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title Header rewrite for Azure Application Gateway for Containers - Gateway API
description Learn how to rewrite headers in Gateway API for Application Gateway for Containers.
services application gateway
author mbender-ms
ms.service azure-appgw-for-containers
ms.topic how-to
ms.date 10/27/2025
ms.author mbender

Header rewrite for Azure Application Gateway for Containers - Gateway API

Application Gateway for Containers allows you to rewrite HTTP headers of client requests and responses from backend targets.

Usage details

Header rewrites take advantage of filters as defined by Kubernetes Gateway API.

Background

Header rewrites enable you to modify the request and response headers to and from your backend targets.

The following figure illustrates a request with a specific user agent being rewritten to a simplified value called SearchEngine-BingBot when the request is initiated to the backend target by Application Gateway for Containers:

A diagram showing the Application Gateway for Containers rewriting a request header to the backend.

Prerequisites

  1. If following the BYO deployment strategy, ensure that you set up your Application Gateway for Containers resources and ALB Controller (Add-on or Helm)

  2. If you're following the ALB managed deployment strategy, ensure provisioning of the ALB Controller (Add-on or Helm) the Application Gateway for Containers resources via the ApplicationLoadBalancer custom resource.

  3. Deploy sample HTTP application Apply the following deployment.yaml file on your cluster to create a sample web application to demonstrate the header rewrite.

    kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/MicrosoftDocs/azure-docs/refs/heads/main/articles/application-gateway/for-containers/examples/traffic-split-scenario/deployment.yaml

    This command creates the following on your cluster:

    • a namespace called test-infra
    • two services called backend-v1 and backend-v2 in the test-infra namespace
    • two deployments called backend-v1 and backend-v2 in the test-infra namespace

Deploy the required Gateway API resources

ALB managed deployment

Create a gateway:

kubectl apply -f - <<EOF
apiVersion: gateway.networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: Gateway
metadata:
  name: gateway-01
  namespace: test-infra
  annotations:
    alb.networking.azure.io/alb-namespace: alb-test-infra
    alb.networking.azure.io/alb-name: alb-test
spec:
  gatewayClassName: azure-alb-external
  listeners:
  - name: http-listener
    port: 80
    protocol: HTTP
    allowedRoutes:
      namespaces:
        from: Same
EOF

[!INCLUDE application-gateway-for-containers-frontend-naming]

Bring your own (BYO) deployment

  1. Set the following environment variables
RESOURCE_GROUP='<resource group name of the Application Gateway For Containers resource>'
RESOURCE_NAME='alb-test'

RESOURCE_ID=$(az network alb show --resource-group $RESOURCE_GROUP --name $RESOURCE_NAME --query id -o tsv)
FRONTEND_NAME='frontend'
  1. Create a Gateway
kubectl apply -f - <<EOF
apiVersion: gateway.networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: Gateway
metadata:
  name: gateway-01
  namespace: test-infra
  annotations:
    alb.networking.azure.io/alb-id: $RESOURCE_ID
spec:
  gatewayClassName: azure-alb-external
  listeners:
  - name: http-listener
    port: 80
    protocol: HTTP
    allowedRoutes:
      namespaces:
        from: Same
  addresses:
  - type: alb.networking.azure.io/alb-frontend
    value: $FRONTEND_NAME
EOF

Once the gateway resource is created, ensure the status is valid, the listener is Programmed, and an address is assigned to the gateway.

kubectl get gateway gateway-01 -n test-infra -o yaml

Example output of successful gateway creation.

status:
  addresses:
  - type: IPAddress
    value: xxxx.yyyy.alb.azure.com
  conditions:
  - lastTransitionTime: "2023-06-19T21:04:55Z"
    message: Valid Gateway
    observedGeneration: 1
    reason: Accepted
    status: "True"
    type: Accepted
  - lastTransitionTime: "2023-06-19T21:04:55Z"
    message: Application Gateway For Containers resource has been successfully updated.
    observedGeneration: 1
    reason: Programmed
    status: "True"
    type: Programmed
  listeners:
  - attachedRoutes: 0
    conditions:
    - lastTransitionTime: "2023-06-19T21:04:55Z"
      message: ""
      observedGeneration: 1
      reason: ResolvedRefs
      status: "True"
      type: ResolvedRefs
    - lastTransitionTime: "2023-06-19T21:04:55Z"
      message: Listener is accepted
      observedGeneration: 1
      reason: Accepted
      status: "True"
      type: Accepted
    - lastTransitionTime: "2023-06-19T21:04:55Z"
      message: Application Gateway For Containers resource has been successfully updated.
      observedGeneration: 1
      reason: Programmed
      status: "True"
      type: Programmed
    name: https-listener
    supportedKinds:
    - group: gateway.networking.k8s.io
      kind: HTTPRoute

Once the gateway is created, create an HTTPRoute that listens for hostname contoso.com and overrides the user-agent value to SearchEngine-BingBot.

In this example, we look for the user agent used by the Bing search engine and simplify the header to SearchEngine-BingBot for easier backend parsing.

This example also demonstrates addition of a new header called AGC-Header-Add with a value of AGC-value and removes a request header called client-custom-header.

