About the asmcli

The asmcli is a Google-provided tool that you can use to install or upgrade Cloud Service Mesh. If you let it, asmcli will configure your project and cluster as follows:

• Grant you the required Identity and Access Management (IAM) permissions on your Google Cloud project.
• Enable the required Google APIs on your Google Cloud project.
• Set a label on the cluster that identifies the mesh.
• Create a service account that lets data plane components, such as the sidecar proxy, securely access your project's data and resources.
• Register the cluster to the fleet if it isn't already registered.

Just include the --enable_all flag when you run asmcli to let it configure your project and cluster. For more information about asmcli options and flags, see the asmcli reference.

Next, asmcli configures YAML files with your project and cluster information. These configuration files are needed to install the Cloud Service Mesh control plane.

If you are new to Cloud Service Mesh and Istio, skip ahead to Supported platforms. The next section is intended to help existing Cloud Service Mesh upgrade to 1.19.

Transitioning to asmcli

The asmcli takes the place of istioctl install and install_asm. Although you can still use the legacy tools in Cloud Service Mesh 1.11, we are deprecating them and they will no longer be supported in Cloud Service Mesh 1.12 and later. Please update your scripts and tools to use asmcli.

With Cloud Service Mesh 1.11 and later, all clusters must be registered to a fleet. See Fleet requirements for details.

Transitioning from install_asm

If you are familiar with install_asm, asmcli is similar but with the following notable differences:

• You use asmcli install for new installations and upgrades. There isn't a --mode option like with install_asm. When you run asmcli install, it checks to see if there's an existing control plane on the cluster. If there isn't an existing control plane, asmcli installs Cloud Service Mesh. If the cluster has an existing control plane (either a Cloud Service Mesh control plane or an open source Istio control plane):

  • If the revision label on the existing control plane doesn't match the revision label for the new control plane, asmcli does a canary upgrade.

  • If the control plane revision labels are the same, asmcli does an in-place upgrade.

• Most of the asmcli options and flags behave the same as the ones for install_asm.

Transitioning from istioctl install

If you are familiar with istioctl install, if you normally pass an IstioOperator YAML file using the -f command-line argument to configure the control plane, you can pass the file to asmcli using the --custom_overlay option. In the Cloud Service Mesh documentation, we refer to these files as overlay files.

Note: By default, asmcli doesn't install an ingress gateway with the control plane. For production deployments, we recommend that you install gateways separately. For more information and best practices, see Install and upgrade gateways. We have provided sample Deployment, Service, ServiceAccount, and Role configuration files in the anthos-service-mesh repository for both ingress and egress gateways to get you started. You can deploy them as they are or customize them as needed.

Supported platforms

Cloud Service Mesh installations on the list of Supported platforms can be configured or upgraded by asmcli.

However, not all features are available on the platforms outside of Google Cloud. For details, see In-cluster control plane supported features.

What's next

• Prerequisites