
  }
]

Forward multiple services simultaneously to debug service-to-service communication. Each service gets a unique local port.