Gloo Mesh Core deploys alongside your Istio installation in a single-cluster environment, and gives you instant insights into your Istio service mesh through a custom dashboard. You can follow this guide to quickly get started with Gloo Mesh Core. To learn more about the benefits and architecture, see About. To customize your installation with Helm instead, see the advanced installation guide.

Before you begin

  1. Install the following command-line (CLI) tools.

    • kubectl, the Kubernetes command line tool. Download the kubectl version that is within one minor version of the Kubernetes clusters you plan to use.
    • meshctl, the Solo command line tool.
        curl -sL https://run.solo.io/meshctl/install | GLOO_MESH_VERSION=v2.7.0-beta1 sh -
export PATH=$HOME/.gloo-mesh/bin:$PATH

  2. Create or use an existing Kubernetes cluster, and save the cluster name in an environment variable.

    • The cluster name must be alphanumeric with no special characters except a hyphen (-), lowercase, and begin with a letter (not a number).
      export CLUSTER_NAME=<cluster_name>

  3. Set your Gloo Mesh Core license key as an environment variable. If you do not have one, contact an account representative. If you prefer to specify license keys in a secret instead, see Licensing. To check your license’s validity, you can run meshctl license check --key $(echo ${GLOO_MESH_CORE_LICENSE_KEY} | base64 -w0).

      export GLOO_MESH_CORE_LICENSE_KEY=<license_key>

Install Gloo Mesh Core

Install all Gloo Mesh Core components in the same cluster as your Istio service mesh.

  1. Install Gloo Mesh Core in your cluster. This command uses a basic profile to create a gloo-mesh namespace and install the Gloo control and data plane components. For more information, check out the CLI install profiles.

      meshctl install --profiles gloo-core-single-cluster \
  --set common.cluster=$CLUSTER_NAME \
  --set licensing.glooMeshCoreLicenseKey=$GLOO_MESH_CORE_LICENSE_KEY

  2. Verify that your Gloo Mesh Core setup is correctly installed. If not, try debugging the relay connection. Note that this check might take a few seconds to verify that:

    • Your Gloo product license is valid and current.
    • The Gloo CRDs are installed at the correct version.
    • The management plane pods in the management cluster are running and healthy.
    • The Gloo agent is running and connected to the management server.
      meshctl check

    Example output:

      🟢 License status

INFO  gloo-mesh-core enterprise license expiration is 25 Aug 24 10:38 CDT

🟢 CRD version check

🟢 Gloo deployment status

Namespace | Name                           | Ready | Status
gloo-mesh | gloo-mesh-mgmt-server          | 1/1   | Healthy
gloo-mesh | gloo-mesh-redis                | 1/1   | Healthy
gloo-mesh | gloo-mesh-ui                   | 1/1   | Healthy
gloo-mesh | gloo-telemetry-collector-agent | 3/3   | Healthy
gloo-mesh | prometheus-server              | 1/1   | Healthy

🟢 Mgmt server connectivity to workload agents

Cluster | Registered | Connected Pod                                   
test    | true       | gloo-mesh/gloo-mesh-mgmt-server-558cddbbd7-rf2hv

Connected Pod                                    | Clusters
gloo-mesh/gloo-mesh-mgmt-server-558cddbbd7-rf2hv | 1

Deploy Istio

Check whether an Istio control plane already exists.

  kubectl get pods -n istio-system

If an istiod pod exists, such as in this example output, you already installed an Istio control plane. Continue to the next step.

  NAME                            READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
istiod-1-24-b65676555-g2vmr     1/1     Running   0          57s

If no istiod pod exists, you can use the Solo distribution of Istio to install a sidecar or ambient service mesh. For more information, check out Solo distributions of Istio.

Use Helm to deploy your service mesh with the standard sidecar approach. Note that this installs a minimal service mesh setup to get you started. For a more advanced Istio sidecar installation, check out Install sidecar service meshes with Helm.

  1. Set environment variables for the Solo distribution of Istio that you want to install.

    • REPO: The repo key for the Solo distribution of Istio that you can get by logging in to the Support Center and reviewing the Istio images built by Solo.io support article.
    • ISTIO_VERSION: The version of Istio that you want to install, such as 1.24.2.
      export REPO=<repo-key>
export ISTIO_VERSION=1.24.2

  2. Add and update the Helm repository for Istio.

      helm repo add istio https://istio-release.storage.googleapis.com/charts
helm repo update

  3. Install the Istio CRDs.

      helm upgrade --install istio-base istio/base \
  -n istio-system \
  --version ${ISTIO_VERSION} \
  --create-namespace

