Local cluster: Ports

Reference: vCluster in Docker (vind) — Examples

vind exposes three separate port-mapping mechanisms:

1. experimental.docker.ports (cluster-wide) — maps container ports to host ports, e.g.:

   experimental:
     docker:
       ports:
         - "8080:80"
         - "8443:443"
   

2. experimental.docker.nodes[].ports — same mapping, scoped to one specific worker node, e.g.:

   experimental:
     docker:
       nodes:
         - name: "worker-1"
           ports:
             - "9090:9090"
   

3. experimental.docker.loadBalancer.forwardPorts — auto-forwards LoadBalancer Service IPs to the host. Mainly needed on macOS/Docker Desktop, where the bridge IP isn't routable from the host; on Linux this isn't required (see the built-in LoadBalancer support already covered in README.md).

Benefits of explicit port mappings (#1 / #2)

• Deterministic host access without kubectl port-forward. Docker maps the port once at container-create time; you get a stable localhost:<port> reachable from a browser/curl/script indefinitely, instead of a kubectl port-forward session that dies when the terminal closes.
• Bypasses Kubernetes Service/NodePort entirely. The mapping happens at the Docker layer, so it works even for things with no Kubernetes Service in front of them — e.g. a raw debug/metrics endpoint on a container, or kubelet-level diagnostics.
• Node-level targeting. Per-node ports (#2) pin exposure to one specific worker — useful when testing scheduling/affinity and confirming a workload landed on worker-1 specifically, by hitting that node's dedicated port rather than a Service that could route anywhere.
• Avoids the ephemeral NodePort range (30000-32767). You choose the exact host port instead of Kubernetes picking one from that range, which matters for tooling/scripts that expect a fixed, memorable port.
• Collision control across multiple concurrent vind clusters. Relevant to the multi-cluster pattern in README.md — if two clusters both want to expose the same container port, dedicated host-side ports let you assign each cluster a distinct one instead of them fighting over the same host port.