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How to Install Istio on OVHcloud Managed Kubernetes

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Michael M.
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Istio is an open source service mesh and platform to reduce the complexity of deploying, securing, controlling and observing distributed services. As the Istio site explains, Istio helps you to:

  • Control the flow of traffic between services
  • Secure the services and manage the authentication, authorization and encryption of inter-service communications
  • Apply and enforce policies on distributes services
  • Monitor the services gathering metrics, logs and traces

In this tutorial we are going to install Istio on a freshly created OVHcloud Managed Kubernetes Service cluster. You can use the Reset cluster function on the Public Cloud section of the OVHcloud Manager to reinitialize your cluster before following this tutorial.

Before you begin

This tutorial presupposes that you already have a working OVHcloud Managed Kubernetes cluster, and some basic knowledge of how to operate it. If you want to know more on those topics, please look at the deploying a Hello World application documentation.

Downloading Istio

Istio is installed in its own istio-system namespace and can manage services from all other namespaces.

  1. Go to the Istio release page to download the installation file corresponding to your OS, and extract it in a local repository.

  2. Move to the Istio package directory. For example, if the package is istio-1.2.2:

    cd istio-1.2.2

    The installation directory contains:

    • Installation .yaml files for Kubernetes in install/
    • Sample applications in samples/
    • The istioctl client binary in the bin/ directory. istioctl is used when manually injecting Envoy as a sidecar proxy and for creating routing rules and policies.
    • The istio.VERSION configuration file

  3. Add the istioctl client to your PATH environment variable, on a macOS or Linux system:

    export PATH=$PWD/bin:$PATH

For the rest of the tutorial, please remain on this directory.

Installing Istio

In this tutorial you’re going to install Istio with the default mutual TLS authentication by using the using the istio-demo-auth manifest:

It’s a nice by default setting, because you are getting a good overview of Istio functionalities, including the TLS tunneling of inter-services communication, where Istio tunnels service-to-service communication through the client side and server side Envoy proxies.

The drawback of choosing the default mutual TLS authentication install is that it only works in new, freshly created clusters.

For clusters with existing applications, or if you’re deploying applications where services with an Istio sidecar need to be able to communicate with other non-Istio Kubernetes services, you could use the istio-demo manifest instead.

Install all the Istio Custom Resource Definitions (CRDs) using kubectl apply, and wait a few seconds for the CRDs to be committed in the Kubernetes API-server:

# for i in install/kubernetes/helm/istio-init/files/crd*yaml; do kubectl apply -f $i; done

It installs the CRDs needed for Istio:

# for i in install/kubernetes/helm/istio-init/files/crd*yaml; do kubectl apply -f $i; done
customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/virtualservices.networking.istio.io created
customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/destinationrules.networking.istio.io created
customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/serviceentries.networking.istio.io created
customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/gateways.networking.istio.io created
customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/envoyfilters.networking.istio.io created
customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/clusterrbacconfigs.rbac.istio.io created
customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/policies.authentication.istio.io created
customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/meshpolicies.authentication.istio.io created
customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/httpapispecbindings.config.istio.io created
customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/httpapispecs.config.istio.io created
customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/quotaspecbindings.config.istio.io created
customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/quotaspecs.config.istio.io created
customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/rules.config.istio.io created
customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/attributemanifests.config.istio.io created
customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/rbacconfigs.rbac.istio.io created
customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/serviceroles.rbac.istio.io created
customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/servicerolebindings.rbac.istio.io created
customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/adapters.config.istio.io created
customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/instances.config.istio.io created
customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/templates.config.istio.io created
customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/handlers.config.istio.io created
customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/sidecars.networking.istio.io created
customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/authorizationpolicies.rbac.istio.io created
customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/clusterissuers.certmanager.k8s.io created
customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/issuers.certmanager.k8s.io created
customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/certificates.certmanager.k8s.io created
customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/orders.certmanager.k8s.io created
customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/challenges.certmanager.k8s.io created

Now use kubectl to apply the manifest to your cluster:

# kubectl apply -f install/kubernetes/istio-demo-auth.yaml

It begins by creating a new namespace, istio-system, where all the Isitio components are created, and then it install all the config maps, service accounts, jobs, et al.:

