ArgoCD based Istio Installation on OCP

1. Create istio-system and bookinfo namespace

2. Create istio app in ArgoCD e.g.

apiVersion: argoproj.io/v1alpha1
kind: Application
metadata:
  name: istio
spec:
  destination:
    name: ''
    namespace: istio-system
    server: 'https://kubernetes.default.svc'
  source:
    path: istio-manifests
    repoURL: '$REPO_URL_HERE'
    targetRevision: HEAD
  project: default

Note that the manifests folder contains the Istio manifests along with OpenShift specific resources:

• SCC to grant anyuid permissions to istio pods and injected workloads
• A NetworkAttachmentDefinition resource which supports the istio-cni plugin
• An OpenShift Route resource exposing the istio-ingressgateway for ingress traffic to the mesh

See the official docs for more info.

3. Label bookinfo namespace with the injection and discovery label and label istio-system with the discovery label.

The discovery label is used to limit the namespaces that will participate in the mesh since by default the full cluster is available. See this blog post for more info. (Note: this feature was contributed to Istio by solo.io)

oc label namespace bookinfo istio-injection=enabled
oc label namespace bookinfo istio-discovery=enabled
oc label namespace istio-system istio-discovery=enabled

4. Create bookinfo app in ArgoCD e.g.

apiVersion: argoproj.io/v1alpha1
kind: Application
metadata:
  name: bookinfo
spec:
  destination:
    name: ''
    namespace: bookinfo
    server: 'https://kubernetes.default.svc'
  source:
    path: bookinfo
    repoURL: '$REPO_URL_HERE'
    targetRevision: HEAD
  project: default

5. Access bookinfo Product Page via correct route, e.g. http://istio-ingressgateway-istio-system.$ROUTER-DOMAIN/productpage

Generating the Istio manifests (if necessary)

1. Download istioctl from istio.io

2. Generate istio manifests via istioctl and append

istioctl manifest generate --set profile=openshift > manifests.yaml

Using discovery selectors:

apiVersion: install.istio.io/v1alpha1
kind: IstioOperator
spec:
  profile: openshift
  tag: 1.10.3
  meshConfig:
    discoverySelectors:
    - matchLabels:
        istio-discovery: enabled