Can someone please skim over this guide and tell me the use case of HAProxy in this guide?

Install and configure a multi-master Kubernetes cluster with kubeadm

I've gone through the guide and set this up. Everything is working properly between my Kubernetes cluster and HAProxy, from what I can tell.

HAProxy has been set up on a VM separate from my Kubernetes cluster. The HAProxy IP is 10.1.160.170.

I was hoping to visit my HAProxy IP and be redirected to one of my Kuberenetes nodes that is being load balanced. This isn't the case.

I can set up an Nginx deployment with:

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: my-nginx
spec:
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      run: my-nginx
  replicas: 2
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        run: my-nginx
    spec:
      containers:
      - name: my-nginx
        image: nginx
        ports:
        - containerPort: 80

Then create the service:

kubectl expose deployment my-nginx --port=80 --type=NodePort

user@KUBENODE01:~$ kubectl get service
NAME         TYPE        CLUSTER-IP      EXTERNAL-IP   PORT(S)        AGE
kubernetes   ClusterIP   10.96.0.1       <none>        443/TCP        93d
my-nginx     NodePort    10.108.33.134   <none>        80:30438/TCP   46s

If I now try and visit my HAProxy IP 10.1.160.170, I'm not redirected to my Kubernetes node on port 30438.

user@computer:~/nginx_testing$ curl http://10.1.160.170
curl: (7) Failed to connect to 10.1.160.170 port 80: Connection refused

user@computer:~/nginx_testing$ curl https://10.1.160.170
curl: (7) Failed to connect to 10.1.160.170 port 443: Connection refused

user@computer:~/nginx_testing$ curl 10.1.160.170:30438
curl: (7) Failed to connect to 10.1.160.170 port 30438: Connection refused

Is HAProxy not meant to forward connection requests to the actual Kubernetes nodes in this article?

I've also tried this with the service type LoadBalancer.

Here is my haproxy.cfg:

global
        log /dev/log    local0
        log /dev/log    local1 notice
        chroot /var/lib/haproxy
        stats socket /run/haproxy/admin.sock mode 660 level admin expose-fd listeners
        stats timeout 30s
        user haproxy
        group haproxy
        daemon

        # Default SSL material locations
        ca-base /etc/ssl/certs
        crt-base /etc/ssl/private

        # See: https://ssl-config.mozilla.org/#server=haproxy&server-version=2.0.3&config=intermediate
        ssl-default-bind-ciphers ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:EC>
        ssl-default-bind-ciphersuites TLS_AES_128_GCM_SHA256:TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:TLS_CHACHA20_POLY1305_SHA256
        ssl-default-bind-options ssl-min-ver TLSv1.2 no-tls-tickets

defaults
        log     global
        mode    http
        option  httplog
        option  dontlognull
        timeout connect 5000
        timeout client  50000
        timeout server  50000
        errorfile 400 /etc/haproxy/errors/400.http
        errorfile 403 /etc/haproxy/errors/403.http
        errorfile 408 /etc/haproxy/errors/408.http
        errorfile 500 /etc/haproxy/errors/500.http
        errorfile 502 /etc/haproxy/errors/502.http
        errorfile 503 /etc/haproxy/errors/503.http
        errorfile 504 /etc/haproxy/errors/504.http

frontend kubernetes
# bind 10.1.160.170:80
bind 10.1.160.170:6443
# http-request redirect scheme https unless { ssl_fc }
option tcplog
mode tcp
default_backend kubernetes-master-nodes


backend kubernetes-master-nodes
mode tcp
balance roundrobin
option tcp-check
server kubenode01 10.1.160.79:6443 check fall 3 rise 2
server kubenode02 10.1.160.80:6443 check fall 3 rise 2
server kubenode03 10.1.160.81:6443 check fall 3 rise 2