Debugging Envoy and Pilot
Istio provides two very valuable commands to help diagnose traffic management configuration problems,
the proxy-status
and proxy-config commands. The proxy-status command
allows you to get an overview of your mesh and identify the proxy causing the problem. Then proxy-config can be used
to inspect Envoy configuration and diagnose the issue.
If you want to try the commands described below, you can either:
- Have a Kubernetes cluster with Istio and Bookinfo installed (e.g use
istio.yamlas described in installation steps and Bookinfo installation steps).
OR
- Use similar commands against your own application running in a Kubernetes cluster.
Get an overview of your mesh
The proxy-status command allows you to get an overview of your mesh. If you suspect one of your sidecars isn’t
receiving configuration or is out of sync then proxy-status will tell you this.
$ istioctl proxy-status
PROXY CDS LDS EDS RDS PILOT VERSION
details-v1-6dcc6fbb9d-wsjz4.default SYNCED SYNCED SYNCED (100%) SYNCED istio-pilot-75bdf98789-tfdvh 1.1.2
istio-egressgateway-c49694485-l9d5l.istio-system SYNCED SYNCED SYNCED (100%) NOT SENT istio-pilot-75bdf98789-tfdvh 1.1.2
istio-ingress-6458b8c98f-7ks48.istio-system SYNCED SYNCED SYNCED (100%) NOT SENT istio-pilot-75bdf98789-n2kqh 1.1.2
istio-ingressgateway-7d6874b48f-qxhn5.istio-system SYNCED SYNCED SYNCED (100%) SYNCED istio-pilot-75bdf98789-n2kqh 1.1.2
productpage-v1-6c886ff494-hm7zk.default SYNCED SYNCED SYNCED (100%) STALE istio-pilot-75bdf98789-n2kqh 1.1.2
ratings-v1-5d9ff497bb-gslng.default SYNCED SYNCED SYNCED (100%) SYNCED istio-pilot-75bdf98789-n2kqh 1.1.2
reviews-v1-55d4c455db-zjj2m.default SYNCED SYNCED SYNCED (100%) SYNCED istio-pilot-75bdf98789-n2kqh 1.1.2
reviews-v2-686bbb668-99j76.default SYNCED SYNCED SYNCED (100%) SYNCED istio-pilot-75bdf98789-tfdvh 1.1.2
reviews-v3-7b9b5fdfd6-4r52s.default SYNCED SYNCED SYNCED (100%) SYNCED istio-pilot-75bdf98789-n2kqh 1.1.2
If a proxy is missing from this list it means that it is not currently connected to a Pilot instance so will not be receiving any configuration.
SYNCEDmeans that Envoy has acknowledged the last configuration Pilot has sent to it.SYNCED (100%)means that Envoy has successfully synced all of the endpoints in the cluster.NOT SENTmeans that Pilot hasn’t sent anything to Envoy. This usually is because Pilot has nothing to send.STALEmeans that Pilot has sent an update to Envoy but has not received an acknowledgement. This usually indicates a networking issue between Envoy and Pilot or a bug with Istio itself.
Retrieve diffs between Envoy and Istio Pilot
The proxy-status command can also be used to retrieve a diff between the configuration Envoy has loaded and the
configuration Pilot would send, by providing a proxy ID. This can help you determine exactly what is out of sync and
where the issue may lie.
$ istioctl proxy-status details-v1-6dcc6fbb9d-wsjz4.default
--- Pilot Clusters
+++ Envoy Clusters
@@ -374,36 +374,14 @@
"edsClusterConfig": {
"edsConfig": {
"ads": {
}
},
"serviceName": "outbound|443||public-cr0bdc785ce3f14722918080a97e1f26be-alb1.kube-system.svc.cluster.local"
- },
- "connectTimeout": "1.000s",
- "circuitBreakers": {
- "thresholds": [
- {
-
- }
- ]
- }
- }
- },
- {
- "cluster": {
- "name": "outbound|53||kube-dns.kube-system.svc.cluster.local",
- "type": "EDS",
- "edsClusterConfig": {
- "edsConfig": {
- "ads": {
-
- }
- },
- "serviceName": "outbound|53||kube-dns.kube-system.svc.cluster.local"
},
"connectTimeout": "1.000s",
"circuitBreakers": {
"thresholds": [
{
}
Listeners Match
Routes Match
Here you can see that the listeners and routes match but the clusters are out of sync.
