Quick Start with IBM Cloud

Follow these instructions to install and run Istio in IBM Cloud. You can install Istio in IBM Cloud Public or IBM Cloud Private.

IBM Cloud Public

Follow these instructions to install and run Istio in IBM Cloud Public² by using Helm and the IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service.

This guide installs the current release version of Istio.

Prerequisites - IBM Cloud Public

• Install the IBM Cloud CLI, the IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service plug-in, and the Kubernetes CLI³. Istio requires the Kubernetes version 1.9 or later. Make sure to install the kubectl CLI version that matches the Kubernetes version of your cluster.
• Make sure you have a cluster of Kubernetes version of 1.9 or later. If you do not have a cluster available, create a version 1.9 or later cluster⁴.
• Target the CLI to your cluster by running ibmcloud ks cluster-config <cluster_name_or_ID> and copying and pasting the command in the output.

Initialize Helm and Tiller

1. Install the Helm CLI.

2. Create a service account for Tiller in the kube-system namespace and a Kubernetes RBAC cluster role binding for the tiller-deploy pod:

   apiVersion: v1
   kind: ServiceAccount
   metadata:
     name: tiller
     namespace: kube-system
   ---
   apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
   kind: ClusterRoleBinding
   metadata:
     name: tiller
   roleRef:
     apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io
     kind: ClusterRole
     name: cluster-admin
   subjects:
     - kind: ServiceAccount
       name: tiller
       namespace: kube-system

3. Create the service account and cluster role binding:

   $ kubectl create -f rbac-config.yaml
   

4. Initialize Helm and install Tiller:

   $ helm init --service-account tiller
   

5. Add the IBM Cloud Helm repository to your Helm instance:

   $ helm repo add ibm-charts https://registry.bluemix.net/helm/ibm-charts
   

Deploy the Istio Helm chart

1. If using a Helm version prior to 2.10.0, install Istio’s Custom Resource Definitions via kubectl apply, and wait a few seconds for the CRDs to be committed in the kube-apiserver:

   $ kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/IBM/charts/master/stable/ibm-istio/templates/crds.yaml
   

2. Install the Helm chart to your cluster:

   $ helm install ibm-charts/ibm-istio --name=istio --namespace istio-system
   

3. Ensure the pods for the 9 Istio services and the pod for Prometheus are all fully deployed:

   $ kubectl get pods -n istio-system
   NAME                                       READY     STATUS      RESTARTS   AGE
   istio-citadel-748d656b-pj9bw               1/1       Running     0          2m
   istio-egressgateway-6c65d7c98d-l54kg       1/1       Running     0          2m
   istio-galley-65cfbc6fd7-bpnqx              1/1       Running     0          2m
   istio-ingressgateway-f8dd85989-6w6nj       1/1       Running     0          2m
   istio-pilot-5fd885964b-l4df6               2/2       Running     0          2m
   istio-policy-56f4f4cbbd-2z2bk              2/2       Running     0          2m
   istio-sidecar-injector-646655c8cd-rwvsx    1/1       Running     0          2m
   istio-statsd-prom-bridge-7fdbbf769-8k42l   1/1       Running     0          2m
   istio-telemetry-8687d9d745-mwjbf           2/2       Running     0          2m
   prometheus-55c7c698d6-f4drj                1/1       Running     0          2m

Upgrade

1. To upgrade your Istio Helm chart to the latest version:

   $ helm upgrade -f config.yaml istio ibm/ibm-istio
   

Uninstall

1. Uninstall the Istio Helm deployment:

   $ helm del istio --purge
   

   If your Helm version is less than 2.9.0, then you need to manually cleanup extra job resource before redeploy new version of Istio chart:

   $ kubectl -n istio-system delete job --all
   

2. If desired, delete the Istio custom resource definitions:

   $ kubectl delete -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/IBM/charts/master/stable/ibm-istio/templates/crds.yaml
   

IBM Cloud Private

Follow these instructions to install and run Istio in IBM Cloud Private⁵ using the Catalog module.

This guide installs the current release version of Istio.

Prerequisites - IBM Cloud Private

• You need to have an available IBM Cloud Private cluster. Otherwise, you can follow Installing IBM Cloud Private-CE⁶ to create an IBM Cloud Private cluster.

Deploy Istio via the Catalog module

• Log in to the IBM Cloud Private console.
• Click Catalog on the right side of the navigation bar.
• Click Filter on the right side of the search box and select the ibm-charts check box.
• Click Operations in the left navigation pane.

• Click ibm-istio in the right panel.

• (Optional) Change the Istio version using the CHART VERSION drop-down.
• Click the Configure button.

• Input the Helm release name (e.g. istio-1.0.3) and select istio-system as the target namespace.
• Agree to the license terms.
• (Optional) Customize the installation parameters by clicking All parameters.
• Click the Install button.

After it is installed, you can find it by searching for its release name on the Helm Releases page.

Upgrade or Rollback

• Log in to the IBM Cloud Private console.
• Click the menu button on the left side of the navigation bar.
• Click Workloads and select Helm Releases.
• Find the installed Istio using its release name.
• Click Action and select upgrade or rollback.

Uninstalling

• Log in to the IBM Cloud Private console.
• Click the menu button on the left side of the navigation bar.
• Click Workloads and select Helm Releases.
• Find the installed Istio using its release name.
• Click Action and select delete.

See also