Practical examples of setting up Istio and using its proxy and telemetry

Istio Proxy and Telemetry

Setting up Istio with open source telemetry, then installing a basic app and observing it.

This is a full tutorial, complete with working examples, on installing Istio with open source telemetry (like Jaeger, as opposed to Google Stack Driver), configuring the proxy to serve an application, and a peak into how to observe the telemetry using their UIs.

I use GKE to manage my Kubernetes clusters, so there is some GCP specific stuff in here. A lot of it though is generic and can be applied to any Kubernetes cluster, managed or upstream.

Istio Proxy and Telemetry: Abaganon

What This Tutorial Covers

1. Installing Istio On A Kubernetes Cluster
2. Configure Istio’s Envoy Proxy To Serve An App In A Different Namespace
3. View The Telemetry UIs And How They Automatically Observe The App

What You Need For This Tutorial

A Kubernetes Cluster

Networking can be complex, Istio can help make it easier

Install Istio

Istio is best installed using Helm, so first, install the Helm and Istio clients with the following commands (replace the Istio semver number if there is a more recent version available):

Btw, these instructions are for Helm version 2. Helm version 3 no longer uses Tiller.

Now we need to do create certificates that will be used to establish mutual TLS between helm and tiller. This is a really important security step. You should never use tiller without certs in production. Run the following commands (you will…