Unlocking Istio’s Power: A Step-by-Step Guide to Seamless Microservices Management

Gulcan Topcu

Jan 31, 2024

15 min read

🏷️Tagged with:

kubernetes

In the dynamic world of microservices, orchestrating, securing, and monitoring services can be intricate. Istio, a robust service mesh, steps in as the solution, offering a holistic approach to traffic management, security, and observability. We will see 2 different ways to install and get started with istio: with istioctl and helm. Let’s dive into the intricacies of Istio and explore two different installation methods: using istioctl and Helm.

In This Article:

1. Install Istio Components

   • Using istioctl

   • Using Helm

2. Enable Automatic Istio Sidecar Injection

3. Validate Istio-Proxy Sidecar Injection

4. Explore Pod Communication

5. Pod Communication Using Service Mesh

6. Monitor Service Mesh with Prometheus and Grafana

Option 1: Installing Istio with istioctl

Begin by downloading Istioctl on Ubuntu:

curl -L https://istio.io/downloadIstio | sh -

Add Istioctl to your path:

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

Create a cluster with k3d:

k3d cluster create istio

Perform the Istio pre-installation check:

istioctl x precheck

Install Istio with the default profile:

istioctl install

Verify the installation:

istioctl verify-install

Uninstall Istio:

istioctl uninstall --purge

Option 2: Installing Istio with Helm

Step 1: Install Base Istio Components

Add cluster-wide base components using Helm:

helm repo add istio https://istio-release.storage.googleapis.com/charts
helm repo update
helm search repo istio

Customize default values:

helm show values istio/base
helm show values istio/istiod

Install CRDs and Istio control plane components:

k create ns istio-system
helm install istio-base istio/base -n istio-system
helm install istiod istio/istiod -n istio-system

Check installed Helm charts:

k get po -n istio-system
helm ls -n istio-system

Step 2: Enable Automatic Istio Sidecar Injection

Automate sidecar injection by labeling pods:

k label ns default istio-injection=enabled

Deploy the voting app resources with Helm:

helm repo add voting-app-istio https://gitlab.com/api/v4/projects/54113378/packages/helm/stable
helm repo update
helm search repo voting-app-istio
helm upgrade --install voting-app --set image.tag=latest voting-app-istio/charts

Step 3: Validate Istio-Proxy Sidecar Injection

Describe the voting-app pod to validate Istio-proxy sidecar injection:

k describe po worker-app | less

Step 4: Exploring Current Pod Communication

Identify NodePort and ClusterIP services:

Shell into a pod and access a NodePort service:

k exec worker-deploy-7c4c4bc5bc-w4szc -it -- sh
apt update
apt install -y curl;curl voting-service

Use port-forwarding for communication:

k port-forward svc/voting-service 30004:80

Explore pod communication over kube-proxy.

Step 5: Communicate Using Service Mesh

Delete kube-proxy and check if pods can still communicate over the service mesh:

k get ds -A
k delete ds kube-proxy -n kube-system

k exec worker-deploy-7c4c4bc5bc-w4szc -it -- curl voting-service

Monitoring Service Mesh Using Prometheus and Grafana

Tip

You can find the grafana-value.yaml file on blog’s repository. Clone the repo and change directory into get-started-with-istio.

Find the labs here 👇

Kuberada labs

Now that you know where to find the custom grafana yaml file, we’re ready to create a monitoring stack for observing pod traffic.

Adding and updating the repos:

helm repo add prometheus-community https://prometheus-community.github.io/helm-charts
helm repo add grafana https://grafana.github.io/helm-charts

Installing Prometheus and Grafana:

helm install prometheus prometheus-community/prometheus -n monitoring --create-namespace
helm install grafana grafana/grafana -n monitoring -f "grafana-value.yaml"

Importing Istio Workload Dashboard:

Login to Grafana, append /dashboard/import to the URL, type 7630 to import the Istio workload dashboard, and select Prometheus as the data source.

Connect to the worker service and communicate with the voting-service:

k exec worker-deploy-7c4c4bc5bc-w4szc -it -- curl voting-service
k exec worker-deploy-7c4c4bc5bc-w4szc -it -- curl result-service

Select both source and destination for the reporter and examine the inbound traffic:

Displaying the outgoing traffic from worker app:

Intercepted traffic over the Istio proxy, displaying outgoing requests from worker-deploy to voting-service and result-service.

Displaying the incoming requests in result and voting apps:

Incoming requests to result app by worker app:

Incoming requests to the voting app:

Cleaning

Delete all the resources you used in this lab:

k delete ns monitoring
k delete ns istio-system
helm uninstall voting-app

Recap

In this blog, we have successfully set up Istio on our Kubernetes cluster and explored its powerful features for traffic management and observability. Use this hands-on guide as a foundation for further experimentation and Istio integration into your microservices architecture. Happy meshing!

References

• Istio Architecture

• Istio Releases

• Istioctl profiles

• Kubernetes Documentation

• Istio Documentation

• Helm Documentation

• Grafana Istio Workload Dashboard

Happy meshing!

👉 For a wealth of knowledge, check our blog archives.📚✨

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