# kubectl apply -f install/kubernetes/istio-demo-auth.yaml 
namespace/istio-system created
configmap/istio-galley-configuration created
configmap/istio-grafana-custom-resources created
configmap/istio-grafana-configuration-dashboards created
configmap/istio-grafana created
configmap/istio-statsd-prom-bridge created
configmap/prometheus created
configmap/istio-security-custom-resources created
configmap/istio created
configmap/istio-sidecar-injector created
serviceaccount/istio-galley-service-account created
serviceaccount/istio-egressgateway-service-account created
serviceaccount/istio-ingressgateway-service-account created
serviceaccount/istio-grafana-post-install-account created
clusterrole.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/istio-grafana-post-install-istio-system created
clusterrolebinding.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/istio-grafana-post-install-role-binding-istio-system created
job.batch/istio-grafana-post-install created
serviceaccount/istio-mixer-service-account created
serviceaccount/istio-pilot-service-account created
serviceaccount/prometheus created
serviceaccount/istio-cleanup-secrets-service-account created
clusterrole.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/istio-cleanup-secrets-istio-system created
clusterrolebinding.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/istio-cleanup-secrets-istio-system created
job.batch/istio-cleanup-secrets created
serviceaccount/istio-security-post-install-account created
clusterrole.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/istio-security-post-install-istio-system created
clusterrolebinding.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/istio-security-post-install-role-binding-istio-system created
job.batch/istio-security-post-install created
serviceaccount/istio-citadel-service-account created
serviceaccount/istio-sidecar-injector-service-account created
...

Verifying the installation

  1. List the services in istio-system namespace using kubectl get services -n istio-system and ensure that the following services are deployed: istio-pilot, istio-ingressgateway, istio-policy, istio-telemetry, prometheus and istio-galley

    In my example cluster I get:

     

    # kubectl get services -n istio-system
NAME                     TYPE           CLUSTER-IP     EXTERNAL-IP   PORT(S)                                         AGE
grafana                  ClusterIP      10.3.52.164    <none>        3000/TCP                                        15m
istio-citadel            ClusterIP      10.3.19.71     <none>        8060/TCP,9093/TCP                               15m
istio-egressgateway      ClusterIP      10.3.92.137    <none>        80/TCP,443/TCP                                  15m
istio-galley             ClusterIP      10.3.183.209   <none>        443/TCP,9093/TCP                                15m
istio-ingressgateway     LoadBalancer   10.3.121.52    <pending>     80:31380/TCP,443:31390/TCP,31400:31400/TCP...   15m
istio-pilot              ClusterIP      10.3.25.40     <none>        15010/TCP,15011/TCP,8080/TCP,9093/TCP           15m
istio-policy             ClusterIP      10.3.248.135   <none>        9091/TCP,15004/TCP,9093/TCP                     15m
istio-sidecar-injector   ClusterIP      10.3.26.177    <none>        443/TCP                                         15m
istio-telemetry          ClusterIP      10.3.230.51    <none>        9091/TCP,15004/TCP,9093/TCP,42422/TCP           15m
jaeger-agent             ClusterIP      None           <none>        5775/UDP,6831/UDP,6832/UDP                      15m
jaeger-collector         ClusterIP      10.3.85.184    <none>        14267/TCP,14268/TCP                             15m
jaeger-query             ClusterIP      10.3.196.100   <none>        16686/TCP                                       15m
prometheus               ClusterIP      10.3.103.193   <none>        9090/TCP                                        15m
servicegraph             ClusterIP      10.3.216.22    <none>        8088/TCP                                        15m
tracing                  ClusterIP      10.3.188.189   <none>        80/TCP                                          15m
zipkin                   ClusterIP      10.3.229.37    <none>        9411/TCP                                        15m

     

    As the LoadBalancer creation is asynchronous, and the provisioning of the load balancer can take several minutes, you will surely get a &lt;pending> for istio-ingressgateway EXTERNAL-IP. Please try again in a few minutes to get the external URL to call your Istio.

  2. List the pods in istio-system namespace using kubectl get pods -n istio-system and ensure that the following pods are deployed and all containers are up and running: istio-pilot-*, istio-ingressgateway-*, istio-egressgateway-*, istio-policy-*, istio-telemetry-*, istio-citadel-*, prometheus-*, istio-galley-*, and, optionally, istio-sidecar-injector-*.

