Switch from unmanaged to managed Istio installations

Introduction link

If you already maintain existing Istio installations, you can migrate those installations to the Gloo Mesh Enterprise service mesh lifecycle management system. Then, you can use Gloo to manage the configuration and maintenance of the Istio installations. By using Gloo-managed installations, you no longer need to manually install and manage the istiod control plane in each workload cluster. Instead, you provide the Istio configuration to Gloo, and Gloo translates this configuration into managed istiod control plane for you in the workload clusters.

Considerations link

Before you follow this takeover process, review the following important considerations.

• Revisions:
  • This process involves creating IstioLifecycleManager and GatewayLifecycleManager resources that make use of a different revision than your existing Istio installations. If you do not currently use revisions, no conflict will exist between the new installations and existing installations. If you do currently use revisions, be sure to choose a different revision for the new installations than your existing installations.
  • If you plan to run multiple revisions of Istio in your cluster and use discoverySelectors in each revision to discover the resources in specific namespaces, enable the glooMgmtServer.extraEnvs.IGNORE_REVISIONS_FOR_VIRTUAL_DESTINATION_TRANSLATION environment variable on the Gloo management server. For more information, see Multiple Istio revisions in the same cluster.
• Gateways: To prevent conflicts, be sure to choose a different name or namespace for the new managed gateways than your existing gateways. For example, if your existing gateway is named istio-ingressgateway and deployed in a namespace such as istio-gateways, you can still name the new gateway istio-ingressgateway, but you must deploy it in a different namespace, such as gloo-mesh-gateways.
• Testing: Always test this process in a representative test environment before attempting this process in a production setup.

Before you begin link

1. Follow the get started or advanced installation guide to install the Gloo Mesh Enterprise components.

2. Review Supported versions to choose the Solo distribution of Istio that you want to use, and save the version information in the following environment variables.

   • 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_IMAGE: The version that you want to use with the solo tag, such as 1.20.5-solo. You can optionally append other tags of Solo distributions of Istio as needed.
     warning

     Istio 1.20 is supported only as patch version 1.20.1-patch1 and later. Do not use patch versions 1.20.0 and 1.20.1, which contain bugs that impact several Gloo Mesh Core features that rely on Istio ServiceEntries.
   • REVISION: Take the Istio major and minor versions and replace the periods with hyphens, such as 1-20.
   If you use a revision for your existing Istio installations, be sure to use a different revision than the existing one.

     export REPO=<repo-key>
   export ISTIO_IMAGE=1.20.5-solo
   export REVISION=1-20
     

3. Install istioctl, the Istio CLI tool.

     curl -L https://istio.io/downloadIstio | ISTIO_VERSION=${ISTIO_VERSION} sh -
   cd istio-$ISTIO_VERSION
   export PATH=$PWD/bin:$PATH
     

Multicluster service mesh link

Install the Gloo Mesh Enterprise components and take over the Istio service mesh across multiple clusters.

The takeover process follows these general steps:

1. Install managed service meshes with the same settings as your unmanaged Istio installations. You create an IstioLifecycleManager resource in the management cluster that uses a different revision than the existing Istio installations in your workload clusters. Gloo then deploys istiod control planes for the new revision to each workload cluster, but the new, managed control planes are not active at deployment time.
2. Test the new control plane and gateways by deploying workloads with a label for the new revision and generating traffic to those workloads.
3. Change the new control planes to be active, and rollout a restart to data plane workloads so that the new control planes manage them.
4. Update service selectors or update internal/external DNS entries to point to the new gateways.
5. Uninstall the old Istio installations.

Deploy link

Use Gloo Mesh Enterprise to deploy and manage Istio service meshes in each workload cluster.

istiod control planes link

Prepare an IstioLifecycleManager CR to manage istiod control planes.

