Installing Istio with Grafana Add-On on Kubernetes

Introduction

• Presenter: Ben Cat
• Channel: Open Source Channel
• Video: Installation of Istio with Grafana on Kubernetes
• Series: Kubernetes and Istio
  • Part of a series of 6-7 videos on Istio
  • Previous videos:
    1. Installation of Istio binary and resources
    2. Deployment of sample BookInfo application

Prerequisites

• Kubernetes cluster
• Helm installed
• MetalLB (for load balancing) or cloud provider's load balancer

Kubernetes Cluster Setup

• Using Kubernetes in Docker (KinD)
• Kubernetes version: 1.15.0
• Nodes:
  • 1 master
  • 2 worker nodes (all in Docker containers)

Tools Installed

• Helm
• MetalLB in 'metallb-system' namespace
• Istio CLI (istioctl)
  • Command to install Istio CLI:

    curl -L https://git.io/getLatestIstio | sh -
    mv istio-<version>/bin/istioctl /usr/local/bin/istioctl
    

Installing Istio

• Create 'istio-system' namespace
• Preparation:

  helm install install/kubernetes/helm/istio-init --name istio-init --namespace istio-system
  

• Install Istio with Grafana:

  helm install install/kubernetes/helm/istio --name istio --namespace istio-system --set grafana.enabled=true
  

Checking Installation

• Check if Istio components are running:

  kubectl get pods -n istio-system
  

• Ensure Grafana is installed with Prometheus for metrics collection

Sample Application: BookInfo

• Label the namespace for Istio sidecar injection:

  kubectl label namespace default istio-injection=enabled
  

• Deploy BookInfo:

  kubectl apply -f samples/bookinfo/platform/kube/bookinfo.yaml
  kubectl apply -f samples/bookinfo/networking/bookinfo-gateway.yaml
  kubectl apply -f samples/bookinfo/networking/destination-rule-all.yaml
  

• Verify deployment:

  kubectl get services,pods -n default
  

Accessing Grafana

• Grafana runs on port 3000, but is exposed internally (ClusterIP by default)
• Access using port forwarding:

  kubectl -n istio-system port-forward $(kubectl -n istio-system get pod -l app=grafana -o jsonpath='{.items[0].metadata.name}') 3000:3000
  

• Access Grafana at http://localhost:3000

Grafana Dashboards

• Dashboards available:
  • Istio: Overview of Istio components
  • Galley: Istio Galley component details
  • Mixer: Metrics aggregation
  • Pilot: Service discovery and configuration
  • Service: Service-level metrics
  • Workload: Application-level metrics

Generating Traffic for Metrics

• Use curl command to generate traffic to BookInfo application:

  watch -n 2 curl -s -o /dev/null http://<EXTERNAL_IP>/productpage
  

• Monitor metrics in Grafana

Next Steps

• Upcoming video: Installing Kiali, a web interface add-on for Istio
• Questions or comments: Leave them in the video comments section
• Subscribe and share the video

Conclusion

• Installing Istio with Grafana provides valuable insights into your Kubernetes and Istio setup.
• Grafana dashboards help monitor the health and performance of your applications and Istio components.
• Stay tuned for more tutorials on advanced Istio features.