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Upgrade Gloo Mesh-managed Istio

Use Gloo Mesh to upgrade your Gloo Mesh-managed Istio instalations in your workload clusters.

This guide upgrades Istio installations that are managed directly by the IstioLifecycleManager and GatewayLifecycleManager CRs you created. If you use the istioInstallations section of your Gloo Mesh Helm chart to manage the Istio control planes and gateways instead of using CRs, follow the Upgrade Helm-managed Istio guide instead.

About

After you use the lifecycle manager CRDs to deploy Istio installations, changes that you make to the IstioLifecycleManager and GatewayLifecycleManager resources are automatically propagated to your Istio installations. In some cases, these changes might require updates to your control plane or gateway deployments. Depending on the type of change, you apply updates to the installations in one of the following ways:

Revisioned canary upgrade (recommended)
In-place upgrade
Testing only: Manually replacing the IstioLifecycleManager CR

Revisioned canary upgrades (recommended)

In a canary upgrade, you install another Istio installation (canary) alongside your active installation. Each installation is revisioned so that you can easily identify and verify the separate settings and resources for each installation. Note that during a canary upgrade, the validating admissions webhook is enabled only for the canary installation to prevent issues that occur when multiple webhooks are enabled. Note that you can force Gloo to always use canary upgrades by setting the spec.upgradeStrategy.alwaysUseCanaryUpgrade boolean value to true in the IstioLifecycleManager and GatewayLifecycleManager resources.

Perform a canary upgrade when you change one of the following fields:

istioOperatorSpec.tag minor version
istioOperatorSpec.hub repository, such as switching to the Solo Istio repository for the minor version you want to upgrade to
components, profile, values, or namespace in the istioOperatorSpec

In-place upgrades

In an in-place upgrade, Gloo upgrades your existing control plane or gateway installations. Note that in production environments, canary upgrades are recommended for updating the minor version. However, you might want to use in-place upgrades for patch versions or changes within the same minor version. Be sure to test in-place upgrades in development or staging environments first.

In-place upgrades behave differently based on whether your installation is revisionless or revisioned.

Revisionless installations (testing only): If your testing-only installation is revisionless (your settings omit the revision and gatewayRevision fields), in-place upgrades are triggered when you apply changes to any field in the istioInstallations section.
Revisioned installations: If your installation is revisioned, in-place upgrades are triggered only when you apply changes to one of the following fields in the istioInstallations section. Otherwise, a canary upgrade is required. In testing environments only you can change this behavior by setting the spec.installations.skipUpgradeValidation boolean value to true in the IstioLifecycleManager and GatewayLifecycleManager resources.
- istioOperatorSpec.tag patch version
  - In-place upgrades are not supported for downgrading the patch version.
  - In-place upgrades are not supported if you do not already specify a tag value, such as if you want to switch from the auto setting to a specific version. This is because you must also specify hub and revision values, which require a canary upgrade.
- istioOperatorSpec.meshConfig values

Testing only: Manually replacing the GatewayLifecycleManager CR

If you manage Istio through your main Gloo Mesh Helm chart in testing or demo setups, you can quickly upgrade your Istio service mesh and gateway configurations by manually deleting the IstioLifecycleManager and GatewayLifecycleManager CRs, and upgrading your Gloo Mesh installation with your updated gateway values in your Helm values file. This method is supported only for testing scenarios, because your istiod control plane and gateways are temporarily removed in this process. You can also use this method to clear your managed Istio configurations if a canary upgrade becomes stuck.

Revisioned canary upgrade

Update the minor version of Istio, the repository of the Istio image, or the components, profile, values, or namespace of the Istio installations.

Istio versions 1.17 and later do not support the Gloo legacy metrics pipeline. If you run the legacy metrics pipeline, before you upgrade or deploy gateway proxies with Istio 1.17, be sure that you set up the Gloo OpenTelemetry (OTel) pipeline instead in your new or existing Gloo Gateway installation.