    In my example cluster I get:

     

    # kubectl get pods -n istio-system
NAME                                     READY   STATUS      RESTARTS   AGE
grafana-7f6cd4bf56-g57ft                 1/1     Running     0          17m
istio-citadel-7dd558dcf-m8znf            1/1     Running     0          16m
istio-cleanup-secrets-lptfk              0/1     Completed   0          17m
istio-egressgateway-8666f9bdcc-6sl2j     1/1     Running     0          17m
istio-galley-787758f7b8-nk6pt            1/1     Running     0          17m
istio-grafana-post-install-k2vn7         0/1     Completed   2          17m
istio-ingressgateway-645bbdc9db-4tzhv    1/1     Running     0          17m
istio-pilot-86b6679ddf-pvvvj             2/2     Running     0          17m
istio-policy-6b59f7bdfd-69mdl            2/2     Running     0          17m
istio-security-post-install-8xmfm        0/1     Completed   2          17m
istio-sidecar-injector-d7f98d9cb-p892b   1/1     Running     0          16m
istio-telemetry-f94b484cd-knkx6          2/2     Running     0          17m
istio-tracing-7596597bd7-2hjnb           1/1     Running     0          16m
prometheus-76db5fddd5-rtqnl              1/1     Running     0          16m
servicegraph-56dddff777-chsj8            1/1     Running     1          16m

     

Deploying an application

To verify that Istio is truly working in the cluster, you are going to deploy a test application. We have choosen the Bookinfo application, as it’s a multi-technology multi-instance microservices-based application that let’s you verify if Istio works as intended.

Bookinfo

Installing Bookinfo

The Istio-Sidecar-injector, that you installed with Istio, will automatically inject Envoy containers into your application pods. The injector assumes the application pods are running in namespaces labeled with istio-injection=enabled. Let’s create and label a istio-apps namespace:

# kubectl create namespace istio-apps

And now, deploy the bookinfo manifest into the namespace:

# kubectl create -n istio-apps -f <(./bin/istioctl kube-inject -f samples/bookinfo/platform/kube/bookinfo.yaml)

The above command installs and launches all four microservices as illustrated in the above diagram: details, productpage, ratings and the three versions of reviews:

# kubectl create -n istio-apps -f <(./bin/istioctl kube-inject -f samples/bookinfo/platform/kube/bookinfo.yaml) 
service/details created
deployment.extensions/details-v1 created
service/ratings created
deployment.extensions/ratings-v1 created
service/reviews created
deployment.extensions/reviews-v1 created
deployment.extensions/reviews-v2 created
deployment.extensions/reviews-v3 created
service/productpage created
deployment.extensions/productpage-v1 created

Now you can verify that all services and pods are correctly defined and running:

  1. Use kubectl -n istio-apps get services to verify that the details, productpage, ratings and reviews services are up un running:

     

    # kubectl -n istio-apps get services
NAME          TYPE        CLUSTER-IP     EXTERNAL-IP   PORT(S)    AGE
details       ClusterIP   10.3.203.54    <none>        9080/TCP   2m
productpage   ClusterIP   10.3.238.61    <none>        9080/TCP   2m
ratings       ClusterIP   10.3.184.226   <none>        9080/TCP   2m
reviews       ClusterIP   10.3.230.177   <none>        9080/TCP   2m

     

  2. Use kubectl -n istio-apps get pods to verify that the details-v1-*, productpage-v1-*, ratings-v1-*, reviews-v1-*, reviews-v2-* and reviews-v3-* are up and running:

    In the case of my example cluster:

     

    # kubectl -n istio-apps get pods
NAME                             READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
details-v1-6764bbc7f7-tcgph      2/2     Running   0          4m
productpage-v1-54b8b9f55-jvdzm   2/2     Running   0          4m
ratings-v1-7bc85949-tmb8q        2/2     Running   0          4m
reviews-v1-fdbf674bb-gkzdq       2/2     Running   0          4m
reviews-v2-5bdc5877d6-k6x6q      2/2     Running   0          4m
reviews-v3-dd846cc78-lcwrm       2/2     Running   0          4m

     

Determining the ingress IP and port

Now that the Bookinfo services are up and running, you need to make the application accessible from outside of your Kubernetes cluster, e.g., from a browser. An Istio Gateway is used for this purpose.