  4. Create the istiod control plane in your cluster.

      helm upgrade --install istiod istio/istiod \
  --version $ISTIO_VERSION \
  --namespace istio-system \
  -f - <<EOF
  global:
    hub: ${REPO}
    tag: ${ISTIO_VERSION}-solo
  EOF

  5. Verify that the Istio control plane pods is running.

      kubectl get pods -n istio-system

    Example output:

      NAME                     READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
istiod-7b96cb895-4nzv9   1/1     Running   0          30s

  6. Create an istio-ingressgateway Helm release.

      helm upgrade --install istio-ingressgateway istio/gateway \
--namespace gloo-mesh-gateways \
--create-namespace \
--version ${ISTIO_VERSION} \
-f - <<EOF
name: istio-ingressgateway
labels:
  istio: ingressgateway
service:
  type: LoadBalancer
  ports:
  - port: 80
    targetPort: 8080
    name: http2
  - port: 443
    targetPort: 8443
    name: https
EOF

  7. Verify that the ingress gateway pod has a status of RUNNING and that the load balancer service has an external address.

      kubectl get pods,svc -n gloo-mesh-gateways

    Example output:

      NAME                                    READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
istio-ingressgateway-665d46686f-nhh52   1/1     Running   0          106s

NAME                        TYPE           CLUSTER-IP      EXTERNAL-IP   PORT(S)                                                                                                      AGE
istio-ingressgateway        LoadBalancer   10.96.252.49    <externalip>  15021:32378/TCP,80:30315/TCP,443:32186/TCP,31400:30313/TCP,15443:31632/TCP                                   2m2s

Simplify your service mesh with a sidecarless approach by installing Istio in ambient mode. For more information, see About ambient mesh.

  1. If you use Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) clusters, create the following ResourceQuota in the istio-system namespace. For more information about this requirement, see the community Istio documentation.

      kubectl create namespace istio-system
kubectl -n istio-system apply -f - <<EOF
apiVersion: v1
kind: ResourceQuota
metadata:
  name: gcp-critical-pods
  namespace: istio-system
spec:
  hard:
    pods: 1000
  scopeSelector:
    matchExpressions:
    - operator: In
      scopeName: PriorityClass
      values:
      - system-node-critical
EOF

  2. Set environment variables for the Solo distribution of Istio that you want to install, including the image version, the image repository, and the Helm repository. You can find these values in the Ambient section of the Istio images built by Solo.io support article.

      # Solo distrubution of Istio patch version and tag, in the format 1.x.x-solo
export ISTIO_IMAGE=1.24.2-solo
# Solo distrubution of Istio repo
export REPO=us-docker.pkg.dev/gloo-mesh/istio-<repo-key>
# Solo distrubution of Istio Helm repo
export HELM_REPO=us-docker.pkg.dev/gloo-mesh/istio-helm-<repo-key>

  3. Install the Istio Helm charts, which create the following Istio ambient components:

    • base- CRDs and cluster roles required to install Istio
    • istiod- Ambient istiod control plane
    • cni- Istio CNI daemonset
    • ztunnel- ztunnel daemonset
    • gateway- Istio ingress gateway, which is exposed by the istio-ingressgateway service
    • OpenShift only: For each of the following Helm charts, you must include --set global.platform=openshift. Additionally, you must install the istio-cni and ztunnel releases in the kube-system namespace.
      helm upgrade --install istio-base oci://${HELM_REPO}/base \
--namespace istio-system \
--create-namespace \
--version ${ISTIO_IMAGE} \
-f - <<EOF
defaultRevision: ""
profile: ambient
EOF

helm upgrade --install istiod oci://${HELM_REPO}/istiod \
--namespace istio-system \
--version ${ISTIO_IMAGE} \
-f - <<EOF
global:
  hub: ${REPO}
  proxy:
    clusterDomain: cluster.local
  tag: ${ISTIO_IMAGE}
profile: ambient
istio_cni:
  namespace: istio-system
  enabled: true
meshConfig:
  accessLogFile: /dev/stdout
  defaultConfig:
    proxyMetadata:
      ISTIO_META_DNS_AUTO_ALLOCATE: "true"
      ISTIO_META_DNS_CAPTURE: "true"
pilot:
  enabled: true
  env:
    PILOT_ENABLE_IP_AUTOALLOCATE: "true"
    PILOT_ENABLE_K8S_SELECT_WORKLOAD_ENTRIES: "false"
    PILOT_SKIP_VALIDATE_TRUST_DOMAIN: "true"
EOF

helm upgrade --install istio-cni oci://${HELM_REPO}/cni \
--namespace kube-system \
--version ${ISTIO_IMAGE} \
-f - <<EOF
global:
  hub: ${REPO}
  tag: ${ISTIO_IMAGE}
profile: ambient
cni:
  ambient:
    dnsCapture: true
  excludeNamespaces:
  - istio-system
  - kube-system
EOF