1. Download the example file, istiod.yaml, which contains a basic IstioLifecycleManager configuration for the control plane.

     curl -0L https://raw.githubusercontent.com/solo-io/gloo-mesh-use-cases/main/gloo-mesh/istio-install/gm-managed/takeover/gm-istiod.yaml > istiod.yaml
     

   1. Elevate the permissions of the following service accounts that will be created. These permissions allow the Istio sidecarsgateways to make use of a user ID that is normally restricted by OpenShift. For more information, see the Istio on OpenShift documentation.

        oc adm policy add-scc-to-group anyuid system:serviceaccounts:istio-system --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT1
      oc adm policy add-scc-to-group anyuid system:serviceaccounts:gloo-mesh-gateways --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT1
      oc adm policy add-scc-to-group anyuid system:serviceaccounts:gm-iop-1-20 --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT1
      
      oc adm policy add-scc-to-group anyuid system:serviceaccounts:istio-system --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT2
      oc adm policy add-scc-to-group anyuid system:serviceaccounts:gloo-mesh-gateways --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT2
      oc adm policy add-scc-to-group anyuid system:serviceaccounts:gm-iop-1-20 --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT2
        

   2. Create the gloo-mesh-gateways project, and create a NetworkAttachmentDefinition custom resource for the project.

        kubectl create ns gloo-mesh-gateways --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT1
      cat <<EOF | oc --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT1 -n gloo-mesh-gateways create -f -
      apiVersion: "k8s.cni.cncf.io/v1"
      kind: NetworkAttachmentDefinition
      metadata:
        name: istio-cni
      EOF
      
      kubectl create ns gloo-mesh-gateways --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT2
      cat <<EOF | oc --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT2 -n gloo-mesh-gateways create -f -
      apiVersion: "k8s.cni.cncf.io/v1"
      kind: NetworkAttachmentDefinition
      metadata:
        name: istio-cni
      EOF
        

   3. Download the gm-istiod.yaml example file.

        curl -0L https://raw.githubusercontent.com/solo-io/gloo-mesh-use-cases/main/gloo-mesh/istio-install/gm-managed/takeover/gm-istiod-openshift.yaml > istiod.yaml
        

2. Update the example file with the environment variables that you previously set. Save the updated file as istiod-values.yaml.

   • For example, you can run a terminal command to substitute values:

       envsubst < istiod.yaml > istiod-values.yaml
       

3. Verify that the configuration is correct. For example, in spec.installations.clusters, verify that entries exist for each workload cluster name. You can also further edit the file to replicate the settings in your existing Istio installation. For more information, see the API reference.

     open istiod-values.yaml
     

4. Apply the IstioLifecycleManager resource to your management cluster.

     kubectl apply -f istiod-values.yaml --context $MGMT_CONTEXT
     

5. In each workload cluster, verify that the istiod pod for the new revision has a status of Running. Note that these new, managed control planes are not currently the active Istio installations.

     kubectl get pods -n istio-system --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT1
   kubectl get pods -n istio-system --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT2
     

   Example output for one cluster:

     NAME                            READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
   istiod-1-20-b65676555-g2vmr     1/1     Running   0          1m57s
   istiod-1-19-yt72566r9-8j5tr     1/1     Running   0          23d
     

East-west gateways link

Prepare a GatewayLifecycleManager custom resource to manage the east-west gateways.

1. Download the example file.

     curl -0L https://raw.githubusercontent.com/solo-io/gloo-mesh-use-cases/main/gloo-mesh/istio-install/gm-managed/gm-ew-gateway.yaml > ew-gateway.yaml
     

2. Update the example file with the environment variables that you previously set. Save the updated file as ew-gateway-values.yaml.

   • For example, you can run a terminal command to substitute values:

       envsubst < ew-gateway.yaml > ew-gateway-values.yaml
       

3. Verify that the configuration is correct. You can also further edit the file to replicate the settings in your existing Istio installation. For more information, see the API reference.

     open ew-gateway-values.yaml
     

4. Apply the GatewayLifecycleManager CR to your management cluster.

     kubectl apply -f ew-gateway-values.yaml --context $MGMT_CONTEXT
     

5. In each workload cluster, verify that the east-west gateway pod for the new revision is running in the gloo-mesh-gateways namespace.

     kubectl get pods -n gloo-mesh-gateways --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT1
   kubectl get pods -n gloo-mesh-gateways --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT2
     

   Example output for one cluster:

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

6. In each workload cluster, verify that the load balancer service for the new revision has an external address.

     kubectl get svc -n gloo-mesh-gateways --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT1
   kubectl get svc -n gloo-mesh-gateways --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT2
     

   Example output for one cluster:

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

Optional: Ingress gateways link

If you want to allow traffic from outside the cluster to enter your mesh, create a GatewayLifecycleManager resource to deploy and manage an ingress gateway. The ingress gateway allows you to specify basic routing rules for how to match and forward incoming traffic to a workload in the mesh. However, to also apply policies, such as rate limits, external authentication, or a Web Application Firewall to the gateway, you must have a Gloo Mesh Gateway license. For more information about Gloo Mesh Gateway, see the docs. If you want a service mesh-only environment without ingress, you can skip this step.

