Kong Ingress Controller Flooding with “Unsupported parentRef kind Service” Error When Using HTTPRoute with Service as ParentRef in Service Mesh

[surenraju-careem]

Is there an existing issue for this?

• I have searched the existing issues

Does this enhancement require public documentation?

• I have added an Acceptance Criteria item for adding and/or adjusting public documentation (if applicable)

Problem Statement

When using GatewayAPI with Linkerd/Istio service mesh, we deploy HTTPRoute resources with parentRef set to a Service. This configuration is standard and supported by other service mesh solutions. However, the Kong Ingress Controller repeatedly logs the following error message:

unsupported parentRef kind Service and group core
Got an unexpected kind and group when checking route's parentRefs

https://github.com/Kong/kubernetes-ingress-controller/blob/main/internal/controllers/gateway/route_predicates.go#L91

Steps to Reproduce

1.	Configure GatewayAPI in a cluster with Linkerd service mesh.
2.	Deploy an HTTPRoute resource with parentRef set to a Service.
3.	Observe the logs from Kong Ingress Controller, which flood with the “unsupported parentRef” error.

Proposed Solution

Kong Ingress Controller should not log errors when Service as a parentRef kind in HTTPRoute when used with service mesh solutions, in line with GatewayAPI specifications.

https://github.com/Kong/kubernetes-ingress-controller/blob/main/internal/controllers/gateway/route_predicates.go#L91

Additional information

https://github.com/Kong/kubernetes-ingress-controller/blob/main/internal/controllers/gateway/route_predicates.go#L91

Acceptance Criteria

Kong Ingress Controller should not log errors when Service as a parentRef kind in HTTPRoute when used with service mesh solutions, in line with GatewayAPI specifications.

[surenraju-careem]