helm upgrade --install ztunnel oci://${HELM_REPO}/ztunnel \
--namespace istio-system \
--version ${ISTIO_IMAGE} \
-f - <<EOF
configValidation: true
enabled: true
env:
  L7_ENABLED: "true"
hub: ${REPO}
istioNamespace: istio-system
namespace: istio-system
profile: ambient
proxy:
  clusterDomain: cluster.local
tag: ${ISTIO_IMAGE}
terminationGracePeriodSeconds: 29
variant: distroless
EOF

kubectl create ns gloo-mesh-gateways

kubectl apply -f - <<EOF
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  labels:
    app: istio-ingressgateway
    istio: ingressgateway
  name: istio-ingressgateway
  namespace: gloo-mesh-gateways
spec:
  ports:
  - name: http2
    port: 80
    protocol: TCP
    targetPort: 80
  - name: https
    port: 443
    protocol: TCP
    targetPort: 443
  selector:
    app: istio-ingressgateway
    istio: ingressgateway
  type: LoadBalancer
EOF

helm upgrade --install istio-ingressgateway oci://${HELM_REPO}/gateway \
--namespace gloo-mesh-gateways \
--version ${ISTIO_IMAGE} \
-f - <<EOF
autoscaling:
  enabled: false
profile: ambient
imagePullPolicy: IfNotPresent
labels:
  app: istio-ingressgateway
  istio: ingressgateway
service:
  type: None
EOF

  4. Verify that the components of the Istio control and data plane are successfully installed. Because the ztunnel and the CNI are deployed as daemon sets, the number of ztunnel pods and CNI pods each equal the number of nodes in your cluster. Note that it might take a few seconds for the pods to become available.

      kubectl get pods -A | grep istio

    Example output:

      gloo-mesh-gateways   istio-ingressgateway-65c5874ffd-jp78c               1/1     Running   0             39s
istio-system         istiod-85c4dfd97f-mncj5                             1/1     Running   0             42s
istio-system         ztunnel-tvtzn                                       1/1     Running   0             40s
istio-system         ztunnel-vtpjm                                       1/1     Running   0             40s
istio-system         ztunnel-hllxg                                       1/1     Running   0             40s
kube-system          istio-cni-node-pr5rl                                1/1     Running   0             42s
kube-system          istio-cni-node-pvmx2                                1/1     Running   0             42s
kube-system          istio-cni-node-lcrcd                                1/1     Running   0             42s

  5. Verify that the load balancer service for the ingress gateway has an external address.

      kubectl get svc -n gloo-mesh-gateways

    Example output:

      NAME                        TYPE           CLUSTER-IP      EXTERNAL-IP   PORT(S)                                                                                                      AGE
istio-ingressgateway        LoadBalancer   10.96.252.49    <externalip>  15021:32378/TCP,80:30315/TCP,443:32186/TCP,31400:30313/TCP,15443:31632/TCP                                   2m2s

Deploy a sample app

To analyze your service mesh with Gloo Mesh Core, be sure to include your services in the mesh.

If you already deployed apps that you want to include in the mesh, you can run the following command to label the service namespace for Istio sidecar injection.

  kubectl label ns <namespace> istio-injection=enabled

If you don’t have any apps yet, you can deploy Bookinfo, the Istio sample app.

  1. Create the bookinfo namespace and label it for Istio injection so that the services become part of the service mesh.
      kubectl create ns bookinfo
kubectl label ns bookinfo istio-injection=enabled
  2. Deploy the Bookinfo app.
      # deploy bookinfo application components for all versions less than v3
kubectl -n bookinfo apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/istio/istio/1.24.2/samples/bookinfo/platform/kube/bookinfo.yaml -l 'app,version notin (v3)'
# deploy an updated product page with extra container utilities such as 'curl' and 'netcat'
kubectl -n bookinfo apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/solo-io/gloo-mesh-use-cases/main/policy-demo/productpage-with-curl.yaml
# deploy all bookinfo service accounts
kubectl -n bookinfo apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/istio/istio/1.24.2/samples/bookinfo/platform/kube/bookinfo.yaml -l 'account'
  3. Verify that the Bookinfo app deployed successfully.
      kubectl get pods,svc -n bookinfo

If you already deployed apps that you want to include in the mesh, you can run the following command to add all pods in the service namespace to the ambient mesh.

  kubectl label ns <namespace> istio.io/dataplane-mode=ambient

If you don’t have any apps yet, you can deploy Bookinfo, the Istio sample app.