1. Download the example file.

     curl -0L https://raw.githubusercontent.com/solo-io/gloo-mesh-use-cases/main/gloo-mesh/istio-install/gm-managed/gm-ingress-gateway.yaml > ingress-gateway.yaml
     

2. Update the example file with the environment variables that you previously set. Save the updated file as ingress-gateway-values.yaml.

   • For example, you can run a terminal command to substitute values:

       envsubst < ingress-gateway.yaml > ingress-gateway-values.yaml
       

3. Verify that the configuration is correct. You can also further edit the file to replicate the settings in your existing Istio installation. For more information, see the API reference.

     open ingress-gateway-values.yaml
     

   • You can add cloud provider-specific load balancer annotations to the istioOperatorSpec.components.ingressGateways.k8s section, such as the following AWS annotations:

               ...
               k8s:
                 service:
                   ...
                 serviceAnnotations:
                   service.beta.kubernetes.io/aws-load-balancer-backend-protocol: ssl
                   service.beta.kubernetes.io/aws-load-balancer-cross-zone-load-balancing-enabled: "true"
                   service.beta.kubernetes.io/aws-load-balancer-nlb-target-type: instance
                   service.beta.kubernetes.io/aws-load-balancer-scheme: internet-facing
                   service.beta.kubernetes.io/aws-load-balancer-ssl-cert: "arn:aws:acm:<cert>"
                   service.beta.kubernetes.io/aws-load-balancer-type: external
       

4. Apply the GatewayLifecycleManager CR to your management cluster.

     kubectl apply -f ingress-gateway-values.yaml --context $MGMT_CONTEXT
     

5. In each workload cluster, verify that the ingress gateway pod for the new revision is running in the gloo-mesh-gateways namespace.

     kubectl get pods -n gloo-mesh-gateways --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT1
   kubectl get pods -n gloo-mesh-gateways --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT2
     

   Example output for one cluster:

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

6. In each workload cluster, verify that the load balancer service for the new revision has an external address.

     kubectl get svc -n gloo-mesh-gateways --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT1
   kubectl get svc -n gloo-mesh-gateways --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT2
     

   Example output for one cluster:

     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
     

   info

   AWS clusters: For the Elastic Load Balancer (ELB) instance that is automatically created for you to back the ingress gateway service, verify that the health check shows a healthy state. Gloo Mesh Core configures the ingress gateway to listen on HTTPS port 15443. However, when the ELB is created, the first port that is defined in the Kubernetes service manifest is used to perform the health check. This port might be different from the port that Gloo configures. For your ELB health check to pass, you might need to configure the load balancer to run the health check on port 15443.

Optional: Egress gateways link

Prepare a GatewayLifecycleManager resource to deploy and manage egress gateways.

1. Download the example file, egress-gateway.yaml, which contains a basic GatewayLifecycleManager configuration for an egress gateway.

     curl -0L https://raw.githubusercontent.com/solo-io/gloo-mesh-use-cases/main/gloo-mesh/istio-install/gm-managed/gm-egress-gateway.yaml > egress-gateway.yaml
     

2. Update the example file with the environment variables that you previously set. Save the updated file as egress-gateway-values.yaml.

   • For example, you can run a terminal command to substitute values:

       envsubst < egress-gateway.yaml > egress-gateway-values.yaml
       

3. Verify that the configuration is correct. For example, in spec.installations.clusters, verify that entries exist for each workload cluster name. You can also further edit the file to replicate the settings in your existing Istio installation. For more information, see the API reference.

     open egress-gateway-values.yaml
     

4. Apply the GatewayLifecycleManager resource to your management cluster.

     kubectl apply -f egress-gateway-values.yaml --context $MGMT_CONTEXT
     

5. In each workload cluster, verify that the egress gateway pod for the new revision is running in the gloo-mesh-gateways namespace.

     kubectl get pods -n gloo-mesh-gateways --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT1
   kubectl get pods -n gloo-mesh-gateways --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT2
     

   Example output for one cluster:

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

6. In each workload cluster, verify that the load balancer service for the new revision has an external address.

     kubectl get svc -n gloo-mesh-gateways --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT1
   kubectl get svc -n gloo-mesh-gateways --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT2
     

   Example output for one cluster:

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

Test link

Test the new Istio installation by deploying the Istio sample app, Bookinfo, and updating its sidecars from the old revision to the new.

