Gloo Mesh Enterprise is a multicluster and multimesh management plane that is based on hardened, open-source projects like Envoy and Istio. With Gloo Mesh, you can unify the configuration, operation, and visibility of service-to-service connectivity across your distributed applications. These apps can run in different virtual machines (VMs) or Kubernetes clusters on premises or in various cloud providers, and even in different service meshes.

You can follow this guide to customize settings for an advanced Gloo Mesh Enterprise installation. To learn more about the benefits and architecture, see About.

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=v2.5.11 sh -
      export PATH=$HOME/.gloo-mesh/bin:$PATH
        
    • helm, the Kubernetes package manager.
  2. Set your Gloo Mesh Enterprise 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_LICENSE_KEY} | base64 -w0).

      export GLOO_MESH_LICENSE_KEY=<license_key>
      
  3. Set the Gloo Mesh Enterprise version. This example uses the latest version. You can find other versions in the Changelog documentation. Append -fips for a FIPS-compliant image, such as 2.5.11-fips. Do not include v before the version number.

      export GLOO_VERSION=2.5.11
      
  4. Create or use at least two existing Kubernetes clusters. The instructions in this guide assume one management cluster and two workload clusters.

    • The cluster name must be alphanumeric with no special characters except a hyphen (-), lowercase, and begin with a letter (not a number).
  5. Production installations: Review Best practices for production to prepare your optional security measures. For example, before you begin your Gloo installation, you can provide your own certificates to secure the management server and agent connection, and set up secure access to the Gloo UI.

Install Gloo Mesh Enterprise

In a multicluster setup, you deploy the Gloo management plane into a dedicated management cluster, and the Gloo data plane into one or more workload clusters that run Istio service meshes.

Management plane

Deploy the Gloo management plane into a dedicated management cluster.

  1. Save the name and kubeconfig context for your management cluster in environment variables.

      export MGMT_CLUSTER=<management-cluster-name>
    export MGMT_CONTEXT=<management-cluster-context>
      
  2. Add and update the Helm repository for Gloo.

      helm repo add gloo-platform https://storage.googleapis.com/gloo-platform/helm-charts
    helm repo update
      
  3. Install the Gloo CRDs.

      helm upgrade -i gloo-platform-crds gloo-platform/gloo-platform-crds \
       --namespace=gloo-mesh \
       --create-namespace \
       --version=$GLOO_VERSION \
       --kube-context $MGMT_CONTEXT
      
  4. Prepare a Helm values file to provide your customizations. To get started, you can use the minimum settings in the following profile as a basis. These settings enable all components that are required for a Gloo management plane installation.
  5. Decide how you want to secure the relay connection between the Gloo management server and agents. In test and POC environments, you can use self-signed certificates to secure the connection. If you plan to use Gloo Mesh Enterprise in production, it is recommended to bring your own certificates instead. For more information, see Setup options.

  6. Edit the file to provide your own details for settings that are recommended for production deployments, such as the following settings.

    FieldDecription
    glooMgmtServer.resources.limitsAdd resource limits for the gloo-mesh-mgmt-server pod, such as cpu: 1000m and memory: 1Gi.
    glooMgmtServer.safeMode
    glooMgmtServer.safeStartWindow
    Configure how you want the Gloo management server to handle translation after a Redis restart. For available options, see Redis safe mode options.
    glooMgmtServer.serviceOverrides.metadata.annotationsAdd annotations for the management server load balancer as needed, such as AWS-specific load balancer annotations. For more information, see Deployment and service overrides.
    glooUi.authSet up OIDC authorization for the Gloo UI. For more information, see UI authentication.
    prometheus.enabledDisable the default Prometheus instance as needed to provide your own. Otherwise, you can keep the default Prometheus server enabled, and deploy a production-level server to scrape metrics from the server. For more information on each option, see Best practices for collecting metrics in production.
    redisDisable the default Redis deployment and provide your own backing database as needed. For more information, see Backing databases.
    OpenShift: glooMgmtServer.serviceType and telemetryGateway.service.typeIn some OpenShift setups, you might not use load balancer service types. You can set these two deployment service types to ClusterIP, and expose them by using OpenShift routes after installation.
  7. Use the customizations in your Helm values file to install the Gloo management plane components in your management cluster.

