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Chapter 8. Istioctl tool

OpenShift Service Mesh 3 supports istioctl, the command line utility for the Istio project that includes many diagnostic and debugging utilities.

8.1. Support for Istioctl
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OpenShift Service Mesh 3 supports a selection of Istioctl commands.

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Table 8.1. Supported Istioctl commands
CommandDescription

admin

Manage the control plane (istiod) configuration

analyze

Analyze the Istio configuration and print validation messages

completion

Generate the autocompletion script for the specified shell

create-remote-secret

Create a secret with credentials to allow Istio to access remote Kubernetes API servers

help

Display help about any command

proxy-config, pc

Retrieve information about the proxy configuration from Envoy (Kubernetes only)

proxy-status, ps

Retrieve the synchronization status of each Envoy in the mesh

remote-clusters

List the remote clusters each istiod instance is connected to

validate, v

Validate the Istio policy and rules files

version

Print out the build version information

waypoint

Manage the waypoint configuration

ztunnel-config

Update or retrieve the current Ztunnel configuration.

8.2. Installing the Istioctl tool
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Install the istioctl command-line utility to debug and diagnose Istio service mesh deployments.

Prerequisites

  • You have access to the OpenShift Container Platform web console.
  • The OpenShift Service Mesh 3 Operator is installed and running.
  • You have created at least one Istio resource.

Procedure

  1. Confirm which version of the Istio resource runs on the installation by running the following command: 

    $ oc get istio -ojsonpath="{range .items[*]}{.spec.version}{'\n'}{end}" | sed s/^v// | sort
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    If there are multiple Istio resources with different versions, choose the latest version. The latest version is displayed last.

  2. In the OpenShift Container Platform web console, click the Help icon and select Command Line Tools.

  3. Click Download istioctl. Choose the version and architecture that matches your system.

  4. Extract the istioctl binary file.

    1. If you are using a Linux operating system, run the following command: 

      $ tar xzf istioctl-<VERSION>-<OS>-<ARCH>.tar.gz
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    2. If you are using an Apple Mac operating system, unpack and extract the archive.
    3. If you are using a Microsoft Windows operating system, use the zip software to extract the archive.

  5. Move to the uncompressed directory by running the following command: 

    $ cd istioctl-<VERSION>-<OS>-<ARCH>
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  6. Add the istioctl client to the path by running the following command: 

    $ export PATH=$PWD:$PATH
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  7. Confirm that the istioctl client version and the Istio control plane version match or are within one version by running the following command: 

    $ istioctl version
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    Sample output:

    client version: 1.20.0
control plane version: 1.24.3_ossm
data plane version: none
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