Gateway status.addresses should fall back to publishService like the Ingress path

[joonslach]

Type

Feature request / behavior inconsistency between the Ingress and Gateway API reconcilers.

Current Behavior

In 2.1.0, the Gateway API controller populates Gateway.status.addresses only from gatewayProxy.spec.statusAddress. There is no fallback to publishService.

internal/controller/gateway_controller.go:

gatewayProxy, ok := tctx.GatewayProxies[rk]
if !ok {
    acceptStatus = conditionStatus{status: false, msg: "gateway proxy not found"}
} else {
    for _, addr := range gatewayProxy.Spec.StatusAddress {   // only StatusAddress
        addrType := gatewayv1.IPAddressType
        if net.ParseIP(addr) == nil { addrType = gatewayv1.HostnameAddressType }
        addrs = append(addrs, gatewayv1.GatewayStatusAddress{Type: &addrType, Value: addr})
    }
}
...
gateway.Status.Addresses = addrs   // overwrites; if StatusAddress is empty, addresses are cleared on every reconcile

By contrast, the Ingress controller already resolves publishService dynamically when statusAddress is not set.

internal/controller/ingress_controller.go (updateStatus):

// 1. use the IngressStatusAddress in the config
statusAddresses := gatewayProxy.Spec.StatusAddress
if len(statusAddresses) > 0 {
    ... // static
} else {
    // 2. if the IngressStatusAddress is not configured, try to use the PublishService
    publishService := gatewayProxy.Spec.PublishService
    if publishService != "" {
        ... // resolves the LoadBalancer Service ingress IP/hostname dynamically
    }
}

So publishService works for Ingress status but is ignored for Gateway status.

Expected Behavior

The Gateway reconciler should mirror the Ingress path: when gatewayProxy.spec.statusAddress is empty, fall back to gatewayProxy.spec.publishService and populate Gateway.status.addresses from that Service's .status.loadBalancer.ingress[].ip|hostname.

Why

On cloud LoadBalancers (we run OpenStack Octavia; AWS/GCP are equivalent), the external IP/hostname is assigned dynamically and can change when the LB is recreated. A static statusAddress is brittle: it must be hand-updated whenever the LB address changes, and if left empty the controller clears Gateway.status.addresses on every reconcile.

This breaks consumers that read Gateway.status.addresses — e.g. external-dns (--source=gateway-httproute) publishes A records from the Gateway address; an empty address causes it to remove all records for routes attached to the Gateway. publishService already exists on the GatewayProxy and is the natural dynamic source; it just isn't wired into the Gateway status path.

Environment

• apisix-ingress-controller 2.1.0 (manager), ADC 0.26.0
• Gateway API standalone mode, gatewayProxy.spec.publishService set to the LoadBalancer Service, statusAddress unset
• LoadBalancer: OpenStack Octavia (dynamic VIP)

Proposed Change

In gateway_controller.go, after the StatusAddress loop, when no statusAddress entries are present, resolve gatewayProxy.spec.publishService to the Service's LoadBalancer ingress and append the resulting GatewayStatusAddress entries (IP → IPAddress, hostname → Hostname), reusing the helper logic already used by the Ingress path. Happy to contribute a PR if the direction is acceptable.

Related prior work: #2730 / #2732 (statusAddress hostname support + publishService/statusAddress logic).

[juzhiyuan]

updates: we have started to check this one, will keep updated here this week.