Deep dive into Envoy configuration
The proxy-config command can be used to see how a given Envoy instance is configured. This can then be used to
pinpoint any issues you are unable to detect by just looking through your Istio configuration and custom resources.
To get a basic summary of clusters, listeners or routes for a given pod use the command as follows (changing clusters
for listeners or routes when required):
$ istioctl proxy-config clusters -n istio-system istio-ingressgateway-7d6874b48f-qxhn5
SERVICE FQDN PORT SUBSET DIRECTION TYPE
BlackHoleCluster - - - STATIC
details.default.svc.cluster.local 9080 - outbound EDS
heapster.kube-system.svc.cluster.local 80 - outbound EDS
istio-citadel.istio-system.svc.cluster.local 8060 - outbound EDS
istio-citadel.istio-system.svc.cluster.local 10514 - outbound EDS
istio-egressgateway.istio-system.svc.cluster.local 80 - outbound EDS
...
In order to debug Envoy you need to understand Envoy clusters/listeners/routes/endpoints and how they all interact.
We will use the proxy-config command with the -o json and filtering flags to follow Envoy as it determines where
to send a request from the productpage pod to the reviews pod at reviews:9080.
If you query the listener summary on a pod you will notice Istio generates the following listeners:
- A listener on
0.0.0.0:15001that receives all traffic into and out of the pod, then hands the request over to a virtual listener. - A virtual listener per service IP, per each non-HTTP for outbound TCP/HTTPS traffic.
- A virtual listener on the pod IP for each exposed port for inbound traffic.
- A virtual listener on
0.0.0.0per each HTTP port for outbound HTTP traffic.
$ istioctl proxy-config listeners productpage-v1-6c886ff494-7vxhs ADDRESS PORT TYPE 172.21.252.250 15005 TCP <--+ 172.21.252.250 15011 TCP | 172.21.79.56 42422 TCP | 172.21.160.5 443 TCP | 172.21.157.6 443 TCP | 172.21.117.222 443 TCP | 172.21.0.10 53 TCP | 172.21.126.131 443 TCP | Receives outbound non-HTTP traffic for relevant IP:PORT pair from listener `0.0.0.0_15001` 172.21.160.5 31400 TCP | 172.21.81.159 9102 TCP | 172.21.0.1 443 TCP | 172.21.126.131 80 TCP | 172.21.119.8 443 TCP | 172.21.112.64 80 TCP | 172.21.179.54 443 TCP | 172.21.165.197 443 TCP <--+ 0.0.0.0 9090 HTTP <-+ 0.0.0.0 8060 HTTP | 0.0.0.0 15010 HTTP | 0.0.0.0 15003 HTTP | 0.0.0.0 15004 HTTP | 0.0.0.0 10514 HTTP | Receives outbound HTTP traffic for relevant port from listener `0.0.0.0_15001` 0.0.0.0 15007 HTTP | 0.0.0.0 8080 HTTP | 0.0.0.0 9091 HTTP | 0.0.0.0 9080 HTTP | 0.0.0.0 80 HTTP <-+ 0.0.0.0 15001 TCP // Receives all inbound and outbound traffic to the pod from IP tables and hands over to virtual listener 172.30.164.190 9080 HTTP // Receives all inbound traffic on 9080 from listener `0.0.0.0_15001`- A listener on
From the above summary you can see that every sidecar has a listener bound to
0.0.0.0:15001which is where IP tables routes all inbound and outbound pod traffic to. This listener hasuseOriginalDstset to true which means it hands the request over to the listener that best matches the original destination of the request. If it can’t find any matching virtual listeners it sends the request to thePassthroughClusterwhich connects to the destination directly.$ istioctl proxy-config listeners productpage-v1-6c886ff494-7vxhs --port 15001 -o json [ { "name": "virtual", "address": { "socketAddress": { "address": "0.0.0.0", "portValue": 15001 } }, "filterChains": [ { "filters": [ { "name": "envoy.tcp_proxy", "config": { "cluster": "PassthroughCluster", "stat_prefix": "PassthroughCluster" } } ] } ], "useOriginalDst": true } ]Our request is an outbound HTTP request to port