  1. Create the bookinfo namespace and label it so that the services become part of the ambient service mesh.
      kubectl create ns bookinfo
kubectl label ns bookinfo istio.io/dataplane-mode=ambient
  2. Deploy the Bookinfo app.
      # deploy bookinfo application components for all versions less than v3
kubectl -n bookinfo apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/istio/istio/1.24.2/samples/bookinfo/platform/kube/bookinfo.yaml -l 'app,version notin (v3)'
# deploy an updated product page with extra container utilities such as 'curl' and 'netcat'
kubectl -n bookinfo apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/solo-io/gloo-mesh-use-cases/main/policy-demo/productpage-with-curl.yaml
# deploy all bookinfo service accounts
kubectl -n bookinfo apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/istio/istio/1.24.2/samples/bookinfo/platform/kube/bookinfo.yaml -l 'account'
  3. Verify that the Bookinfo app deployed successfully.
      kubectl get pods,svc -n bookinfo

Explore the UI

Use the Gloo UI to evaluate the health and efficiency of your service mesh. You can review the analysis and insights for your service mesh, such as recommendations to harden your Istio environment and steps to implement them in your environment.

Launch the dashboard

  1. Open the Gloo UI. The Gloo UI is served from the gloo-mesh-ui service on port 8090. You can connect by using the meshctl or kubectl CLIs.

    • meshctl: For more information, see the CLI documentation.
        meshctl dashboard
    • kubectl:
      1. Port-forward the gloo-mesh-ui service on 8090.
          kubectl port-forward -n gloo-mesh svc/gloo-mesh-ui 8090:8090
      2. Open your browser and connect to http://localhost:8090.

  2. Review your Dashboard for an at-a-glance overview of your Gloo Mesh Core environment. Environment insights, health, status, inventories, security, and more are summarized in the following cards:

    • Analysis and Insights: Gloo Mesh Core recommendations for how to improve your Istio setup.
    • Gloo and Istio health: A status check of the Gloo Mesh Core and Istio installations in your cluster.
    • Certificates Expiry: Validity timelines for your root and intermediate Istio certificates.
    • Cluster Services: Inventory of services in your Gloo Mesh Core setup, and whether those services are in a service mesh or not.
    • Istio FIPS: FIPS compliance checks for the istiod control plane and Istio data plane workloads.
    • Zero Trust: Number of service mesh workloads that receive only mutual TLS (mTLS)-encrypted traffic, and number of external services that are accessed from the mesh.


    Figure: Gloo UI dashboard
    Figure: Gloo UI dashboard
    Figure: Gloo UI dashboard
    Figure: Gloo UI dashboard

Check insights

Review the insights for your environment. Gloo Mesh Core comes with an insights engine that automatically analyzes your Istio setups for health issues. Then, Gloo shares these issues along with recommendations to harden your Istio setups. The insights give you a checklist to address issues that might otherwise be hard to detect across your environment.

  1. On the Analysis and Insights card of the dashboard, you can quickly see a summary of the insights for your environment, including how many insights are available at each severity level, and the type of insight.

    Figure: Insights and analysis card
    Figure: Insights and analysis card
    Figure: Insights and analysis card
    Figure: Insights and analysis card

  2. View the list of insights by clicking the Details button, or go to the Insights page.

  3. On the Insights page, you can view recommendations to harden your Istio setup, and steps to implement them in your environment. Gloo Mesh Core analyzes your setup, and returns individual insights that contain information about errors and warnings in your environment, best practices you can use to improve your configuration and security, and more.

    Figure: Insights page
    Figure: Insights page
    Figure: Insights page
    Figure: Insights page

  4. On an insight that you want to resolve, click Details. The details modal shows more data about the insight, such as the time when it was last observed in your environment, and if applicable, the extended settings or configuration that the insight applies to.

    Figure: Example insight
    Figure: Example insight
    Figure: Example insight
    Figure: Example insight

  5. Click the Target YAML tab to see the resource file that the insight references, and click the View Resolution Steps tab to see guidance such as steps for fixing warnings and errors in your resource configuration or recommendations for improving your security and setup.

Next steps

Now that you have Gloo Mesh Core and Istio up and running, check out some of the following resources to learn more about Gloo Mesh Core and expand your service mesh capabilities.

Istio:

Gloo Mesh Core:

  • Customize your Gloo Mesh Core installation with a Helm-based setup.
    • Explore insights to review and improve your setup’s health and security posture.
    • When it’s time to upgrade Gloo Mesh Core, see the upgrade guide.

    Help and support:

    Cleanup

    If you no longer need this quick-start Gloo Mesh Core environment, you can follow the steps in the uninstall guide.