  8. Verify that the management plane pods have a status of Running.

      kubectl get pods -n gloo-mesh --context $MGMT_CONTEXT
      

    Example output:

      NAME                                      READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
    gloo-mesh-mgmt-server-56c495796b-cx687    1/1     Running   0          30s
    gloo-mesh-redis-8455d49c86-f8qhw          1/1     Running   0          30s
    gloo-mesh-ui-65b6b6df5f-bf4vp             3/3     Running   0          30s
    gloo-telemetry-collector-agent-7rzfb      1/1     Running   0          30s
    gloo-telemetry-gateway-6547f479d5-r4zm6   1/1     Running   0          30s
    prometheus-server-57cd8c74d4-2bc7f        2/2     Running   0          30s
      
  9. Save the external address and port that your cloud provider assigned to the Gloo OpenTelemetry (OTel) gateway service. The OTel collector agents in each workload cluster send metrics to this address.

  10. Save the external address and port that your cloud provider assigned to the gloo-mesh-mgmt-server service. The gloo-mesh-agent agent in each workload cluster accesses this address via a secure connection.

  11. Create a workspace that selects all clusters and namespaces by default, and workspace settings that enable communication across clusters. Gloo workspaces let you organize team resources across Kubernetes namespaces and clusters. In this example, you create a global workspace that imports and exports all resources and namespaces, and a workspace settings resource in the gloo-mesh-config namespace. Later, as your teams grow, you can create a workspace for each team, to enforce service isolation, set up federation, and even share resources by importing and exporting.

  kubectl apply --context $MGMT_CONTEXT -f- <<EOF
apiVersion: admin.gloo.solo.io/v2
kind: Workspace
metadata:
  name: $MGMT_CLUSTER
  namespace: gloo-mesh
spec:
  workloadClusters:
    - name: '*'
      namespaces:
        - name: '*'
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Namespace
metadata:
  name: gloo-mesh-config
---
apiVersion: admin.gloo.solo.io/v2
kind: WorkspaceSettings
metadata:
  name: $MGMT_CLUSTER
  namespace: gloo-mesh-config
spec:
  options:
    serviceIsolation:
      enabled: false
    federation:
      enabled: false
      serviceSelector:
      - {}
    eastWestGateways:
    - selector:
        labels:
          istio: eastwestgateway
EOF
  

Data plane

Register each workload cluster with the Gloo management plane by deploying Gloo data plane components. A deployment named gloo-mesh-agent runs the Gloo agent in each workload cluster.

  1. For the workload cluster that you want to register with Gloo, set the following environment variables. You update these variables each time you follow these steps to register another workload cluster.

      export REMOTE_CLUSTER=<workload_cluster_name>
    export REMOTE_CONTEXT=<workload_cluster_context>
      
  2. In the management cluster, create a KubernetesCluster resource to represent the workload cluster and store relevant data, such as the workload cluster’s local domain.

      kubectl apply --context $MGMT_CONTEXT -f- <<EOF
    apiVersion: admin.gloo.solo.io/v2
    kind: KubernetesCluster
    metadata:
       name: ${REMOTE_CLUSTER}
       namespace: gloo-mesh
    spec:
       clusterDomain: cluster.local
    EOF
      
  3. In your workload cluster, apply the Gloo CRDs. Note: If you plan to manually deploy and manage your Istio installation in workload clusters rather than using Solo’s Istio lifecycle manager, include the --set installIstioOperator=false flag to ensure that the Istio operator CRD is not managed by this Gloo CRD Helm release.

      helm upgrade -i gloo-platform-crds gloo-platform/gloo-platform-crds \
       --namespace=gloo-mesh \
       --create-namespace \
       --version=$GLOO_VERSION \
       --kube-context $REMOTE_CONTEXT
      
  4. Prepare a Helm values file to provide your customizations. To get started, you can use the minimum settings in the following profile as a basis. These settings enable all components that are required for a Gloo data plane installation.
  5. Depending on the method you chose to secure the relay connection, prepare the Helm values for the data plane installation. For more information, see the Setup options.

  6. Edit the file to provide your own details for settings that are recommended for production deployments, such as the following settings.

    FieldDecription
    glooAgent.resources.limitsAdd resource limits for the gloo-mesh-mgmt-server pod, such as cpu: 500m and memory: 512Mi.
    extAuthService.enabledSet to true to install the external auth server add-on.
    rateLimiter.enabledSet to true to install the rate limit server add-on.
  7. Use the customizations in your Helm values file to install the Gloo data plane components in your workload cluster.

