How do I expose my WebAPI using NodePort (or other method) so that the public net can hit it?

I am trying to host a WebApi on K8s using deployments and service. I want my API to be publicly accessible from the public net using the Public IP of the node. I have this cluster on a Cloud provider's VM. Like bare metal but on cloud VMs. I have used Kubeadm to bootstrap this cluster.

I am able to access the API from inside the vnet (virtual network) using node port type. My API listens on 80.

Here are the YAML snippets:

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: <api>-deployment
  labels:
    app: <api>
spec:
  replicas: 1
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: <api>
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: <api>
    spec:
      containers:
      - name: <api>
        image: <api_image>
        ports:
        - containerPort: 80

apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: <api>
  labels:
    app: <api>
spec:
  type: NodePort
  ports:
  - name: http
    protocol: TCP
    port: 80
    targetPort: 80
    nodePort: 30000
  selector:
    app: <api>

The issue is that I can only access my API from my local vnet ie using the private IP address from other VMs inside the vnet. (I have already whitelisted port 30000 from my network security group so that it allows)

I hosted the same solution on IIS and opened up ports in my VM, configured security group rules on my cloud provider and and then pinged the public IP (public IP mentioned on the cloud provider's portal) of that VM and it worked without a problem. I am trying to do the same here.

Should I be using NodePort ? Is there any other way that is quick and simple ? I just want my API to publicly accessible from public net i.e. accessible with one singular IP address (logically the node’s public IP address that is displayed on my cloud provider’s portal of the VM) without using extra cloud provider related Load Balancers.

I know Ingree exists but how does this solve my problem here ? My API is already accessible, just not outside the vnet. What exactly is going wrong here ?

(Even though I want expose the API to public, it'll mainly be used by other systems not humans)

Edit: here are the screenshots

kubectl get pods

kubectl get svc

kubctl get svc -o wide

Thanks

If your VM is inside a private subnet (i.e. no public IP assigned to it) and you want your API to be publicly accessible, then you need to have a VM (with a public IP) that acts as a reverse proxy/jump box/entry point to your cluster

If you want a quick solution, you can just deploy some reverse proxy server like Apache or Nginx on the new VM which will forward your request to the <api-service>:<NortPort>, that way you will be able to access your API using the new jump box

Although this works but not the most scalable option, so like you mentioned you need to have an Ingress Controller which would also need an entry point/ Load Balancer for your cluster. More details are here in my SO answer

Read this for bare-metal considerations