By using the Gloo Operator, you can perform safe in-place upgrades of your manage ambient service meshes, without the hassle of upgrading multiple Helm charts for each component.

Considerations

Before you upgrade your ambient components, review the following limitations and recommendations.

Revision and canary upgrade limitations

The upgrade guides in this documentation show you how to perform in-place upgrades for your Istio components, which is the recommended upgrade strategy.

Version and license requirements

Multicluster setups:

  • In Gloo Mesh (OSS APIs) version 2.7 and later, multicluster setups require the Solo distribution of Istio version 1.24.3 or later (1.24.3-solo), including the Solo distribution of istioctl.
  • This feature requires your mesh to be installed with the Solo distribution of Istio and an Enterprise-level license for Gloo Mesh (OSS APIs). Contact your account representative to obtain a valid license.

Single cluster

  1. Save your Istio upgrade values in environment variables.

    1. If you do not already have a license, decide the level of licensed features that you want, and contact an account representative to obtain the license.

    2. Choose the version of Istio that you want to install or upgrade to by reviewing the supported versions table.

    3. Save each value in an environment variable. If you prefer to specify license keys in a secret instead, see Licensing. Note that the Gloo Operator installs the Solo distribution of Istio by default for the version you specify, so neither the -solo image tag nor the repo key are required.

      export SOLO_LICENSE_KEY=<license_key>
export ISTIO_VERSION=1.27.0

    4. Install or upgrade istioctl with the same version of Istio that you saved.

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

  2. Upgrade the custom resources of the Kubernetes Gateway API to the latest supported version, 1.2.1.

    kubectl apply -f https://github.com/kubernetes-sigs/gateway-api/releases/download/v1.2.1/standard-install.yaml

  3. Upgrade the Gloo Operator to the latest version.

    helm get values gloo-operator -n gloo-mesh -o yaml > gloo-operator.yaml
helm upgrade gloo-operator oci://us-docker.pkg.dev/solo-public/gloo-operator-helm/gloo-operator \
  --version 0.3.1 \
  -n gloo-mesh \
  -f gloo-operator.yaml

  4. Verify that the operator pod is running.

    kubectl get pods -n gloo-mesh -l app.kubernetes.io/name=gloo-operator

    Example output:

    gloo-operator-78d58d5c7b-lzbr5     1/1     Running   0          48s

  5. Edit the ServiceMeshController custom resource to make changes to your ambient mesh. For example, to upgrade the Istio patch or minor version of your service mesh, you might update the value of spec.version. For a description of each configurable field, see the ServiceMeshController reference.

    kubectl edit -n gloo-mesh ServiceMeshController managed-istio

  6. Save and close the editor to apply your changes in-place.

  7. Verify that the ServiceMeshController is ready. In the Status section of the output, make sure that all statuses are True, and that the phase is SUCCEEDED.

    kubectl describe servicemeshcontroller -n gloo-mesh managed-istio

    Example output:

    ...
Status:
  Conditions:
    Last Transition Time:  2024-12-27T20:47:01Z
    Message:               Manifests initialized
    Observed Generation:   1
    Reason:                ManifestsInitialized
    Status:                True
    Type:                  Initialized
    Last Transition Time:  2024-12-27T20:47:02Z
    Message:               CRDs installed
    Observed Generation:   1
    Reason:                CRDInstalled
    Status:                True
    Type:                  CRDInstalled
    Last Transition Time:  2024-12-27T20:47:02Z
    Message:               Deployment succeeded
    Observed Generation:   1
    Reason:                DeploymentSucceeded
    Status:                True
    Type:                  ControlPlaneDeployed
    Last Transition Time:  2024-12-27T20:47:02Z
    Message:               Deployment succeeded
    Observed Generation:   1
    Reason:                DeploymentSucceeded
    Status:                True
    Type:                  CNIDeployed
    Last Transition Time:  2024-12-27T20:47:02Z
    Message:               Deployment succeeded
    Observed Generation:   1
    Reason:                DeploymentSucceeded
    Status:                True
    Type:                  WebhookDeployed
    Last Transition Time:  2024-12-27T20:47:02Z
    Message:               All conditions are met
    Observed Generation:   1
    Reason:                SystemReady
    Status:                True
    Type:                  Ready
  Phase:                   SUCCEEDED
Events:                    <none>

  8. Verify that the istiod control plane, Istio CNI, and ztunnel pods are running.

    kubectl get pods -n istio-system

    Example output:

    NAME                          READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
istio-cni-node-6s5nk          1/1     Running   0          2m53s
istio-cni-node-blpz4          1/1     Running   0          2m53s
istiod-gloo-bb86b959f-msrg7   1/1     Running   0          2m45s
istiod-gloo-bb86b959f-w29cm   1/1     Running   0          3m
ztunnel-mx8nw                 1/1     Running   0          2m52s
ztunnel-w8r6c                 1/1     Running   0          2m52s

Multicluster

  1. Upgrade the Solo distribution of Istio binary.

    1. Get the operating system and architecture that you use on your machine.

      OS=$(uname | tr '[:upper:]' '[:lower:]' | sed -E 's/darwin/osx/')
ARCH=$(uname -m | sed -E 's/aarch/arm/; s/x86_64/amd64/; s/armv7l/armv7/')
echo $OS
echo $ARCH

    2. Set environment variables for the Solo distribution of Istio that you want to upgrade to. You can find these values in the Istio images built by Solo.io support article.

