From Zero to Istio Ambient + Argo CD on KinD in 15 Minutes!

How long does it take to configure your first local development environment, sidecarless service mesh, and GitOps workflow?

How about 15 minutes? Give us that much time and we’ll give you an ephemeral testbed to explore the benefits of the new architecture mode in Istio, deploy a few applications, and validate zero-trust with minimal effort! We’ll host all of this on a local kind cluster to keep the setup standalone and as simple as possible.

Purpose of This Tutorial

The main goal of this tutorial is to showcase how Istio Ambient architecture components can be integrated into a GitOps workflow, with Argo CD being our tool of choice. We’ll guide you through the installation of Argo CD, Gloo Platform, and Istio Ambient, and then validate that service-to-service communication is automatically secured using mTLS.

Would you prefer to perform this exercise on a public cloud rather than a local KinD cluster? In the coming weeks, we’ll share alternative versions of this tutorial.

If you have questions, please reach out on the Solo Slack channel.

Ready? Set? Go!

Prerequisites

For this exercise, we’re going to do all the work on your local workstation. All you’ll need to get started is a Docker-compatible environment such as Docker Desktop, plus the CLI utilities kubectl, kind. Make sure these are all available to you before jumping into the next section.

Install KinD

To install kind simply run the following:

kind create cluster

Verify that the cluster has been created:

kubectl config get-contexts

The output should look similar to below:

% kubectl config get-contexts
CURRENT NAME CLUSTER AUTHINFO NAMESPACE
* kind-kind kind-kind kind-kind

Installing Argo CD

Let’s start by deploying Argo CD.

Deploy Argo CD 2.9.5 using the non-HA YAML manifests:

kubectl create namespace argocd

until kubectl apply -n argocd -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/argoproj/argo-cd/v2.9.5/manifests/install.yaml > /dev/null 2>&1; do sleep 2; done

Check deployment status:

kubectl -n argocd rollout status deploy/argocd-applicationset-controller
kubectl -n argocd rollout status deploy/argocd-dex-server
kubectl -n argocd rollout status deploy/argocd-notifications-controller
kubectl -n argocd rollout status deploy/argocd-redis
kubectl -n argocd rollout status deploy/argocd-repo-server
kubectl -n argocd rollout status deploy/argocd-server

Check to see Argo CD status.

kubectl get pods -n argocd

Output should look similar to below:

NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE
argocd-application-controller-0 1/1 Running 0 31s
argocd-applicationset-controller-765944f45d-569kn 1/1 Running 0 33s
argocd-dex-server-7977459848-swnm6 1/1 Running 0 33s
argocd-notifications-controller-6587c9d9-6t4hg 1/1 Running 0 32s
argocd-redis-b5d6bf5f5-52mk5 1/1 Running 0 32s
argocd-repo-server-7bfc968f69-hrqt6 1/1 Running 0 32s
argocd-server-77f84bfbb8-lgdlr 2/2 Running 0 32s

We can also change the password to: admin / solo.io:

# bcrypt(password)=$2a$10$79yaoOg9dL5MO8pn8hGqtO4xQDejSEVNWAGQR268JHLdrCw6UCYmy
# password: solo.io
kubectl -n argocd patch secret argocd-secret \
-p '{"stringData": {
"admin.password": "$2a$10$79yaoOg9dL5MO8pn8hGqtO4xQDejSEVNWAGQR268JHLdrCw6UCYmy",
"admin.passwordMtime": "'$(date +%FT%T%Z)'"
}}'

Note: if you want to change the password to something else, follow these instructions in the Argo CD Docs.

Access Argo CD With Port-Forwarding

At this point, we should be able to access our Argo CD server using port-forward at http://localhost:9999:

kubectl port-forward svc/argocd-server -n argocd 9999:443

Installing Istio Ambient

Set the Istio version in an environment variable:

export ISTIO_VERSION=1.22.0

Reminder if you want a specific version of Istio or to use the officially supported images provided by Solo.io, get the Hub value from the Solo support page for Istio Solo images. The value is present within the Solo.io Istio Versioning Repo key section.

Otherwise, we can use the upstream Istio community image as defined.