  1. Define the ingress gateway for the application:

    # kubectl -n istio-apps apply -f samples/bookinfo/networking/bookinfo-gateway.yaml

  2. Confirm the gateway has been created:

    # kubectl -n istio-apps get gateway

  3. Set GATEWAY_URL, the URL of the istio-gateway service.

    You can get it with kubectl -n istio-system get service istio-ingressgateway, under the EXTERNAL_IP fiel or directly using a jsonpath in the request:

    # export GATEWAY_URL=$(kubectl -n istio-system get service istio-ingressgateway -o jsonpath='{.status.loadBalancer.ingress[0].hostname}')

In the case of my example cluster:

# kubectl -n istio-apps apply -f samples/bookinfo/networking/bookinfo-gateway.yaml
gateway.networking.istio.io/bookinfo-gateway created
virtualservice.networking.istio.io/bookinfo created
# kubectl -n istio-apps get gateway
NAME               AGE
bookinfo-gateway   28s
# kubectl -n istio-system get service istio-ingressgateway
NAME                   TYPE           CLUSTER-IP     EXTERNAL-IP                        PORT(S)  
istio-ingressgateway   LoadBalancer   10.3.209.149   xxxrs44urc.lb.c1.gra.k8s.ovh.net   15020:31621/TCP,80:31380/TCP,443:31390/TCP,31400:31400/TCP...

# export GATEWAY_URL=$(kubectl -n istio-system get service istio-ingressgateway -o jsonpath='{.status.loadBalancer.ingress[0].hostname}')

# echo $GATEWAY_URL
xxxrs44urc.lb.c1.gra.k8s.ovh.net

Confirm the app is running

To confirm that the Bookinfo application is running, run the following curl command:

# curl -o /dev/null -s -w "%{http_code}\n" http://${GATEWAY_URL}/productpage

You should get an HTTP status code 200 indicating that your productpage is OK.

# curl -o /dev/null -s -w "%{http_code}\n" http://${GATEWAY_URL}/productpage
200

You can also point your browser to http://<YOUR_GATEWAY_URL>/productpage (in my example to http://clusterId.nodes.c1.gra.k8s.ovh.net:31380/productpage) to view the Bookinfo web page. If you refresh the page several times, you should see different versions of reviews shown in productpage, presented in a round robin style (red stars, black stars, no stars), since we haven’t yet used Istio to control the version routing.

Bookinfo

What’s next?

Now you have a working Bookinfo app deployed on Istio, you can follow the suggestions of the Bookinfo sample app page and use this sample to experiment with Istio’s features for traffic routing, fault injection, rate limiting, etc. To proceed, refer to one or more of the Istio Examples, depending on your interest. Intelligent Routing is a good place to start for beginners.

Cleanup

To uninstall the Bookinfo app, the easiest way is to use the provided cleanup.sh script:

# ./samples/bookinfo/platform/kube/cleanup.sh
namespace ? istio-apps
using NAMESPACE=istio-apps
Application cleanup may take up to one minute
service "details" deleted
deployment.extensions "details-v1" deleted
service "ratings" deleted
deployment.extensions "ratings-v1" deleted
service "reviews" deleted
deployment.extensions "reviews-v1" deleted
deployment.extensions "reviews-v2" deleted
deployment.extensions "reviews-v3" deleted
service "productpage" deleted
deployment.extensions "productpage-v1" deleted
Application cleanup successful

To confirm the shutdown you can list the virtual services, destination rules, gateway and pods in the istio-apps namespace:

# kubectl -n istio-apps get virtualservices   #-- there should be no virtual services
kubectl -n istio-apps get destinationrules  #-- there should be no destination rules
kubectl -n istio-apps get gateway           #-- there should be no gateway
kubectl -n istio-apps get pods              #-- there should be no pod

In my example cluster:

# kubectl -n istio-apps get virtualservices   #-- there should be no virtual services
No resources found.
# kubectl -n istio-apps get destinationrules  #-- there should be no destination rules
No resources found.
# kubectl -n istio-apps get gateway           #-- there should be no gateway
No resources found.
# kubectl -n istio-apps get pods              #-- there should be no pod
No resources found.

Now you can uninstall Istio using again the istio-demo-auth manifest:

# kubectl delete -f install/kubernetes/istio-demo.yaml

Example on my cluster:

# kubectl delete -f install/kubernetes/istio-demo.yaml
configmap "istio-galley-configuration" deleted
configmap "istio-statsd-prom-bridge" deleted
configmap "prometheus" deleted
configmap "istio-security-custom-resources" deleted
configmap "istio" deleted
configmap "istio-sidecar-injector" deleted
serviceaccount "istio-galley-service-account" deleted
serviceaccount "istio-egressgateway-service-account" deleted
serviceaccount "istio-ingressgateway-service-account" deleted
serviceaccount "istio-mixer-service-account" deleted
serviceaccount "istio-pilot-service-account" deleted
serviceaccount "prometheus" deleted
serviceaccount "istio-cleanup-secrets-service-account" deleted
clusterrole.rbac.authorization.k8s.io "istio-cleanup-secrets-istio-system" deleted
...

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