Anthos Service Mesh 1.8 has reached end of life and is no longer supported. See Upgrading from earlier versions.

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Installing Anthos Service Mesh

This page is part of a multi-page guide that explains how to install Anthos Service Mesh version 1.8.6 on a GKE cluster for a mesh containing multiple clusters that are in different Google Cloud projects.

Before you begin

Before you install Anthos Service Mesh, make sure that you have:

Setting credentials and permissions

  1. Initialize your project to ready it for installation. Among other things, this command creates a service account to let control plane components, such as the sidecar proxy, securely access your project's data and resources.

    curl --request POST \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer $(gcloud auth print-access-token)" \
  --data '' \
  "https://meshconfig.googleapis.com/v1alpha1/projects/${PROJECT_ID}:initialize"

    The command responds with empty curly braces: {}

  2. Get authentication credentials to interact with the cluster. This command also sets the current context for kubectl to the cluster.

    gcloud container clusters get-credentials ${CLUSTER_NAME} \
    --project=${PROJECT_ID}

  3. Grant cluster admin permissions to the current user. You need these permissions to create the necessary role based access control (RBAC) rules for Anthos Service Mesh.

    kubectl create clusterrolebinding cluster-admin-binding \
  --clusterrole=cluster-admin \
  --user="$(gcloud config get-value core/account)"

If you see the "cluster-admin-binding" already exists error, you can safely ignore it and continue with the existing cluster-admin-binding.

Downloading the installation file

    Linux

  1. Download the Anthos Service Mesh installation file to your current working directory: 
    curl -LO https://storage.googleapis.com/gke-release/asm/istio-1.8.6-asm.8-linux-amd64.tar.gz
  2. Download the signature file and use openssl to verify the signature: 
    curl -LO https://storage.googleapis.com/gke-release/asm/istio-1.8.6-asm.8-linux-amd64.tar.gz.1.sig
openssl dgst -verify /dev/stdin -signature istio-1.8.6-asm.8-linux-amd64.tar.gz.1.sig istio-1.8.6-asm.8-linux-amd64.tar.gz <<'EOF'
-----BEGIN PUBLIC KEY-----
MFkwEwYHKoZIzj0CAQYIKoZIzj0DAQcDQgAEWZrGCUaJJr1H8a36sG4UUoXvlXvZ
wQfk16sxprI2gOJ2vFFggdq3ixF2h4qNBt0kI7ciDhgpwS8t+/960IsIgw==
-----END PUBLIC KEY-----
EOF

    The expected output is: Verified OK

  3. Extract the contents of the file to any location on your file system. For example, to extract the contents to the current working directory: 
    tar xzf istio-1.8.6-asm.8-linux-amd64.tar.gz

    The command creates an installation directory in your current working directory named istio-1.8.6-asm.8 that contains:

    • Sample applications in the samples directory.
    • The istioctl command-line tool that you use to install Anthos Service Mesh is in the bin directory.
    • The Anthos Service Mesh configuration profiles are in the manifests/profiles directory.

  4. Ensure that you're in the Anthos Service Mesh installation's root directory. 
    cd istio-1.8.6-asm.8

    5. Mac OS

  5. Download the Anthos Service Mesh installation file to your current working directory: 
    curl -LO https://storage.googleapis.com/gke-release/asm/istio-1.8.6-asm.8-osx.tar.gz
  6. Download the signature file and use openssl to verify the signature: 
    curl -LO https://storage.googleapis.com/gke-release/asm/istio-1.8.6-asm.8-osx.tar.gz.1.sig
openssl dgst -sha256 -verify /dev/stdin -signature istio-1.8.6-asm.8-osx.tar.gz.1.sig istio-1.8.6-asm.8-osx.tar.gz <<'EOF'
-----BEGIN PUBLIC KEY-----
MFkwEwYHKoZIzj0CAQYIKoZIzj0DAQcDQgAEWZrGCUaJJr1H8a36sG4UUoXvlXvZ
wQfk16sxprI2gOJ2vFFggdq3ixF2h4qNBt0kI7ciDhgpwS8t+/960IsIgw==
-----END PUBLIC KEY-----
EOF

    The expected output is: Verified OK

  7. Extract the contents of the file to any location on your file system. For example, to extract the contents to the current working directory: 
    tar xzf istio-1.8.6-asm.8-osx.tar.gz

    The command creates an installation directory in your current working directory named istio-1.8.6-asm.8 that contains:

    • Sample applications in the samples directory.
    • The istioctl command-line tool that you use to install Anthos Service Mesh is in the bin directory.
    • The Anthos Service Mesh configuration profiles are in the manifests/profiles directory.