OpenShift only: Elevate the permissions of the service account that will be created for the new revision's operator project. This permission allows the Istio sidecar to make use of a user ID that is normally restricted by OpenShift. Replace the revision with the revision you plan to use.
```
oc adm policy add-scc-to-group anyuid system:serviceaccounts:gm-iop-1-19-3 --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT1
oc adm policy add-scc-to-group anyuid system:serviceaccounts:gm-iop-1-19-3 --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT2
```

Get the names of your managed Istio installation resources.

kubectl get IstioLifecycleManager -n gloo-mesh --context $MGMT_CONTEXT
kubectl get GatewayLifecycleManager -n gloo-mesh --context $MGMT_CONTEXT

Edit the IstioLifecycleManager resource for the istiod control plane to add another installation entry for the canary revision. For the canary revision, be sure to set defaultRevision to false so that only the existing revision continues to run.

kubectl edit IstioLifecycleManager -n gloo-mesh --context $MGMT_CONTEXT <installation-name>

For example, if you upgrade to Istio 1.19, add the following 1-19-3 canary revision as a new entry in the installations section:

apiVersion: admin.gloo.solo.io/v2
kind: IstioLifecycleManager
metadata:
  name: istiod-control-plane
  namespace: gloo-mesh
spec:
  installations:
    # Existing revision
    - revision: 1-18-3
      clusters:
      - name: cluster1
        # Keep this field set to TRUE so that only the existing revision continues to run
        defaultRevision: true
      - name: cluster2
        defaultRevision: true
      istioOperatorSpec:
        profile: minimal
        ...
    # Canary revision
    - revision: 1-19-3
      clusters:
      - name: cluster1
        # Set this field to FALSE so that only the existing revision continues to run
        defaultRevision: false
      - name: cluster2
        defaultRevision: false
      istioOperatorSpec:
        profile: minimal
        ...

Updating the minor version of Istio? In your canary revision section, be sure to update both the repo key in the hub field, and the Istio version in the tag field. You can get the repo key for the Istio version that you want to install from the Istio images built by Solo.io support article.

If you created GatewayLifecycleManager resources for east-west or ingress gateways, edit those resources to add another installation entry for the canary revision. Be sure to set activeGateway to false so that only the existing revision continues to run.

kubectl edit GatewayLifecycleManager -n gloo-mesh --context $MGMT_CONTEXT <installation-name>

For example, if you upgrade to Istio 1.19, add the following 1-19-3 canary revision as a new entry in the installations section:

apiVersion: admin.gloo.solo.io/v2
kind: GatewayLifecycleManager
metadata:
  name: istio-ingressgateway
  namespace: gloo-mesh
spec:
  installations:
    # Existing revision
    - gatewayRevision: 1-18-3
      clusters:
      - name: cluster1
        # Keep this field set to TRUE so that only the existing revision continues to run
        activeGateway: true
      - name: cluster2
        activeGateway: true
      istioOperatorSpec:
        profile: empty
        ...
    # Canary revision
    - gatewayRevision: 1-19-3
      clusters:
      - name: cluster1
        # Set this field to FALSE so that only the existing revision continues to run
        activeGateway: false
      - name: cluster2
        activeGateway: false
      istioOperatorSpec:
        profile: empty
        ...

For most use cases, you can set the revision for the IstioLifecycleManager and the gatewayRevision for the GatewayLifecycleManager to the same version. However, gateway installations can point to any istiod control plane revision by using the controlPlaneRevision field. For simplicity, if you do not specify controlPlaneRevision, the gateway installation uses a control plane with the same revision as itself.

Verify that Istio resources for the canary installation are created. For example, if you updated the Istio minor version to 1-19-3, verify that resources are created in the gm-iop-1-19-3 namespace, and that resources for 1-19-3 are created alongside the existing resources for the previous version in the istio-system and gloo-mesh-gateways namespaces. Note that the gateway load balancers for the canary revision contain the revision in the name, such as istio-ingressgateway-1-19-3.
- Single cluster setup
- Multicluster setup
```
kubectl get all -n gm-iop-1-19-3
kubectl get all -n istio-system
kubectl get all -n gloo-mesh-gateways
```
```
kubectl get all -n gm-iop-1-19-3 --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT1
kubectl get all -n istio-system --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT1
kubectl get all -n gloo-mesh-gateways --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT1
```
```
kubectl get all -n gm-iop-1-19-3 --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT2
kubectl get all -n istio-system --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT2
kubectl get all -n gloo-mesh-gateways --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT2
```
Running into issues or seeing a stuck canary upgrade? In testing environments, you can clear your configuration by manually replacing the GatewayLifecycleManager CR.

After performing any necessary testing, switch to the new istiod control plane revision by changing defaultRevision to false for the old revision and to true for the new revision.

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:
    # Old revision
    - revision: 1-18-3
      clusters:
      - name: cluster1
        # Set this field to FALSE
        defaultRevision: false
      - name: cluster2
        defaultRevision: false
      istioOperatorSpec:
        profile: minimal
        ...
    # New revision
    - revision: 1-19-3
      clusters:
      - name: cluster1
        # Set this field to TRUE
        defaultRevision: true
      - name: cluster2
        defaultRevision: true
      istioOperatorSpec:
        profile: minimal
        ...