1. Create the bookinfo namespace in one workload cluster.

     kubectl create ns bookinfo --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT1
     

2. Label the namespaces for Istio injection with the old revision so that the old revision’s control plane manages the services.

     kubectl label ns bookinfo istio.io/rev=<old_revision> --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT1
     

   check_circle

   If you did not previously use revision labels for your apps, you can instead run kubectl label ns bookinfo istio-injection --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT1.

3. Deploy the Bookinfo app to your workload cluster.

     # deploy bookinfo app components for all versions less than v3
   kubectl -n bookinfo apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/istio/istio/1.20.5/samples/bookinfo/platform/kube/bookinfo.yaml -l 'app,version notin (v3)' --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT1
   # 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 --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT1
   # deploy all bookinfo service accounts
   kubectl -n bookinfo apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/istio/istio/1.20.5/samples/bookinfo/platform/kube/bookinfo.yaml -l 'account' --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT1
     

4. Verify that the Bookinfo app deployed successfully.

     kubectl get pods -n bookinfo --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT1
     

5. Verify that Bookinfo still points to the old revision.

     istioctl proxy-status --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT1 | grep "\.bookinfo "
     

   In this example output, the Bookinfo apps in cluster1 still point to the existing Istio installation that uses version 1.19.10.

     NAME                                                              CLUSTER   ...  ISTIOD                           VERSION
   details-v1-6758dd9d8d-rh4db.bookinfo                              cluster1  ...  istiod-66d54b865-6b6zt           1.19.10
   productpage-v1-b4cf67f67-s5lsh.bookinfo                           cluster1  ...  istiod-66d54b865-6b6zt           1.19.10
   ratings-v1-f849dc6d-wqdc8.bookinfo                                cluster1  ...  istiod-66d54b865-6b6zt           1.19.10
   reviews-v1-74fb8fdbd8-z8bzc.bookinfo                              cluster1  ...  istiod-66d54b865-6b6zt           1.19.10
   reviews-v2-58d564d4db-g8jzr.bookinfo                              cluster1  ...  istiod-66d54b865-6b6zt           1.19.10
     

6. Prepare any testing to confirm that the Bookinfo apps are still available when you update the apps’ sidecars to use the new revision. For example, if you have an ingress gateway load balancer in your environment, you might follow these steps to ensure you can access Bookinfo:

   1. Apply Istio gateway and virtual service resources to expose the Bookinfo app.

        kubectl --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT1 -n bookinfo apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/istio/istio/1.20.5/samples/bookinfo/networking/bookinfo-gateway.yaml
        

   2. Get the address for your existing ingress gateway, and send a request to the productpage service.

        curl http://<gateway_address>:80/productpage
        

7. Test the transition to the new installation on Bookinfo by changing the label on the bookinfo namespace to use the new revision.

     kubectl label ns bookinfo istio.io/rev=$REVISION --overwrite --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT1
     

   check_circle

   If you did not previously use revision labels for your apps, you can instead run kubectl label ns bookinfo istio-injection- --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT1 and kubectl label ns bookinfo istio.io/rev=$REVISION --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT1.

8. Update Bookinfo by rolling out restarts to each of the microservices. The Istio sidecars for each microservice update to use the new Istio version. Make sure that you only restart one microservice at a time. For example, in the following commands, 20 seconds elapse between each restart to ensure that the pods have time to start running.

     kubectl rollout restart deployment -n bookinfo details-v1 --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT1
   sleep 20s
   kubectl rollout restart deployment -n bookinfo ratings-v1 --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT1
   sleep 20s
   kubectl rollout restart deployment -n bookinfo productpage-v1 --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT1
   sleep 20s
   kubectl rollout restart deployment -n bookinfo reviews-v1 --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT1
   sleep 20s
   kubectl rollout restart deployment -n bookinfo reviews-v2 --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT1
     

9. Verify that the Bookinfo pods now use the new revision.

     istioctl proxy-status --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT1 | grep "\.bookinfo "
     

10. If you exposed Bookinfo, verify that the productpage for Bookinfo is now reachable after the upgrade through the new ingress gateway.