  8. Ensure that you're in the Anthos Service Mesh installation's root directory. 
    cd istio-1.8.6-asm.8

    9. Windows

  9. Download the Anthos Service Mesh installation file to your current working directory: 
    curl -LO https://storage.googleapis.com/gke-release/asm/istio-1.8.6-asm.8-win.zip
  10. Download the signature file and use openssl to verify the signature: 
    curl -LO https://storage.googleapis.com/gke-release/asm/istio-1.8.6-asm.8-win.zip.1.sig
openssl dgst -verify - -signature istio-1.8.6-asm.8-win.zip.1.sig istio-1.8.6-asm.8-win.zip <<'EOF'
-----BEGIN PUBLIC KEY-----
MFkwEwYHKoZIzj0CAQYIKoZIzj0DAQcDQgAEWZrGCUaJJr1H8a36sG4UUoXvlXvZ
wQfk16sxprI2gOJ2vFFggdq3ixF2h4qNBt0kI7ciDhgpwS8t+/960IsIgw==
-----END PUBLIC KEY-----
EOF

    The expected output is: Verified OK

  11. Extract the contents of the file to any location on your file system. For example, to extract the contents to the current working directory: 
    tar xzf istio-1.8.6-asm.8-win.zip

    The command creates an installation directory in your current working directory named istio-1.8.6-asm.8 that contains:

    • Sample applications in the samples directory.
    • The istioctl command-line tool that you use to install Anthos Service Mesh is in the bin directory.
    • The Anthos Service Mesh configuration profiles are in the manifests/profiles directory.

  12. Ensure that you're in the Anthos Service Mesh installation's root directory. 
    cd istio-1.8.6-asm.8

Preparing resource configuration files

When you run the istioctl install command, you specify -f istio-operator.yaml on the command line. This file contains information about your project and cluster that Anthos Service Mesh requires. You need to download a package that contains istio-operator.yaml and other resource configuration files so that you can set the project and cluster information.

To prepare the resource configuration files:

Mesh CA

  1. Create a new directory for the Anthos Service Mesh package resource configuration files. We recommend that you use the cluster name as the directory name.

  2. Change to the directory where you want to download the Anthos Service Mesh package.

  3. Verify 'kpt' version. Ensure you are running a pre 1.x version of kpt:

    kpt version

    The output should be similar to the following:

    0.39.2

    If you have kpt version 1.x or higher, see Setting up your environment to download the required version for your operating system.

  4. Download the package:

    kpt pkg get \
https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/anthos-service-mesh-packages.git/asm@release-1.8-asm asm

  5. Set the project ID for the project that the cluster was created in:

    kpt cfg set asm gcloud.core.project ${PROJECT_ID}

  6. Set the project number for the fleet host project:

    kpt cfg set asm gcloud.project.environProjectNumber ${FLEET_PROJECT_NUMBER}

  7. Set the cluster name:

    kpt cfg set asm gcloud.container.cluster ${CLUSTER_NAME}

  8. Set the default zone or region:

    kpt cfg set asm gcloud.compute.location ${CLUSTER_LOCATION}

  9. Set the validating webhook to use a revision label:

    kpt cfg set asm anthos.servicemesh.rev asm-186-8

    When you install Anthos Service Mesh, you set a revision label on istiod. You need to set the same revision on the validating webhook.

  10. Because the clusters in your multi-cluster configuration are in different projects, you need to configure the trust domain aliases for the other projects that will form the multi-cluster/multi-project service mesh.

    1. Get the project ID of all clusters that will be in the multi-cluster/multi-project mesh.

    2. For each cluster's project ID, set the trust domain aliases. For example, if you have clusters in 3 projects, run the following command and replace PROJECT_ID_1, PROJECT_ID_2, and PROJECT_ID_3 with each cluster's project ID.

      kpt cfg set asm anthos.servicemesh.trustDomainAliases PROJECT_ID_1.svc.id.goog PROJECT_ID_2.svc.id.goog PROJECT_ID_3.svc.id.goog

      As you configure the clusters in the other projects, you can use the same command.

      The trust domain aliases enables Mesh CA to authenticate workloads on clusters in other projects. In addition to setting the trust domain aliases, after installing Anthos Service Mesh, you have to enable cross-cluster load balancing.

  11. Output the values of the kpt setters:

    kpt cfg list-setters asm

    In the output from the command, verify that the values for the following setters are correct:

    • anthos.servicemesh.rev
    • anthos.servicemesh.trustDomainAliases
    • gcloud.compute.location
    • gcloud.container.cluster
    • gcloud.core.project
    • gcloud.project.environProjectNumber

    You can ignore the values for the other setters.

Citadel

  1. Create a new directory for the Anthos Service Mesh package resource configuration files. We recommend that you use the cluster name as the directory name.