Configure the Kubernetes Gateway API CRDs on the cluster, we will need these to deploy components like the Waypoint proxy:

echo "installing Kubernetes Gateway CRDs"
kubectl get crd gateways.gateway.networking.k8s.io &> /dev/null || \
{ kubectl kustomize "github.com/kubernetes-sigs/gateway-api/config/crd?ref=v1.0.0" | kubectl apply -f -; }

Deploy the istio-base helm chart using Argo CD:

kubectl apply -f- <<EOF
apiVersion: argoproj.io/v1alpha1
kind: Application
metadata:
name: istio-base
namespace: argocd
finalizers:
- resources-finalizer.argocd.argoproj.io
spec:
destination:
server: https://kubernetes.default.svc
namespace: istio-system
project: default
source:
chart: base
repoURL: https://istio-release.storage.googleapis.com/charts
targetRevision: "${ISTIO_VERSION}"
syncPolicy:
automated:
prune: true
selfHeal: true
syncOptions:
- CreateNamespace=true
ignoreDifferences:
- group: admissionregistration.k8s.io
kind: ValidatingWebhookConfiguration
jsonPointers:
- /webhooks/0/failurePolicy
EOF

Deploy the istio-cni helm chart using Argo CD:

kubectl apply -f- <<EOF
apiVersion: argoproj.io/v1alpha1
kind: Application
metadata:
name: istio-cni
namespace: argocd
finalizers:
- resources-finalizer.argocd.argoproj.io
spec:
destination:
server: https://kubernetes.default.svc
namespace: kube-system
project: default
source:
chart: cni
repoURL: https://istio-release.storage.googleapis.com/charts
targetRevision: ${ISTIO_VERSION}
helm:
values: |
profile: ambient
syncPolicy:
automated:
prune: true
selfHeal: true
EOF

Deploy the istiod helm chart using Argo CD:

kubectl apply -f- <<EOF
apiVersion: argoproj.io/v1alpha1
kind: Application
metadata:
name: istiod
namespace: argocd
finalizers:
- resources-finalizer.argocd.argoproj.io
spec:
destination:
server: https://kubernetes.default.svc
namespace: istio-system
project: default
source:
chart: istiod
repoURL: https://istio-release.storage.googleapis.com/charts
targetRevision: ${ISTIO_VERSION}
helm:
values: |
profile: ambient
syncPolicy:
automated:
prune: true
selfHeal: true
ignoreDifferences:
- group: admissionregistration.k8s.io
kind: ValidatingWebhookConfiguration
jsonPointers:
- /webhooks/0/failurePolicy
EOF

Deploy the ztunnel helm chart using Argo CD:

kubectl apply -f- <<EOF
apiVersion: argoproj.io/v1alpha1
kind: Application
metadata:
name: istio-ztunnel
namespace: argocd
finalizers:
- resources-finalizer.argocd.argoproj.io
spec:
destination:
server: https://kubernetes.default.svc
namespace: istio-system
project: default
source:
chart: ztunnel
repoURL: https://istio-release.storage.googleapis.com/charts
targetRevision: ${ISTIO_VERSION}
syncPolicy:
automated:
prune: true
selfHeal: true
EOF

You can check to see that Istio Ambient architecture components have been deployed:

kubectl get pods -n istio-system && \
kubectl get pods -n kube-system | grep istio-cni

Output should look similar to below:

NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE
istiod-759bc56fb5-kn4bp 1/1 Running 0 81s
ztunnel-w879j 1/1 Running 0 51s
istio-cni-node-gzpvd 1/1 Running 0 2m50s

Configure an App

First the client app:

kubectl apply -f - <<EOF
apiVersion: argoproj.io/v1alpha1
kind: Application
metadata:
name: client
namespace: argocd
finalizers:
- resources-finalizer.argocd.argoproj.io
spec:
project: default
source:
repoURL: https://github.com/ably77/istio-ambient-argocd-quickstart/
path: workloads/client/ambient
targetRevision: HEAD
destination:
server: https://kubernetes.default.svc
syncPolicy:
automated:
prune: true
selfHeal: true
retry:
limit: 5
backoff:
duration: 5s
factor: 2
maxDuration: 3m0s
EOF

