Quick Start on Docker

2 minute read

Quick Start instructions to install and configure Istio networking in a Docker Compose setup.

Prerequisites

Installation steps

Go to the Istio release page to download the installation file corresponding to your OS. If you are using a macOS or Linux system, you can also run the following command to download and extract the latest release automatically:
```
$ curl -L https://git.io/getLatestIstio | ISTIO_VERSION=1.2.5 sh -
```
Extract the installation file and change the directory to the file location. The installation directory contains:
- Sample applications in samples/
- The istioctl client binary in the bin/ directory. istioctl is used for some debug and diagnostics tasks.
- The istio.VERSION configuration file
Add the istioctl client to your PATH. For example, run the following command on a macOS or Linux system:
```
$ export PATH=$PWD/bin:$PATH
```
Install kubectl using these instructions.

kubectl is used to create, read, modify, and delete Istio API resources.

For Linux users, configure the DOCKER_GATEWAY environment variable
```
$ export DOCKER_GATEWAY=172.28.0.1:
```
Change directory to the root of the Istio installation directory.
Bring up the Istio networking control plane containers:
```
$ docker-compose -f install/consul/istio.yaml up -d
```
The Consul install only configures Istio Pilot. To use Istio Mixer (policy enforcement and telemetry reporting) or Istio Galley, further installation steps will be necessary. Those steps are beyond the scope of this guide.
Confirm that all Docker containers are running:
```
$ docker ps -a
```
If the Istio Pilot container terminates, ensure that you ran the kubectl config commands below and re-run the command from the previous step.

Configure kubectl to use mapped local port for the API server:

$ kubectl config set-context istio --cluster=istio
$ kubectl config set-cluster istio --server=http://localhost:8080
$ kubectl config use-context istio

Deploy your application

You can now deploy your own application or one of the sample applications provided with the installation likeBookinfo.

$ docker-compose -f <your-app-spec>.yaml up -d

Uninstalling

Uninstall Istio core components by removing the Docker containers:

$ docker-compose -f install/consul/istio.yaml down