  8. Verify that the Gloo data plane component pods are running. If not, try debugging the agent.

      meshctl check --kubecontext $REMOTE_CONTEXT
      

    Example output:

      🟢 Gloo deployment status
    
    Namespace | Name                           | Ready | Status
    gloo-mesh | ext-auth-service               | 1/1   | Healthy
    gloo-mesh | gloo-mesh-agent                | 1/1   | Healthy
    gloo-mesh | gloo-telemetry-collector-agent | 3/3   | Healthy
    gloo-mesh | rate-limiter                   | 1/1   | Healthy
      
  9. Repeat steps 1 - 8 to register each workload cluster with Gloo.

  10. Verify that your Gloo Mesh Enterprise 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 licenses are 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 agents in the workload clusters are successfully identified by the management server.
      meshctl check --kubecontext $MGMT_CONTEXT
      

    Example output:

      🟢 License status
    
    INFO  gloo-mesh enterprise license expiration is 25 Aug 24 10:38 CDT
    INFO  No GraphQL license module found for any product
    
    🟢 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 | gloo-telemetry-gateway         | 1/1   | Healthy
    gloo-mesh | prometheus-server              | 1/1   | Healthy
    
    🟢 Mgmt server connectivity to workload agents
    
    Cluster  | Registered | Connected Pod                                   
    cluster1 | true       | gloo-mesh/gloo-mesh-mgmt-server-65bd557b95-v8qq6
    cluster2 | true       | gloo-mesh/gloo-mesh-mgmt-server-65bd557b95-v8qq6
    
    Connected Pod                                    | Clusters
    gloo-mesh/gloo-mesh-mgmt-server-65bd557b95-v8qq6 | 2  
      

Istio

Deploy Istio on each workload cluster.

Optional: Configure the locality labels for the nodes

Gloo Mesh Enterprise uses Kubernetes labels on the nodes in your clusters to indicate locality for the services that run on the nodes. For more information, see the Kubernetes topology and Istio locality documentation.

  • Cloud: Typically, your cloud provider sets the Kubernetes region and zone labels for each node automatically. Depending on the level of availability that you want, you might have clusters in the same region, but different zones. Or, each cluster might be in a different region, with nodes spread across zones.
  • On-premises: Depending on how you set up your cluster, you likely must set the region and zone labels for each node yourself. Additionally, consider setting a subzone label to specify nodes on the same rack or other more granular setups.
  1. Verify that your nodes have at least region and zone labels.

      kubectl get nodes --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT1 -o jsonpath='{.items[*].metadata.labels}'
    kubectl get nodes --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT2 -o jsonpath='{.items[*].metadata.labels}'
      

    Example output with region and zone labels:

      ..."topology.kubernetes.io/region":"us-east","topology.kubernetes.io/zone":"us-east-2"
      
    • If your nodes have at least region and zone labels, and you do not want to update the labels, you can skip the remaining steps.
    • If your nodes do not already have region and zone labels, you must add the labels. Depending on your cluster setup, you might add the same region label to each node, but a separate zone label per node. The values are not validated against your underlying infrastructure provider. The following steps show how you might label multizone clusters in two different regions, but you can adapt the steps for your actual setup.
  2. Label all the nodes in each cluster for the region. If your nodes have incorrect region labels, include the --overwrite flag in the command.

      kubectl label nodes --all --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT1 topology.kubernetes.io/region=us-east
    kubectl label nodes --all --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT2 topology.kubernetes.io/region=us-west
      
  3. List the nodes in each cluster. Note the name for each node.

      kubectl get nodes --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT1
    kubectl get nodes --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT2
      
  4. Label each node in each cluster for the zone. If your nodes have incorrect zone labels, include the --overwrite flag in the command.

      kubectl label node <cluster1_node-1> --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT1 topology.kubernetes.io/zone=us-east-1
    kubectl label node <cluster1_node-2> --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT1 topology.kubernetes.io/zone=us-east-2
    kubectl label node <cluster1_node-3> --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT1 topology.kubernetes.io/zone=us-east-3
    
    kubectl label node <cluster2_node-1> --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT2 topology.kubernetes.io/zone=us-west-1
    kubectl label node <cluster2_node-2> --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT2 topology.kubernetes.io/zone=us-west-2
    kubectl label node <cluster2_node-3> --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT2 topology.kubernetes.io/zone=us-west-3
      

Next steps

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

Gloo Mesh Enterprise:

Istio:

Help and support: