Zipkin

After completing this task, you understand how to have your application participate in tracing with Zipkin⁶, regardless of the language, framework, or platform you use to build your application.

This task uses the Bookinfo⁷ sample as the example application.

To learn how Istio handles tracing, visit this task’s overview⁸.

Before you begin

1. Follow the Zipkin installation documentation to deploy Zipkin into your cluster.

2. Deploy the Bookinfo sample application.

Configure Istio for distributed tracing

Configure an extension provider

Install Istio with an extension provider referring to the Zipkin service:

$ cat <<EOF > ./tracing.yaml
apiVersion: install.istio.io/v1alpha1
kind: IstioOperator
spec:
  meshConfig:
    enableTracing: true
    defaultConfig:
      tracing: {} # disable legacy MeshConfig tracing options
    extensionProviders:
    - name: zipkin
      zipkin:
        service: zipkin.istio-system.svc.cluster.local
        port: 9411
EOF
$ istioctl install -f ./tracing.yaml --skip-confirmation

Enable tracing

Enable tracing by applying the following configuration:

$ kubectl apply -f - <<EOF
apiVersion: telemetry.istio.io/v1
kind: Telemetry
metadata:
  name: mesh-default
  namespace: istio-system
spec:
  tracing:
  - providers:
    - name: zipkin
EOF

Accessing the dashboard

The Remotely Accessing Telemetry Addons task⁹ details how to configure access to the Istio addons through a gateway.

For testing (and temporary access), you may also use port-forwarding. Use the following, assuming you’ve deployed Zipkin to the istio-system namespace:

$ istioctl dashboard zipkin

Generating traces using the Bookinfo sample

1. When the Bookinfo application is up and running, access http://$GATEWAY_URL/productpage one or more times to generate trace information.

   To see trace data, you must send requests to your service. The number of requests depends on Istio’s sampling rate and can be configured using the Telemetry API¹⁰. With the default sampling rate of 1%, you need to send at least 100 requests before the first trace is visible. To send 100 requests to the productpage service, use the following command:

   $ for i in $(seq 1 100); do curl -s -o /dev/null "http://$GATEWAY_URL/productpage"; done
   

2. From the search panel, click on the plus sign. Select serviceName from the first drop-down list, productpage.default from second drop-down, and then click the search icon:

   

3. Click on the ISTIO-INGRESSGATEWAY search result to see the details corresponding to the latest request to /productpage:

   

4. The trace is comprised of a set of spans, where each span corresponds to a Bookinfo service, invoked during the execution of a /productpage request, or internal Istio component, for example: istio-ingressgateway.

Cleanup

1. Remove any istioctl processes that may still be running using control-C or:

   $ killall istioctl
   

2. If you are not planning to explore any follow-on tasks, refer to the Bookinfo cleanup instructions to shutdown the application.