    1. Save the external address of the ingress gateway that runs the new revision.

         export INGRESS_GW_IP=$(kubectl get svc -n gloo-mesh-gateways istio-ingressgateway -o jsonpath='{.status.loadBalancer.ingress[0].ip}') --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT1
       echo $INGRESS_GW_IP
         

         export INGRESS_GW_IP=$(kubectl get svc -n gloo-mesh-gateways istio-ingressgateway -o jsonpath='{.status.loadBalancer.ingress[0].hostname}') --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT1
       echo $INGRESS_GW_IP
         

    2. Send a request to the productpage service.

         open http://$INGRESS_GW_IP/productpage
         

Activate link

After you finish testing, change the new control plane to be active, and rollout a restart to data plane workloads so that the new control plane manages them. You can also optionally uninstall the old Istio installation.

1. In your IstioLifecycleManager resource, switch to the new istiod control plane revision by changing defaultRevision to true.

     kubectl edit IstioLifecycleManager -n gloo-mesh --context $MGMT_CONTEXT istiod-control-plane
     

   Example:

     apiVersion: admin.gloo.solo.io/v2
   kind: IstioLifecycleManager
   metadata:
     name: istiod-control-plane
     namespace: gloo-mesh
   spec:
     installations:
       - revision: 1-20
         clusters:
         - name: cluster1
           # Set this field to TRUE
           defaultRevision: true
         - name: cluster2
           # Set this field to TRUE
           defaultRevision: true
         istioOperatorSpec:
           profile: minimal
           ...
     

2. In each workload cluster, roll out a restart to your workload apps so that the new control planes manage them.

   1. Change the label on any Istio-managed namespaces to use the new revision.

        kubectl label ns <namespace> istio.io/rev=$REVISION --overwrite --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT1
      kubectl label ns <namespace> istio.io/rev=$REVISION --overwrite --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT2
        

      check_circle

      If you did not previously use revision labels for your apps, you can instead run kubectl label ns [namespace] istio-injection- --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT1 and kubectl label ns [namespace] istio.io/rev=$REVISION --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT1.
   2. Update any Istio-managed apps by rolling out restarts. The Istio sidecars for each microservice update to use the new Istio version. Make sure that you only restart one microservice at a time.
   3. Verify that your workloads and new gateways point to the new revision.

        istioctl proxy-status --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT1
      istioctl proxy-status --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT2
        

3. If you use any gateways, you can either update the service selectors for your load balancers to point to the new revision, or update your DNS entries to point to the addresses of the new gateways.

4. Uninstall the old Istio installations. The uninstallation process varies depending on your original installation method. For more information, see the Istio documentation.

Single-cluster service mesh link

Use Gloo Mesh Enterprise to take over the Istio service mesh in one cluster.

The takeover process follows these general steps:

1. Install a managed service mesh with the same settings as your unmanaged Istio installation. The Gloo management plane installs an Istio service mesh for you in the cluster, which runs a hardened Solo distribution of Istio and a different revision than your existing Istio installation. The managed istiod control plane for the new installation is not active at deployment time.
2. Test the new control plane by deploying workloads with a label for the new revision and generating traffic to those workloads.
3. Change the new control plane to be active, and rollout a restart to data plane workloads so that the new control plane manages them.
4. Update service selectors or update internal/external DNS entries for your Istio gateways.
5. Uninstall the old Istio installation.

Deploy link

Use Gloo Mesh Enterprise to deploy a managed service mesh that replicates the settings from your unmanaged Istio installation.

istiod control plane link

Prepare an IstioLifecycleManager CR to manage the istiod control plane.

1. Download the example file, istiod.yaml, which contains a basic IstioLifecycleManager configuration for the control plane.

     curl -0L https://raw.githubusercontent.com/solo-io/gloo-mesh-use-cases/main/gloo-mesh/istio-install/gm-managed/single-cluster/gm-istiod-single.yaml > istiod.yaml
     

   1. Elevate the permissions of the following service accounts that will be created. These permissions allow the Istio sidecarsgateways to make use of a user ID that is normally restricted by OpenShift. For more information, see the Istio on OpenShift documentation.

        oc adm policy add-scc-to-group anyuid system:serviceaccounts:istio-system
      oc adm policy add-scc-to-group anyuid system:serviceaccounts:gloo-mesh-gateways
      # Update revision as needed
      oc adm policy add-scc-to-group anyuid system:serviceaccounts:gm-iop-1-20
        