Next we will deploy httpbin:

kubectl apply -f - <<EOF
apiVersion: argoproj.io/v1alpha1
kind: Application
metadata:
name: httpbin
namespace: argocd
finalizers:
- resources-finalizer.argocd.argoproj.io
spec:
project: default
source:
repoURL: https://github.com/ably77/istio-ambient-argocd-quickstart/
path: workloads/httpbin/ambient
targetRevision: HEAD
destination:
server: https://kubernetes.default.svc
syncPolicy:
automated:
prune: true
selfHeal: true
retry:
limit: 5
backoff:
duration: 5s
factor: 2
maxDuration: 3m0s
EOF

Note that in order to enable ztunnel interception, all that is required is the istio.io/dataplane-mode: ambient label on the workload namespace. The Argo application is already configured with this label, you can verify with the following command:

kubectl get namespace client -oyaml
kubectl get namespace httpbin -oyaml

You can check to see that the applications have been deployed:

kubectl get pods -n client && \
kubectl get pods -n httpbin

Notice that there are no sidecars have been configured for our apps, so no restarts required!

% kubectl get pods -n client && \
kubectl get pods -n httpbin
NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE
sleep-9454cc476-fd8vw 1/1 Running 0 15s
NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE
httpbin-698cc5f69-h4v7p 1/1 Running 0 9s

exec into sleep client and curl httpbin /get endpoint to verify mTLS

kubectl exec -it deploy/sleep -n client -c sleep sh

curl httpbin.httpbin.svc.cluster.local:8000/get

Follow ztunnel Logs to See mTLS Traffic

kubectl logs -n istio-system ds/ztunnel -f

You should see log output similar to below:

2024-05-07T04:11:01.169923Z info access connection complete src.addr=10.244.0.14:42774 src.workload="sleep-9454cc476-hxhx5" src.namespace="client" src.identity="spiffe://cluster.local/ns/client/sa/sleep" dst.addr=10.244.0.15:15008 dst.hbone_addr="10.244.0.15:80" dst.service="httpbin.httpbin.svc.cluster.local" dst.workload="httpbin-698cc5f69-w2rzc" dst.namespace="httpbin" dst.identity="spiffe://cluster.local/ns/httpbin/sa/httpbin" direction="outbound" bytes_sent=104 bytes_recv=467 duration="35ms"

Cleanup

To remove all the Argo CD Applications we configured for this lab:

kubectl delete applications -n argocd httpbin
kubectl delete applications -n argocd client
kubectl delete applications -n argocd istio-ztunnel
kubectl delete applications -n argocd istiod
kubectl delete applications -n argocd istio-cni
kubectl delete applications -n argocd istio-base

If you’d like to cleanup the work you’ve done, simply delete the kind cluster where you’ve been working.

kind delete cluster

Learn More

In this blog post, we explored how you can get started with Istio Ambient and Argo CD on your own workstation. We walked step-by-step through the process of standing up a KinD cluster, configuring the new Istio Ambient architecture, installing a couple applications, and then validating zero trust for service-to-service communication without injecting sidecars! All of the code used in this guide is available on github.

Istio Ambient is completely open source and free to use, however a Gloo Mesh Core subscription offers even more value to users who require:

Full Support with 24×7 Enterprise SLAs
Long term N-4 support
Hardened images
Architectural guidance and production readiness review
Istio lifecycle management tooling
Ops dashboard for management, monitoring, and insights
Telemetry integration using OTEL

For more information, check out the following resources:

Explore the documentation for Istio Ambient
Request a live demo or trial for Gloo Mesh Core
Watch video content on the Solo.io YouTube channel
Questions? Join the Solo and Istio Slack communities!

‍

From Zero to Istio Ambient + Argo CD on KinD in 15 Minutes!

Purpose of This Tutorial

Prerequisites

Install KinD

Installing Argo CD

Access Argo CD With Port-Forwarding

Installing Istio Ambient

Configure an App

exec into sleep client and curl httpbin /get endpoint to verify mTLS

Follow ztunnel Logs to See mTLS Traffic

Cleanup

Learn More

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