Install Istio with EKS add-on

Install the EKS add-on by using the eksctl command line tool. For complete EKS add-on instructions, see the AWS docs (eksctl Tab).

1. Get the name and region of the cluster that you want to install the add-on in.

     eksctl get clusters -A
     

2. Install the add-on, replacing the cluster and region with the values that you got in the previous step. For more options, such as specific version of the add-on, run eksctl create addon --help.

     eksctl create addon --name solo-io_istio-distro --cluster $CLUSTER --region $REGION --version v1.21.2-eksbuild.1
     

   To pass more parameters, you can create a temporary configuration manifest and apply it using eksctl. For example, to enable Istio request logging, you can use the following command:

     cat <<EOF | eksctl create addon -f -
   apiVersion: eksctl.io/v1alpha5
   kind: ClusterConfig
   metadata:
     name: $CLUSTER
     region: $REGION
   addons:
   - name: solo-io_istio-distro
     configurationValues: |-
       meshConfig:
         accessLogFile: "/dev/stdout"
     version: v1.21.2-eksbuild.1
   EOF
     

3. Check that the status of the addon is ACTIVE with null issues. If the installation takes more than a few minutes, review the add-on status. Common issues include a lack of compute resources to run Istio, such as no nodes.

     eksctl get addon --cluster $CLUSTER --region $REGION -oyaml
     

   Example output:

     
   - ConfigurationValues: |-
       meshConfig:
         accessLogFile: "/dev/stdout"
     IAMRole: ""
     Issues: null
     Name: solo-io_istio-distro
     NewerVersion: ""
     PodIdentityAssociations: null
     Status: ACTIVE
     Version: v1.21.2-eksbuild.1
     

Install the EKS add-on by using the aws command line tool. For complete AWS command line tool add-on instructions, see the AWS docs (AWS CLI tab).

1. Get the name and region of the cluster that you want to install the add-on in.

     aws eks list-clusters --region $REGION
     

2. Set the name and region of the cluster that you want to install the add-on in. Replace <your-cluster-region> and <name-of-your-EKS-cluster> with the values that you got in the previous step.

     # Set your cluster region (for example, us-west-2)
   export REGION=<your-cluster-region>
   
   # Set the name of your EKS cluster
   export CLUSTER=<name-of-your-EKS-cluster>
     

3. Install the add-on. For more options, such as to set a specific version of the add-on, run eksctl create addon --help.

     aws eks create-addon --cluster-name $CLUSTER --region $REGION \
     --addon-name solo-io_istio-distro \
     --addon-version v1.21.2-eksbuild.1
     

   To pass custom parameters to an AWS EKS add-on, convert your YAML configuration to JSON. Then, pass the JSON in the aws command, such as in the following example to enable Istio request logging.

     aws eks create-addon --cluster-name $CLUSTER --region $REGION \
     --addon-name solo-io_istio-distro \
     --addon-version v1.21.2-eksbuild.1 \
     --configuration-values '{"meshConfig":{"accessLogFile":"/dev/stdout"}}'
     

4. Check that the status of the addon is ACTIVE with empty [] in Issues section. If the installation takes more than a few minutes, review the add-on status. Common issues include a lack of compute resources to run Istio, such as no nodes.

     aws eks describe-addon --cluster-name $CLUSTER --region $REGION --addon-name solo-io_istio-distro
     

   Example output:

     {
       "addon": {
           "addonName": "solo-io_istio-distro",
           "clusterName": "solo-istio-docs-petr",
           "status": "ACTIVE",
           "addonVersion": "v1.21.2-eksbuild.1",
           "health": {
               "issues": []
           },
           "addonArn": "arn:aws:eks:us-west-2:123456789012:addon/solo-istio-docs-petr/solo-io_istio-distro/56c7solo-4f80-019d-44b5-3soloio4906f",
           "createdAt": "2024-06-06TXX:XX:XX.000000-07:00",
           "modifiedAt": "2024-06-06TXX:XX:XX.000000-07:00",
           "tags": {}
       }
   }
     

Install the EKS add-on by using Terraform, such as for a GitOps pipeline.

1. Get the cluster name, cluster region, and EKS add-on version that you want to install.

2. Use the following example inside of your Terraform project, or directly by saving the example as main.tf. Replace the region, cluster_name and addon_version with the values that you previously got.

     provider "aws" {
     region = local.region
   }
   
   terraform {
     required_version = ">= 1.0.0"
   
     required_providers {
       aws = {
         source  = "hashicorp/aws"
         version = ">= 4.47"
       }
     }
   }
   
   locals {
     region        = "<your-cluster-region>"      # Replace with your cluster region (for example, us-west-2)
     cluster_name  = "<name-of-your-EKS-cluster>" # Replace with the name of your EKS cluster
     addon_version = "v1.21.2-eksbuild.1"         # Replace with your desired addon version; for Ambient add extra '0' *(for example, v1.21.20-eksbuild.1)
   }
   
   resource "aws_eks_addon" "solo-io_istio-distro" {
     cluster_name                = local.cluster_name
     addon_name                  = "solo-io_istio-distro"
     resolve_conflicts_on_update = "OVERWRITE"
     addon_version               = local.addon_version
     configuration_values = jsonencode({
       meshConfig : {
         accessLogFile : "/dev/stdout"
       }
     })
   }
     

3. From the directory of the main.tf file, run the Terraform commands to build the EKS add-on infrastructure.

     terraform init
   terraform plan
   terraform apply -auto-approve