   2. Elevate the permissions of the service account in each project where you want to deploy workloads. This permission allows the Istio sidecars to make use of a user ID that is normally restricted by OpenShift.

        oc adm policy add-scc-to-group anyuid system:serviceaccounts:<project>
        

   3. Create the gloo-mesh-gateways project, and create a NetworkAttachmentDefinition custom resource for the project.

        kubectl create ns gloo-mesh-gateways
      cat <<EOF | oc -n gloo-mesh-gateways create -f -
      apiVersion: "k8s.cni.cncf.io/v1"
      kind: NetworkAttachmentDefinition
      metadata:
        name: istio-cni
      EOF
        

   4. Create a NetworkAttachmentDefinition custom resource for each project where you want to deploy workloads.

        cat <<EOF | oc -n <project> create -f -
      apiVersion: "k8s.cni.cncf.io/v1"
      kind: NetworkAttachmentDefinition
      metadata:
        name: istio-cni
      EOF
        

   5. Download the example file.

        curl -0L https://raw.githubusercontent.com/solo-io/gloo-mesh-use-cases/main/gloo-mesh/istio-install/gm-managed/single-cluster/gm-istiod-openshift-single.yaml > istiod.yaml
        

2. Download the example file, istiod.yaml, which contains a basic IstioLifecycleManager configuration for the control plane.

     curl -0L https://raw.githubusercontent.com/solo-io/gloo-mesh-use-cases/main/gloo-mesh-core/istio-install/managed/single/takeover-istiod.yaml > istiod.yaml
     

3. Update the example file with the environment variables that you previously set. Save the updated file as istiod-values.yaml.

   • For example, you can run a terminal command to substitute values:

       envsubst < istiod.yaml > istiod-values.yaml
       

4. Verify that the configuration is correct. You can also further edit the file to provide your own details. For more information, see the API reference.

     open istiod-values.yaml
     

5. Apply the IstioLifecycleManager resource to your cluster.

     kubectl apply -f istiod-values.yaml
     

6. Verify that the istiod pod for the new revision has a status of Running. Note that this new, managed control plane is not currently the active Istio installation.

     kubectl get pods -n istio-system
     

   Example output:

     NAME                            READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
   istiod-1-20-b65676555-g2vmr     1/1     Running   0          1m57s
   istiod-1-19-yt72566r9-8j5tr     1/1     Running   0          23d
     

Optional: Ingress gateway link

If you want to allow traffic from outside the cluster to enter your mesh, create a GatewayLifecycleManager resource to deploy and manage an ingress gateway. The ingress gateway allows you to specify basic routing rules for how to match and forward incoming traffic to a workload in the mesh. However, to also apply policies, such as rate limits, external authentication, or a Web Application Firewall to the gateway, you must have a Gloo Mesh Gateway license. For more information about Gloo Mesh Gateway, see the docs. If you want a service mesh-only environment without ingress, you can skip this step.

1. Download the example file.

     curl -0L https://raw.githubusercontent.com/solo-io/gloo-mesh-use-cases/main/gloo-mesh/istio-install/gm-managed/single-cluster/gm-ingress-gateway.yaml > ingress-gateway.yaml
     

2. Update the example file with the environment variables that you previously set. Save the updated file as ingress-gateway-values.yaml.

   • For example, you can run a terminal command to substitute values:

       envsubst < ingress-gateway.yaml > ingress-gateway-values.yaml
       

3. Verify that the configuration is correct. You can also further edit the file to replicate the settings in your existing Istio installation. For more information, see the API reference.

     open ingress-gateway-values.yaml
     

   • You can add cloud provider-specific load balancer annotations to the istioOperatorSpec.components.ingressGateways.k8s section, such as the following AWS annotations:

               ...
               k8s:
                 service:
                   ...
                 serviceAnnotations:
                   service.beta.kubernetes.io/aws-load-balancer-backend-protocol: ssl
                   service.beta.kubernetes.io/aws-load-balancer-cross-zone-load-balancing-enabled: "true"
                   service.beta.kubernetes.io/aws-load-balancer-nlb-target-type: instance
                   service.beta.kubernetes.io/aws-load-balancer-scheme: internet-facing
                   service.beta.kubernetes.io/aws-load-balancer-ssl-cert: "arn:aws:acm:<cert>"
                   service.beta.kubernetes.io/aws-load-balancer-type: external
       

4. Apply the GatewayLifecycleManager CR to your cluster.

     kubectl apply -f ingress-gateway-values.yaml
     

5. In the gloo-mesh-gateways namespace, verify that the ingress gateway pod for the new revision is running and that the load balancer service has an external address.