Upgrade your apps’ Istio sidecars.

For any namespace where you run Istio-managed apps, change the label to use the new revision. For example, you might update the bookinfo namespace for the canary revision 1-19-3.
If you did not previously use revision labels for your apps, you can upgrade your application's sidecars by running ‘kubectl label ns bookinfo istio-injection-’ and ‘kubectl label ns bookinfo istio.io/rev=’.
- Single cluster setup
- Multicluster setup
```
kubectl label ns bookinfo --overwrite istio.io/rev=1-19-3
```
```
kubectl label ns bookinfo --overwrite istio.io/rev=1-19-3 --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT1
kubectl label ns bookinfo --overwrite istio.io/rev=1-19-3 --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT2
```

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

Single cluster setup
Multicluster setup

kubectl rollout restart deployment -n bookinfo details-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
sleep 20s
kubectl rollout restart deployment -n bookinfo reviews-v3
sleep 20s
kubectl rollout restart deployment -n bookinfo ratings-v1
sleep 20s

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
sleep 20s
kubectl rollout restart deployment -n bookinfo reviews-v3 --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT2
sleep 20s
kubectl rollout restart deployment -n bookinfo ratings-v1 --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT2
sleep 20s

Verify that your workloads and new gateways point to the new revision.

Single cluster setup
Multicluster setup

istioctl proxy-status

istioctl proxy-status --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT1

Example output:

NAME                                                              CLUSTER     ...     ISTIOD                           VERSION
details-v1-7b6df9d8c8-s6kg5.bookinfo                              cluster1    ...     istiod-1-19-3-7c8f6fd4c4-m9k9t     1.19.3-solo
istio-eastwestgateway-1-19-3-bdc4fd65f-ftmz9.gloo-mesh-gateways     cluster1    ...     istiod-1-19-3-6495985689-rkwwd     1.19.3-solo
productpage-v1-bb494b7d7-xbtxr.bookinfo                           cluster1    ...     istiod-1-19-3-7c8f6fd4c4-m9k9t     1.19.3-solo
ratings-v1-55b478cfb6-wv2m5.bookinfo                              cluster1    ...     istiod-1-19-3-7c8f6fd4c4-m9k9t     1.19.3-solo
reviews-v1-6dfcc9fc7d-7k6qh.bookinfo                              cluster1    ...     istiod-1-19-3-7c8f6fd4c4-m9k9t     1.19.3-solo
reviews-v2-7dddd799b5-m5n2z.bookinfo                              cluster1    ...     istiod-1-19-3-7c8f6fd4c4-m9k9t     1.19.3-solo

Switch to any new gateways by changing activeGateway to false for the old revision and to true for the new revision.

kubectl edit GatewayLifecycleManager -n gloo-mesh --context $MGMT_CONTEXT <installation-name>

Example:

apiVersion: admin.gloo.solo.io/v2
kind: GatewayLifecycleManager
metadata:
  name: istio-ingressgateway
  namespace: gloo-mesh
spec:
  installations:
    # Old revision
    - gatewayRevision: 1-18-3
      clusters:
      - name: cluster1
        # Keep this field set to FALSE
        activeGateway: false
      - name: cluster2
        activeGateway: false
      istioOperatorSpec:
        profile: empty
        ...
    # New revision
    - gatewayRevision: 1-19-3
      clusters:
      - name: cluster1
        # Set this field to TRUE
        activeGateway: true
      - name: cluster2
        activeGateway: true
      istioOperatorSpec:
        profile: empty
        ...

New load balancers are created for the canary gateways. To instead change the control plane revision in use by the existing gateway load balancers, you can set the istio.io/rev label on the gateway deployment, which triggers a rolling restart.

Verify that the active gateways for the new revision are created, which do not have the revision appended to the name. Note that gateways for the inactive revision that you previously ran also exist in the namespace, in the case that a rollback is required.

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

Example output, in which the active gateway (istio-ingressgateway) for the new revision and inactive gateway (such as istio-ingressgateway-1-18-3) for the old revision are created:

NAME                            TYPE           CLUSTER-IP     EXTERNAL-IP     PORT(S)     
istio-ingressgateway            LoadBalancer   10.44.4.140   34.150.235.221   15021:31321/TCP,80:32525/TCP,443:31826/TCP   48s                                                 AGE
istio-ingressgateway-1-18-3       LoadBalancer   10.56.15.36    34.145.163.61   15021:31936/TCP,80:30196/TCP,443:32286/TCP,15443:31851/TCP   45s

To uninstall the previous installation, or if you need to uninstall the canary installation, you can edit the IstioLifecycleManager and GatewayLifecycleManager resources to remove the revision's entry from the installations list.

