Kubernetes

Instructions for installing the Istio control plane on Kubernetes and adding virtual machines into the mesh.

Getting started

Istio offers multiple installation flows depending on your Kubernetes platform. However, the basic flow is the same regardless of platform:

1. Review the pod requirements
2. Prepare your platform for Istio
3. Download the Istio release
4. Install Istio on your platform

Whether or not you intend to use Istio in production is an important consideration when deciding which installation flow to follow.

Evaluating Istio

To quickly test Istio’s features, you can:

• Install Istio on Kubernetes without Helm
• Configure Istio’s minimal or demo profile using the helm installation guide

Installing Istio for production

We recommend you install Istio for production using the Helm Installation guide.

If you run Kubernetes on a supported platform, you can follow the instructions specific to your Kubernetes platform:

• Alibaba Cloud Kubernetes Container Service
• Google Kubernetes Engine
• IBM Cloud

If you want your installation to use Istio’s Container Network Interface (CNI) plugin, visit our CNI guide.

If you want to perform a multicluster setup, visit our Multicluster installation documents.

Adding services to your mesh

To expand your existing mesh with additional containers or VMs not running on your mesh’s Kubernetes cluster, follow our Mesh Expansion guide.

Adding services requires understanding sidecar injection in detail. Visit our Installing the Sidecar guide to learn more.