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

   info

   AWS clusters: For the Elastic Load Balancer (ELB) instance that is automatically created for you to back the ingress gateway service, verify that the health check shows a healthy state. Gloo Mesh Core configures the ingress gateway to listen on HTTPS port 15443. However, when the ELB is created, the first port that is defined in the Kubernetes service manifest is used to perform the health check. This port might be different from the port that Gloo configures. For your ELB health check to pass, you might need to configure the load balancer to run the health check on port 15443.

6. Optional for OpenShift: Expose the ingress gateway by using an OpenShift route.

     oc -n gloo-mesh-gateways expose svc istio-ingressgateway --port=http2
     

Optional: Egress gateway link

Prepare a GatewayLifecycleManager resource to deploy and manage an egress gateway.

1. Download the example file, egress-gateway.yaml, which contains a basic GatewayLifecycleManager configuration for an egress gateway.

  curl -0L https://raw.githubusercontent.com/solo-io/gloo-mesh-use-cases/main/gloo-mesh/istio-install/gm-managed/single-cluster/gm-egress-gateway.yaml > egress-gateway.yaml
  

2. Update the example file with the environment variables that you previously set. Save the updated file as egress-gateway-values.yaml.

   • For example, you can run a terminal command to substitute values:

       envsubst < egress-gateway.yaml > egress-gateway-values.yaml
       

3. Verify that the configuration is correct. You can also further edit the file to replicate the settings in your existing Istio installation. For more information, see the API reference.

     open egress-gateway-values.yaml
     

4. Apply the GatewayLifecycleManager resource to your cluster.

     kubectl apply -f egress-gateway-values.yaml
     

5. In the gloo-mesh-gateways namespace, verify that the egress gateway pod for the new revision is running and that the load balancer service has an external address.

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

   Example output for one cluster:

     NAME                                    READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
   istio-egressgateway-665d46686f-nhh52    1/1     Running   0          106s
   
   NAME                       TYPE           CLUSTER-IP      EXTERNAL-IP   PORT(S)                                                                         AGE
   istio-egressgateway        LoadBalancer   10.96.252.49    <externalip>  15021:32378/TCP,80:30315/TCP,443:32186/TCP,31400:30313/TCP,15443:31632/TCP      2m2s
     

Test link

Test the new managed service mesh by deploying the Istio sample app, Bookinfo, and updating its sidecars from the old revision to the new.

1. Create the bookinfo namespace.

     kubectl create ns bookinfo
     

2. Label the namespace for Istio injection with the old revision so that the old revision’s control plane manages the services.

     kubectl label ns bookinfo istio.io/rev=<old_revision>
     

   check_circle

   If you did not previously use revision labels for your apps, you can instead run kubectl label ns bookinfo istio-injection.

3. Deploy the Bookinfo app.

     # deploy bookinfo app components for all versions less than v3
   kubectl -n bookinfo apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/istio/istio/1.20.5/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/1.20.5/samples/bookinfo/platform/kube/bookinfo.yaml -l 'account'
     

4. Verify that the Bookinfo app deployed successfully.

     kubectl get pods -n bookinfo
   kubectl get svc -n bookinfo
     

5. Verify that Bookinfo still points to the old revision.

     istioctl proxy-status | grep "\.bookinfo "
     

   In this example output, the Bookinfo apps still point to the existing Istio installation that uses version 1.19.10.

     NAME                                                              CLUSTER   ...  ISTIOD                           VERSION
   details-v1-6758dd9d8d-rh4db.bookinfo                              cluster1  ...  istiod-66d54b865-6b6zt           1.19.10
   productpage-v1-b4cf67f67-s5lsh.bookinfo                           cluster1  ...  istiod-66d54b865-6b6zt           1.19.10
   ratings-v1-f849dc6d-wqdc8.bookinfo                                cluster1  ...  istiod-66d54b865-6b6zt           1.19.10
   reviews-v1-74fb8fdbd8-z8bzc.bookinfo                              cluster1  ...  istiod-66d54b865-6b6zt           1.19.10
   reviews-v2-58d564d4db-g8jzr.bookinfo                              cluster1  ...  istiod-66d54b865-6b6zt           1.19.10
     

