Install Istio to Docker Desktop (WSL 2)

Istio is an open-source service mesh. The documentation for installing it on windows is a bit vague, and the website only provides documentation for nix-based systems.

Install Istio

Download the istioctl.exe executable from the official istio releases page and extract then place it in a folder of your choice. Next will be adding it to your environment variable.

Adding the environment variable will be straight-forward, add the directory location of the istioctl to PATH.

Install the istio namespace and services in kubernetes.

istioctl install --set profile=default -y

Also set istio to automatically inject Envoy sidecar proxies when deploying applications and services to default namespace.

kubectl label namespace default istio-injection=enabled

Troubleshoot

Determine if Kubernetes cluster is running in an environment that supports external load balancer.

kubectl get svc istio-ingressgateway -n istio-system

Check if there are any problems presented in analyze command.

istioctl analyze

Also, check the endpoint if its empty or returning any headers and data.

curl -H curl -s -I -HHost:keycloak.7f000101.nip.io http://127.0.0.1

1. Service mesh is a dedicated infrastructure layer for facilitating service-to-service communications between services or microservices, using a proxy.
2. Kubernetes is an open-source container-orchestration system for automating computer application deployment, scaling, and management. It was originally designed by Google and is now maintained by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation.
3. Istio is a service mesh—a modernized service networking layer that provides a transparent and language-independent way to flexibly and easily automate application network functions.