9080this means it gets handed off to the0.0.0.0:9080virtual listener. This listener then looks up the route configuration in its configured RDS. In this case it will be looking up route9080in RDS configured by Pilot (via ADS).$ istioctl proxy-config listeners productpage-v1-6c886ff494-7vxhs -o json --address 0.0.0.0 --port 9080 ... "rds": { "config_source": { "ads": {} }, "route_config_name": "9080" } ...The
9080route configuration only has a virtual host for each service. Our request is heading to the reviews service so Envoy will select the virtual host to which our request matches a domain. Once matched on domain Envoy looks for the first route that matches the request. In this case we don’t have any advanced routing so there is only one route that matches on everything. This route tells Envoy to send the request to theoutbound|9080||reviews.default.svc.cluster.localcluster.$ istioctl proxy-config routes productpage-v1-6c886ff494-7vxhs --name 9080 -o json [ { "name": "9080", "virtualHosts": [ { "name": "reviews.default.svc.cluster.local:9080", "domains": [ "reviews.default.svc.cluster.local", "reviews.default.svc.cluster.local:9080", "reviews", "reviews:9080", "reviews.default.svc.cluster", "reviews.default.svc.cluster:9080", "reviews.default.svc", "reviews.default.svc:9080", "reviews.default", "reviews.default:9080", "172.21.152.34", "172.21.152.34:9080" ], "routes": [ { "match": { "prefix": "/" }, "route": { "cluster": "outbound|9080||reviews.default.svc.cluster.local", "timeout": "0.000s" }, ...This cluster is configured to retrieve the associated endpoints from Pilot (via ADS). So Envoy will then use the
serviceNamefield as a key to look up the list of Endpoints and proxy the request to one of them.$ istioctl proxy-config clusters productpage-v1-6c886ff494-7vxhs --fqdn reviews.default.svc.cluster.local -o json [ { "name": "outbound|9080||reviews.default.svc.cluster.local", "type": "EDS", "edsClusterConfig": { "edsConfig": { "ads": {} }, "serviceName": "outbound|9080||reviews.default.svc.cluster.local" }, "connectTimeout": "1.000s", "circuitBreakers": { "thresholds": [ {} ] } } ]To see the endpoints currently available for this cluster use the
proxy-configendpoints command.$ istioctl proxy-config endpoints productpage-v1-6c886ff494-7vxhs --cluster "outbound|9080||reviews.default.svc.cluster.local" ENDPOINT STATUS CLUSTER 172.17.0.17:9080 HEALTHY outbound|9080||reviews.default.svc.cluster.local 172.17.0.18:9080 HEALTHY outbound|9080||reviews.default.svc.cluster.local 172.17.0.5:9080 HEALTHY outbound|9080||reviews.default.svc.cluster.local
Inspecting Bootstrap configuration
So far we have looked at configuration retrieved (mostly) from Pilot, however Envoy requires some bootstrap configuration that includes information like where Pilot can be found. To view this use the following command:
$ istioctl proxy-config bootstrap -n istio-system istio-ingressgateway-7d6874b48f-qxhn5
{
"bootstrap": {
"node": {
"id": "router~172.30.86.14~istio-ingressgateway-7d6874b48f-qxhn5.istio-system~istio-system.svc.cluster.local",
"cluster": "istio-ingressgateway",
"metadata": {
"POD_NAME": "istio-ingressgateway-7d6874b48f-qxhn5",
"istio": "sidecar"
},
"buildVersion": "0/1.8.0-dev//RELEASE"
},
...