      # Solo distrubution of Istio patch version
# in the format 1.x.x, with no tags
export ISTIO_VERSION=<istio_version>
# Repo key for the minor version of the Solo distribution of Istio
# This is the 12-character hash at the end of the repo URL: 'us-docker.pkg.dev/gloo-mesh/istio-<repo-key>'
export REPO_KEY=<repo_key>
export HELM_REPO=us-docker.pkg.dev/gloo-mesh/istio-helm-${REPO_KEY}
export ISTIO_IMAGE=${ISTIO_VERSION}-solo
export REPO=us-docker.pkg.dev/gloo-mesh/istio-${REPO_KEY}

    3. Download the Solo distribution of Istio binary and upgrade istioctl.

      mkdir -p ~/.istioctl/bin
curl -sSL https://storage.googleapis.com/istio-binaries-$REPO_KEY/$ISTIO_IMAGE/istioctl-$ISTIO_IMAGE-$OS-$ARCH.tar.gz | tar xzf - -C ~/.istioctl/bin
chmod +x ~/.istioctl/bin/istioctl

export PATH=${HOME}/.istioctl/bin:${PATH}

    4. Verify that the istioctl client is upgraded

      istioctl version --remote=false

      Example output:

      client version: 1.27.0-solo

  2. Save the kubeconfig context of a cluster where you want to upgrade an ambient mesh in the following environment variables. Each time you repeat the steps in this guide, you change these variables to the next workload cluster’s context.

    export CLUSTER_CONTEXT=<cluster-context>

  3. Upgrade the custom resources of the Kubernetes Gateway API to the latest supported version, 1.2.1.

    kubectl apply -f https://github.com/kubernetes-sigs/gateway-api/releases/download/v1.2.1/standard-install.yaml

  4. Upgrade the Gloo Operator to the latest version.

    helm get values gloo-operator -n gloo-mesh -o yaml > gloo-operator.yaml
helm upgrade gloo-operator oci://us-docker.pkg.dev/solo-public/gloo-operator-helm/gloo-operator \
  --version 0.3.1 \
  -n gloo-mesh \
  --kube-context ${CLUSTER_CONTEXT} \
  -f gloo-operator.yaml

  5. Verify that the operator pod is running.

    kubectl --context ${CLUSTER_CONTEXT} get pods -n gloo-mesh -l app.kubernetes.io/name=gloo-operator

    Example output:

    gloo-operator-78d58d5c7b-lzbr5     1/1     Running   0          48s

  6. Edit the ServiceMeshController custom resource to make changes to your ambient mesh. For example, to upgrade the Istio patch or minor version of your service mesh, you might update the value of spec.version. For a description of each configurable field, see the ServiceMeshController reference.

    kubectl --context ${CLUSTER_CONTEXT} edit -n gloo-mesh ServiceMeshController managed-istio

  7. Save and close the editor to apply your changes in-place.

  8. Verify that the ServiceMeshController is ready. In the Status section of the output, make sure that all statuses are True, and that the phase is SUCCEEDED.

    kubectl describe servicemeshcontroller -n gloo-mesh managed-istio --context ${CLUSTER_CONTEXT}

    Example output:

    ...
Status:
  Conditions:
    Last Transition Time:  2024-12-27T20:47:01Z
    Message:               Manifests initialized
    Observed Generation:   1
    Reason:                ManifestsInitialized
    Status:                True
    Type:                  Initialized
    Last Transition Time:  2024-12-27T20:47:02Z
    Message:               CRDs installed
    Observed Generation:   1
    Reason:                CRDInstalled
    Status:                True
    Type:                  CRDInstalled
    Last Transition Time:  2024-12-27T20:47:02Z
    Message:               Deployment succeeded
    Observed Generation:   1
    Reason:                DeploymentSucceeded
    Status:                True
    Type:                  ControlPlaneDeployed
    Last Transition Time:  2024-12-27T20:47:02Z
    Message:               Deployment succeeded
    Observed Generation:   1
    Reason:                DeploymentSucceeded
    Status:                True
    Type:                  CNIDeployed
    Last Transition Time:  2024-12-27T20:47:02Z
    Message:               Deployment succeeded
    Observed Generation:   1
    Reason:                DeploymentSucceeded
    Status:                True
    Type:                  WebhookDeployed
    Last Transition Time:  2024-12-27T20:47:02Z
    Message:               All conditions are met
    Observed Generation:   1
    Reason:                SystemReady
    Status:                True
    Type:                  Ready
  Phase:                   SUCCEEDED
Events:                    <none>

  9. Verify that the istiod control plane, Istio CNI, and ztunnel pods are running.

    kubectl get pods -n istio-system --context ${CLUSTER_CONTEXT}

    Example output:

    NAME                          READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
istio-cni-node-6s5nk          1/1     Running   0          2m53s
istio-cni-node-blpz4          1/1     Running   0          2m53s
istiod-gloo-bb86b959f-msrg7   1/1     Running   0          2m45s
istiod-gloo-bb86b959f-w29cm   1/1     Running   0          3m
ztunnel-mx8nw                 1/1     Running   0          2m52s
ztunnel-w8r6c                 1/1     Running   0          2m52s

  10. For each cluster, repeat steps 2 - 9. Be sure to change the value of the $CLUSTER_CONTEXT environment variable for each cluster.