  2. Change to the directory where you want to download the Anthos Service Mesh package.

  3. Verify 'kpt' version. Ensure you are running a pre 1.x version of kpt:

    kpt version

    The output should be similar to the following:

    0.39.2

    If you have kpt version 1.x or higher, see Setting up your environment to download the required version for your operating system.

  4. Download the package:

    kpt pkg get \
https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/anthos-service-mesh-packages.git/asm@release-1.8-asm asm

  5. Set the project ID for the project that the cluster was created in:

    kpt cfg set asm gcloud.core.project ${PROJECT_ID}

  6. Set the project number for the fleet host project:

    kpt cfg set asm gcloud.project.environProjectNumber ${FLEET_PROJECT_NUMBER}

  7. Set the cluster name:

    kpt cfg set asm gcloud.container.cluster ${CLUSTER_NAME}

  8. Set the default zone or region:

    kpt cfg set asm gcloud.compute.location ${CLUSTER_LOCATION}

  9. Set the tag to the version of Anthos Service Mesh that you are installing:

    kpt cfg set asm anthos.servicemesh.tag 1.8.6-asm.8

  10. Set the validating webhook to use a revision label:

    kpt cfg set asm anthos.servicemesh.rev asm-186-8

    When you install Anthos Service Mesh, you set a revision label on istiod. You need to set the same revision on the validating webhook.

  11. Output the values of the kpt setters:

    kpt cfg list-setters asm

    In the output from the command, verify that the values for the following setters are correct:

    • anthos.servicemesh.rev
    • anthos.servicemesh.tag
    • gcloud.compute.location
    • gcloud.container.cluster
    • gcloud.core.project
    • gcloud.project.environProjectNumber

    You can ignore the values for the other setters.

Installing Anthos Service Mesh

Mesh CA

  1. Verify that the current kubeconfig context is pointing to the cluster that you want to install Anthos Service Mesh on:

    kubectl config current-context

    The output is in the following format:

    gke_PROJECT_ID_CLUSTER_LOCATION_CLUSTER_NAME

    The kubeconfig context and the values of the kpt setters must match. If needed, run the gcloud container clusters get-credentials command to set the current kubeconfig context.

  2. If needed, change to the istio-1.8.6-asm.8 directory. The istioctl client is version dependent. Make sure that you use the version in the istio-1.8.6-asm.8/bin directory.

  3. Run the following command to install Anthos Service Mesh. If you want to enable a supported optional feature, include -f and the YAML filename on the following command line. See Enabling optional features for more information.

    bin/istioctl install \
  -f asm/istio/istio-operator.yaml \
  -f asm/istio/options/multiproject.yaml \
  -f asm/istio/options/multicluster.yaml \
  --revision=asm-186-8

    The --revision argument adds a revision label in the format istio.io/rev=asm-186-8 to istiod. The revision label is used by the automatic sidecar injector webhook to associate injected sidecars with a particular istiod revision. To enable sidecar auto-injection for a namespace, you must label it with a revision matching an istiod Deployment.

    The following files override the settings in the istio-operator.yaml file:

    • The multiproject.yaml file sets the asm-gcp-multiproject profile.

    • The multicluster.yaml file configures the settings that Anthos Service Mesh needs for a multi-cluster configuration.

  4. Configure the validating webhook to locate istiod with the revision label:

    kubectl apply -f asm/istio/istiod-service.yaml

    This command creates a service entry that lets the validating webhook automatically check configurations before they are applied.

  5. Deploy the Canonical Service controller to your cluster:

    kubectl apply -f asm/canonical-service/controller.yaml

    The Canonical Service controller groups workloads belonging to the same logical service. For more information about Canonical Services, see the Canonical Service overview.

Citadel

  1. Verify that the current kubeconfig context is pointing to the cluster that you want to install Anthos Service Mesh on:

    kubectl config current-context

    The output is in the following format:

    gke_PROJECT_ID_CLUSTER_LOCATION_CLUSTER_NAME

    The kubeconfig context and the values of the kpt setters must match. If needed, run the gcloud container clusters get-credentials command to set the current kubeconfig context.

  2. Create the istio-system namespace:

    kubectl create namespace istio-system

  3. Create a secret cacerts:

    kubectl create secret generic cacerts  \
  -n istio-system \
  --from-file=ca-cert.pem \
  --from-file=ca-key.pem \
  --from-file=root-cert.pem \
  --from-file=cert-chain.pem

    For more information, see Plugging in existing CA Certificates.

  4. If needed, change to the istio-1.8.6-asm.8 directory. The istioctl client is version dependent. Make sure that you use the version in the istio-1.8.6-asm.8/bin directory.