In-place upgrade

Update the patch version of Istio or update meshConfig values of the Istio installations.

Get the names of your managed Istio installation resources.

kubectl get IstioLifecycleManager -n gloo-mesh --context $MGMT_CONTEXT
kubectl get GatewayLifecycleManager -n gloo-mesh --context $MGMT_CONTEXT

Upgrade your istiod control plane by editing the IstioLifecycleManager resource. For example, you might update the patch version of Istio by changing the value of istioOperatorSpec.tag. After you save and close the editor, Gloo starts an in-place upgrade of the istiod control planes.
```
kubectl edit IstioLifecycleManager -n gloo-mesh --context $MGMT_CONTEXT <istiod-installation-name>
```
If you created GatewayLifecycleManager resources for ingress or east-west gateways, you can upgrade your gateways by editing each resource. For example, if you updated the patch version of the control plane, you can also update your gateway patch versions by changing the value of istioOperatorSpec.tag. After you save and close the editor, Gloo starts an in-place upgrade of the gateways.
```
kubectl edit GatewayLifecycleManager -n gloo-mesh --context $MGMT_CONTEXT <ingress-gateway-installation-name>
```
```
kubectl edit GatewayLifecycleManager -n gloo-mesh --context $MGMT_CONTEXT <eastwest-gateway-installation-name>
```

After your Helm upgrade completes, restart your gateway pods in each workload cluster. For example, you might use the following command to rollout a restart of the istio-eatwestgateway-1-19-3 and istio-ingressgateway-1-19-3 deployments.

kubectl rollout restart -n gloo-mesh-gateways deployment/istio-eastwestgateway-1-19-3 --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT1
kubectl rollout restart -n gloo-mesh-gateways deployment/istio-ingressgateway-1-19-3 --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT1

kubectl rollout restart -n gloo-mesh-gateways deployment/istio-eastwestgateway-1-19-3 --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT2
kubectl rollout restart -n gloo-mesh-gateways deployment/istio-ingressgateway-1-19-3 --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT2

Verify that your Istio resources are updated.

kubectl get all -n gm-iop-1-19-3 --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT1
kubectl get all -n istio-system --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT1
kubectl get all -n gloo-mesh-gateways --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT1

Testing only: Manually replace the GatewayLifecycleManager CR

This method is supported only for testing scenarios, because your istiod control plane and gateways are temporarily removed in this process.

Get the name of your IstioLifecycleManager resource. Typically, this resource is named gloo-platform.
```
kubectl get IstioLifecycleManager -A --context $MGMT_CONTEXT
```

Delete the resource.

kubectl delete IstioLifecycleManager gloo-platform -n gloo-mesh --context $MGMT_CONTEXT

Verify that your istiod control plane is removed.

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

Optional: If you also need to make changes to your gateways, clear those configurations.

Get the name of your GatewayLifecycleManager resource. Typically, this resource is named istio-eastwestgateway. You might also have an istio-ingressgateway resource, such as if you use Gloo Gateway.
```
kubectl get GatewayLifecycleManager -A --context $MGMT_CONTEXT
```

Delete the resource.

kubectl delete GatewayLifecycleManager istio-eastwestgateway -n gloo-mesh --context $MGMT_CONTEXT

kubectl delete GatewayLifecycleManager istio-ingressgateway -n gloo-mesh --context $MGMT_CONTEXT

Verify that your gateway proxy is removed.

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

Follow the steps in the upgrade guide to perform a regular upgrade of your Gloo Mesh installation and include your Istio changes in your Helm values file. After you apply the updates in your Helm upgrade of the gloo-platform chart, Gloo re-creates the istiod control plane, and if applicable, the Istio gateways.

After your Helm upgrade completes, verify that your Istio resources are re-created.

# Change the revision as needed
kubectl get all -n gm-iop-1-19-3 --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT1
kubectl get all -n istio-system --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT1
kubectl get all -n gloo-mesh-gateways --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT1

# Change the revision as needed
kubectl get all -n gm-iop-1-19-3 --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT2
kubectl get all -n istio-system --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT2
kubectl get all -n gloo-mesh-gateways --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT2