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In this lesson, we’ll explore the Traefik dashboard—a powerful observability interface enabled by default in every Traefik installation. The dashboard provides real-time insights into routing rules, service health, and security settings. For production environments, avoid exposing this dashboard publicly. Use a private network or kubectl port-forward instead. In this lab, we will configure a NodePort (30000) for direct access.

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1. Deploy the Traefik Dashboard Service

Create a Service of type NodePort to expose the Traefik API port: 
# service-dashboard.yaml
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: traefik-dashboard-service
  namespace: traefik
spec:
  type: NodePort
  ports:
    - port: 9000
      targetPort: traefik
      nodePort: 30000
  selector:
    app.kubernetes.io/instance: traefik-traefik
Apply and verify the Service: 
kubectl apply -f service-dashboard.yaml
kubectl describe svc -n traefik traefik-dashboard-service
Expected output: 
Name:                     traefik-dashboard-service
Namespace:                traefik
Selector:                 app.kubernetes.io/instance=traefik-traefik
Type:                     NodePort
IP:                       10.104.3.15
Port:                     9000/TCP
TargetPort:               traefik/TCP
NodePort:                 30000/TCP
Endpoints:                10.1.0.10:9000

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2. Enable Insecure API Access

By default, Traefik’s API/dashboard is secured. For this lab, we’ll enable insecure access by adding --api.insecure=true to the deployment arguments. Edit the Traefik deployment: 
kubectl edit deployment traefik -n traefik
Under the container spec’s args: section, include: 
args:
  - "--api.dashboard=true"
  - "--api.insecure=true"
  - "--entryPoints.metrics.address=:9100/tcp"
  - "--entryPoints.traefik.address=:9000/tcp"
  - "--entryPoints.web.address=:8000/tcp"
  - "--entryPoints.websecure.address=:8443/tcp"
  - "--metrics.prometheus=true"
  - "--metrics.prometheus.entrypoint=metrics"
  - "--providers.kubernetescrd"
  - "--providers.kubernetesingress"
  - "--entryPoints.websecure.http.tls=true"
  - "--log.level=INFO"
  - "--accesslog=true"
  - "--accesslog.fields.defaultmode=keep"
  - "--accesslog.fields.headers.defaultmode=drop"
  - "--ping=true"
  - "--global.sendanonymoususage"
Save and exit. The deployment will rollout updated pods: 
kubectl get pods -n traefik
You should see: 
NAME                         READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
traefik-79554cb74d-txqdf     1/1     Running   0          30s

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3. Access the Dashboard

Open port 30000 on your node and navigate to: 
http://<node-ip>:30000
On the dashboard, you’ll find:
  • Entry Points: Listening ports on the Traefik pod
  • Routers: Rules mapping incoming requests to services
  • Services: Backend services and their endpoints
  • Middlewares: Request transformations (none configured here)

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Entry Points Overview

Entry PointPortProtocolTLS Enabled
metrics9100TCPNo
traefik9000TCPNo
web8000TCPNo
websecure8443TCPYes

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Inspecting Services

On the Services page, you can drill into each service’s pods and endpoints. In our CompanyX application, all services show healthy endpoints:
The image shows a Traefik dashboard displaying service details for a Kubernetes load balancer, including server URLs and their statuses. It also lists routers used by the service with associated rules and priorities.

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4. Scale the Application

Let’s scale the CompanyX website to 5 replicas: 
kubectl scale deployment companyx-website --replicas=5
Verify new pods: 
kubectl get pods -n companyx

NAME                                  READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
companyx-website-5d596d7d7d-abc12     1/1     Running   0          1m
companyx-website-5d596d7d7d-def34     1/1     Running   0          1m
companyx-website-5d596d7d7d-ghi56     1/1     Running   0          1m
companyx-website-5d596d7d7d-jkl78     1/1     Running   0          1m
companyx-website-5d596d7d7d-mno90     1/1     Running   0          1m
Refresh the Traefik dashboard—you’ll now see five healthy pods listed under the CompanyX service.
In a production setup, secure the dashboard with authentication or restrict access to a private network.
This completes our overview of the Traefik observability dashboard—an invaluable tool for monitoring traffic flows, routing, and service health in Kubernetes. For further reading, see the Traefik documentation.

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