  5. Run the following command to install Anthos Service Mesh. If you want to enable a supported optional feature, include -f and the YAML filename on the following command line. See Enabling optional features for more information.

    bin/istioctl install \
  -f asm/istio/istio-operator.yaml \
  -f asm/istio/options/citadel-ca.yaml \
  -f asm/istio/options/multiproject.yaml \
  -f asm/istio/options/multicluster.yaml \
  --revision=asm-186-8

    The --revision argument adds a revision label in the format istio.io/rev=asm-186-8 to istiod. The revision label is used by the automatic sidecar injector webhook to associate injected sidecars with a particular istiod revision. To enable sidecar auto-injection for a namespace, you must label it with a revision matching an istiod Deployment.

    The following files override the settings in the istio-operator.yaml file:

    • The citadel-ca.yaml configures Citadel as the CA.

    • The multiproject.yaml file sets the asm-gcp-multiproject profile.

    • The multicluster.yaml file configures the settings that Anthos Service Mesh needs for a multi-cluster configuration.

  6. Configure the validating webhook to locate istiod with the revision label:

    kubectl apply -f asm/istio/istiod-service.yaml

    This command creates a service entry that lets the validating webhook automatically check configurations before they are applied.

  7. Deploy the Canonical Service controller to your cluster:

    kubectl apply -f asm/canonical-service/controller.yaml

    The Canonical Service controller groups workloads belonging to the same logical service. For more information about Canonical Services, see the Canonical Service overview.

Check the control plane components

Check that the control plane pods in istio-system are up:

kubectl get pod -n istio-system

Expected output is similar to the following:

NAME                                   READY   STATUS      RESTARTS   AGE
istio-ingressgateway-cff9f5c7d-qg4ls   1/1     Running   0          7m5s
istio-ingressgateway-cff9f5c7d-vlkzb   1/1     Running   0          7m20s
istiod-66b587859c-886gx                1/1     Running   0          7m33s
istiod-66b587859c-dfs2j                1/1     Running   0          7m33s

Injecting sidecar proxies

Anthos Service Mesh uses sidecar proxies to enhance network security, reliability, and observability. With Anthos Service Mesh, these functions are abstracted away from the application's primary container and implemented in a common out-of-process proxy delivered as a separate container in the same Pod.

Your installation isn't complete until you enable automatic sidecar proxy injection (auto-injection) and restart the Pods for any workloads that were running on your cluster before you installed Anthos Service Mesh.

To enable auto-injection, you label your namespaces with the revision label that was set on istiod when you installed Anthos Service Mesh. The revision label is used by the sidecar injector webhook to associate injected sidecars with a particular istiod revision. After adding the label, any existing Pods in the namespace must be restarted for sidecars to be injected.

Before you deploy new workloads in a new namespace, make sure to configure auto-injection so that Anthos Service Mesh can monitor and secure traffic.

To enable auto-injection:

  1. Use the following command to locate the revision label on istiod:

    kubectl -n istio-system get pods -l app=istiod --show-labels

    The output looks similar to the following:

    NAME                                READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE   LABELS
istiod-asm-186-8-5788d57586-bljj4   1/1     Running   0          23h   app=istiod,istio.io/rev=asm-186-8,istio=istiod,pod-template-hash=5788d57586
istiod-asm-186-8-5788d57586-vsklm   1/1     Running   1          23h   app=istiod,istio.io/rev=asm-186-8,istio=istiod,pod-template-hash=5788d57586

    In the output, under the LABELS column, note the value of the istiod revision label, which follows the prefix istio.io/rev=. In this example, the value is asm-186-8.

  2. Apply the revision label and remove the istio-injection label if it exists. In the following command, NAMESPACE is the name of the namespace where you want to enable auto-injection, and REVISION is the revision label you noted in the previous step.

    kubectl label namespace NAMESPACE istio-injection- istio.io/rev=REVISION --overwrite

    You can ignore the message "istio-injection not found" in the output. That means that the namespace didn't previously have the istio-injection label, which you should expect in new installations of Anthos Service Mesh or new deployments. Because auto-injection fails if a namespace has both the istio-injection and the revision label, all kubectl label commands in the Anthos Service Mesh documentation include removing the istio-injection label.

  3. If workloads were running on your cluster before you installed Anthos Service Mesh, restart the Pods to trigger re-injection.

    How you restart Pods depends on your application and the environment the cluster is in. For example, in your staging environment, you might simply delete all the Pods, which causes them to restart. But in your production environment, you might have a process that implements a blue-green deployment so that you can safely restart Pods to avoid traffic interruption.

    You can use kubectl to perform a rolling restart:

    kubectl rollout restart deployment -n NAMESPACE

  4. Verify that your Pods are configured to point to the new version of istiod.

    kubectl get pods -n NAMESPACE -l istio.io/rev=REVISION

What's next