+Accessing the ONAP Portal using OOM and a Kubernetes Cluster
+------------------------------------------------------------
+
+The ONAP deployment created by OOM operates in a private IP network that isn't
+publicly accessible (i.e. OpenStack VMs with private internal network) which
+blocks access to the ONAP Portal. To enable direct access to this Portal from a
+user's own environment (a laptop etc.) the portal application's port 8989 is
+exposed through a `Kubernetes LoadBalancer`_ object.
+
+Typically, to be able to access the Kubernetes nodes publicly a public address
+is assigned. In OpenStack this is a floating IP address.
+
+When the `portal-app` chart is deployed a Kubernetes service is created that
+instantiates a load balancer. The LB chooses the private interface of one of
+the nodes as in the example below (10.0.0.4 is private to the K8s cluster only).
+Then to be able to access the portal on port 8989 from outside the K8s &
+OpenStack environment, the user needs to assign/get the floating IP address that
+corresponds to the private IP as follows::
+
+ > kubectl -n onap get services|grep "portal-app"
+ portal-app LoadBalancer 10.43.142.201 10.0.0.4 8989:30215/TCP,8006:30213/TCP,8010:30214/TCP 1d app=portal-app,release=dev
+
+
+In this example, use the 10.0.0.4 private address as a key find the
+corresponding public address which in this example is 10.12.6.155. If you're
+using OpenStack you'll do the lookup with the horizon GUI or the OpenStack CLI
+for your tenant (openstack server list). That IP is then used in your
+`/etc/hosts` to map the fixed DNS aliases required by the ONAP Portal as shown
+below::
+
+ 10.12.6.155 portal.api.simpledemo.onap.org
+ 10.12.6.155 vid.api.simpledemo.onap.org
+ 10.12.6.155 sdc.api.fe.simpledemo.onap.org
+ 10.12.6.155 sdc.workflow.plugin.simpledemo.onap.org
+ 10.12.6.155 sdc.dcae.plugin.simpledemo.onap.org
+ 10.12.6.155 portal-sdk.simpledemo.onap.org
+ 10.12.6.155 policy.api.simpledemo.onap.org
+ 10.12.6.155 aai.api.sparky.simpledemo.onap.org
+ 10.12.6.155 cli.api.simpledemo.onap.org
+ 10.12.6.155 msb.api.discovery.simpledemo.onap.org
+ 10.12.6.155 msb.api.simpledemo.onap.org
+ 10.12.6.155 clamp.api.simpledemo.onap.org
+ 10.12.6.155 so.api.simpledemo.onap.org
+ 10.12.6.155 sdc.workflow.plugin.simpledemo.onap.org
+
+Ensure you've disabled any proxy settings the browser you are using to access
+the portal and then simply access now the new ssl-encrypted URL:
+``https://portal.api.simpledemo.onap.org:30225/ONAPPORTAL/login.htm``
+
+.. note::
+ Using the HTTPS based Portal URL the Browser needs to be configured to accept
+ unsecure credentials.
+ Additionally when opening an Application inside the Portal, the Browser
+ might block the content, which requires to disable the blocking and reloading
+ of the page
+
+.. note::
+ Besides the ONAP Portal the Components can deliver additional user interfaces,
+ please check the Component specific documentation.
+
+.. note::
+
+ | Alternatives Considered:
+
+ - Kubernetes port forwarding was considered but discarded as it would require
+ the end user to run a script that opens up port forwarding tunnels to each of
+ the pods that provides a portal application widget.
+
+ - Reverting to a VNC server similar to what was deployed in the Amsterdam
+ release was also considered but there were many issues with resolution, lack
+ of volume mount, /etc/hosts dynamic update, file upload that were a tall order
+ to solve in time for the Beijing release.
+
+ Observations:
+
+ - If you are not using floating IPs in your Kubernetes deployment and directly attaching
+ a public IP address (i.e. by using your public provider network) to your K8S Node
+ VMs' network interface, then the output of 'kubectl -n onap get services | grep "portal-app"'
+ will show your public IP instead of the private network's IP. Therefore,
+ you can grab this public IP directly (as compared to trying to find the floating
+ IP first) and map this IP in /etc/hosts.
+