About Solo distributions of Istio

The Solo distribution of Istio is a hardened Istio enterprise image, which maintains n-4 support for CVEs and other security fixes. The image support timeline is longer than the community Istio support timeline, which provides n-1 support with an additional 6 weeks of extended time to upgrade the n-2 version to n-1. Based on a cadence of 1 release every 3 months, Gloo Mesh’s n-4 support provides an extra 9 months to run the hardened Istio version of your choice, compared to an open source strategy that also lacks enterprise support. Note that all backported functionality is available in the upstream community Istio, as there are no forked capabilities from community Istio.

The following image provides an overview of how Solo engineers harden the base Istio image release.

Solo image hardening overview
Figure: Solo image hardening overview
Solo image hardening overview
Figure: Solo image hardening overview

To use a version of Istio that is no longer supported by the community with Gloo Mesh, you must install the Solo distribution of Istio. If the Istio version that you want to use is currently supported by the community, you can use either the community Istio or the Solo distribution of Istio. To review supported Solo distributions of Istio, see the versions table. To review supported community versions, see the Istio documentation.

Distributions

Solo provides two main distributions of Istio as follows.

  • Standard: A copy of the community Istio distribution. This distribution does not contain Solo.io’s enterprise features or extended Istio support. Example: 1.25.2
  • Solo: An enterprise distribution of the community Istio project with additional security patches, as well as certain Envoy filters to enable Gloo Mesh features, such as support for deploying Istio service meshes in ambient mode. You must use the solo image to use these features. Example: 1.25.2-solo

Both Solo’s standard and solo distributions of Istio come in the following optional varieties.

  • FIPS: An image that is tagged with fips complies with NIST FIPS, for use cases that require federal information processing capabilities. Examples: 1.25.2-fips, 1.25.2-solo-fips
  • Distroless: An image that is tagged with distroless is a slimmed down distribution with the minimum set of binary dependencies to run the image, for enhanced performance and security. Note that if your app relies on package management, shell, or other operating system tools such as pip, apt, ls, grep, or bash, you must find another way to install these dependencies. Examples: 1.25.2-distroless, 1.25.2-solo-distroless

An image might be tagged to meet multiple use cases, such as 1.25.2-solo-fips-distroless.

About Solo FIPS distribution of Istio

For use cases that require federal information processing capabilities, install Solo distributions of Istio that are tagged with fips, which comply with National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS). For more information, see the FIPS setup guide.

Standard and Solo FIPS builds

Solo provides two main distributions of Istio, which both offer FIPS-compliant builds:

  • Standard: An enterprise distribution of the community Istio project with additional security patches.
  • Solo: An enterprise distribution of the community Istio project with additional security patches, as well as certain Envoy filters to enable Gloo Mesh features.

Depending on the distribution, the image tag for installation might look like 1.25.2-solo-fips.

Optional: Distroless FIPS builds

In addition, you can also choose a FIPS build that is distroless. A FIPS image that is tagged with distroless is a slimmed down distribution with the minimum set of binary dependencies to run the image, for enhanced performance and security. Keep in mind that there are some challenges around distroless builds. For example, if your app relies on package management, shell, or other operating system tools such as pip, apt, ls, grep, or bash, you must find another way to install these dependencies.

Depending on the distribution, the image tag for a distroless installation might look like 1.25.2-solo-fips-distroless.

Installing and verifying FIPS-compliant Istio images

Refer to the Install FIPS-compliant images guide.