Tip

For this example, while we can use the HTTPHeaderMatch of "Exact" for a string match, a demonstration is used in regular expression for illustration of further capabilities.

kubectl apply -f - <<EOF
apiVersion: gateway.networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: HTTPRoute
metadata:
  name: header-rewrite-route
  namespace: test-infra
spec:
  parentRefs:
    - name: gateway-01
      namespace: test-infra
  hostnames:
    - "contoso.com"
  rules:
    - matches:
        - headers:
          - name: user-agent
            value: Mozilla/5\.0 AppleWebKit/537\.36 \(KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; bingbot/2\.0; \+http://www\.bing\.com/bingbot\.htm\) Chrome/
            type: RegularExpression
      filters:
        - type: RequestHeaderModifier
          requestHeaderModifier:
            set:
              - name: user-agent
                value: SearchEngine-BingBot
            add:
              - name: AGC-Header-Add
                value: AGC-value
            remove: ["client-custom-header"]
      backendRefs:
        - name: backend-v2
          port: 8080
    - backendRefs:
        - name: backend-v1
          port: 8080
EOF

Note

Modifying the Host header is not supported with a requestHeaderModifier rule. To override the Host value specified to the backend target, use a URLRewrite filter.

Once the HTTPRoute resource is created, ensure the route is Accepted and the Application Gateway for Containers resource is Programmed.

kubectl get httproute header-rewrite-route -n test-infra -o yaml

Verify the status of the Application Gateway for Containers resource has been successfully updated.

status:
  parents:
  - conditions:
    - lastTransitionTime: "2023-06-19T22:18:23Z"
      message: ""
      observedGeneration: 1
      reason: ResolvedRefs
      status: "True"
      type: ResolvedRefs
    - lastTransitionTime: "2023-06-19T22:18:23Z"
      message: Route is Accepted
      observedGeneration: 1
      reason: Accepted
      status: "True"
      type: Accepted
    - lastTransitionTime: "2023-06-19T22:18:23Z"
      message: Application Gateway For Containers resource has been successfully updated.
      observedGeneration: 1
      reason: Programmed
      status: "True"
      type: Programmed
    controllerName: alb.networking.azure.io/alb-controller
    parentRef:
      group: gateway.networking.k8s.io
      kind: Gateway
      name: gateway-01
      namespace: test-infra

Test access to the application

Now we're ready to send some traffic to our sample application, via the FQDN assigned to the frontend. Use the following command to get the FQDN:

fqdn=$(kubectl get gateway gateway-01 -n test-infra -o jsonpath='{.status.addresses[0].value}')

If you specify the server name indicator using the curl command, contoso.com for the frontend FQDN, the output should return a response from the backend-v1 service.

fqdnIp=$(dig +short $fqdn)
curl -k --resolve contoso.com:80:$fqdnIp http://contoso.com

Via the response we should see:

{
 "path": "/",
 "host": "contoso.com",
 "method": "GET",
 "proto": "HTTP/1.1",
 "headers": {
  "Accept": [
   "*/*"
  ],
  "User-Agent": [
   "curl/7.81.0"
  ],
  "X-Forwarded-For": [
   "xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx"
  ],
  "X-Forwarded-Proto": [
   "http"
  ],
  "X-Request-Id": [
   "dcd4bcad-ea43-4fb6-948e-a906380dcd6d"
  ]
 },
 "namespace": "test-infra",
 "ingress": "",
 "service": "",
 "pod": "backend-v1-5b8fd96959-f59mm"
}

Specifying a user-agent header with the value `` should return a response from the backend service of SearchEngine-BingBot:

fqdnIp=$(dig +short $fqdn)
curl -k --resolve contoso.com:80:$fqdnIp http://contoso.com -H "user-agent: Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; bingbot/2.0; +http://www.bing.com/bingbot.htm) Chrome/"

Via the response we should see:

{
 "path": "/",
 "host": "fabrikam.com",
 "method": "GET",
 "proto": "HTTP/1.1",
 "headers": {
  "Accept": [
   "*/*"
  ],
  "User-Agent": [
   "curl/7.81.0"
  ],
  "X-Forwarded-For": [
   "xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx"
  ],
  "X-Forwarded-Proto": [
   "http"
  ],
  "X-Request-Id": [
   "adae8cc1-8030-4d95-9e05-237dd4e3941b"
  ]
 },
 "namespace": "test-infra",
 "ingress": "",
 "service": "",
 "pod": "backend-v2-5b8fd96959-f59mm"
}

Specifying a client-custom-header header with the value moo should be stripped from the request when Application Gateway for Containers initiates the connection to the backend service:

fqdnIp=$(dig +short $fqdn)
curl -k --resolve contoso.com:80:$fqdnIp http://contoso.com -H "client-custom-header: moo"

Via the response we should see:

{
 "path": "/",
 "host": "fabrikam.com",
 "method": "GET",
 "proto": "HTTP/1.1",
 "headers": {
  "Accept": [
   "*/*"
  ],
  "User-Agent": [
   "curl/7.81.0"
  ],
  "X-Forwarded-For": [
   "xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx"
  ],
  "X-Forwarded-Proto": [
   "http"
  ],
  "X-Request-Id": [
   "kd83nc84-4325-5d22-3d23-237dd4e3941b"
  ]
 },
 "namespace": "test-infra",
 "ingress": "",
 "service": "",
 "pod": "backend-v2-5b8fd96959-f59mm"
}

Congratulations, you have installed ALB Controller, deployed a backend application and modified header values via Gateway API on Application Gateway for Containers.