6. Prepare any testing to confirm that the Bookinfo apps are still available when you update the apps’ sidecars to use the new revision. For example, if you have an ingress gateway load balancer in your environment, you might follow these steps to ensure you can access Bookinfo:

   1. Apply Istio gateway and virtual service resources to expose the Bookinfo app.

        kubectl -n bookinfo apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/istio/istio/1.20.5/samples/bookinfo/networking/bookinfo-gateway.yaml
        

   2. Get the address for your existing ingress gateway, and send a request to the productpage service.

        curl http://<gateway_address>:80/productpage
        

7. Test the transition to the new installation on Bookinfo by changing the label on the bookinfo namespace to use the new revision.

     kubectl label ns bookinfo istio.io/rev=$REVISION --overwrite
     

   check_circle

   If you did not previously use revision labels for your apps, you can instead run kubectl label ns bookinfo istio-injection- and kubectl label ns bookinfo istio.io/rev=$REVISION.

8. Update Bookinfo by rolling out restarts to each of the microservices. The Istio sidecars for each microservice update to use the new Istio version. Make sure that you only restart one microservice at a time. For example, in the following commands, 20 seconds elapse between each restart to ensure that the pods have time to start running.

     kubectl rollout restart deployment -n bookinfo details-v1
   sleep 20s
   kubectl rollout restart deployment -n bookinfo ratings-v1
   sleep 20s
   kubectl rollout restart deployment -n bookinfo productpage-v1
   sleep 20s
   kubectl rollout restart deployment -n bookinfo reviews-v1
   sleep 20s
   kubectl rollout restart deployment -n bookinfo reviews-v2
     

9. Verify that the Bookinfo pods now use the new revision.

     istioctl proxy-status | grep "\.bookinfo "
     

10. If you exposed Bookinfo, verify that the productpage for Bookinfo is now reachable after the upgrade through the new ingress gateway.

    1. Save the external address of the ingress gateway that runs the new revision.

         export INGRESS_GW_IP=$(kubectl get svc -n gloo-mesh-gateways istio-ingressgateway -o jsonpath='{.status.loadBalancer.ingress[0].ip}')
       echo $INGRESS_GW_IP
         

         export INGRESS_GW_IP=$(kubectl get svc -n gloo-mesh-gateways istio-ingressgateway -o jsonpath='{.status.loadBalancer.ingress[0].hostname}')
       echo $INGRESS_GW_IP
         

    2. Send a request to the productpage service.

         open http://$INGRESS_GW_IP/productpage
         

Activate link

After you finish testing, change the new control plane to be active, and rollout a restart to data plane workloads so that the new control plane manages them. You can also optionally uninstall the old Istio installation.

1. In your IstioLifecycleManager resource, switch to the new istiod control plane revision by changing defaultRevision to true.

     kubectl edit IstioLifecycleManager -n gloo-mesh istiod-control-plane
     

   Example:

     apiVersion: admin.gloo.solo.io/v2
   kind: IstioLifecycleManager
   metadata:
     name: istiod-control-plane
     namespace: gloo-mesh
   spec:
     installations:
       - revision: 1-20
         clusters:
         - name: cluster1
           # Set this field to TRUE
           defaultRevision: true
         istioOperatorSpec:
           profile: minimal
           ...
     

2. Roll out a restart to your workload apps so that the new control plane manages them.

   1. Change the label on any Istio-managed namespaces to use the new revision.

        kubectl label ns <namespace> istio.io/rev=$REVISION --overwrite
        

      check_circle

      If you did not previously use revision labels for your apps, you can instead run kubectl label ns [namespace] istio-injection- and kubectl label ns [namespace] istio.io/rev=$REVISION.
   2. Update any Istio-managed apps by rolling out restarts. The Istio sidecars for each microservice update to use the new Istio version. Make sure that you only restart one microservice at a time.
   3. Verify that your workloads point to the new revision.

        istioctl proxy-status
        

3. If you use any gateways, you can either update the service selectors for your load balancers to point to the new revision, or update your DNS entries to point to the addresses of the new gateways.

4. Uninstall the old Istio installation. The uninstallation process varies depending on your original installation method. For more information, see the Istio documentation.

Next steps link

When it’s time to upgrade to a new version or change Istio settings, you can use Gloo Mesh Enterprise to upgrade your managed service meshes.