Creating the ServiceMeshControlPlane - Service Mesh 2.x | Service Mesh

About ServiceMeshControlPlane
About control plane components and infrastructure nodes
About control plane and cluster-wide deployments
Validating your SMCP installation with Kiali
Additional resources
Next steps

About ServiceMeshControlPlane

The control plane includes Istiod, Ingress and Egress Gateways, and other components, such as Kiali and Jaeger. The control plane must be deployed in a separate namespace than the Service Mesh Operators and the data plane applications and services. You can deploy a basic installation of the ServiceMeshControlPlane(SMCP) from the OpenShift Container Platform web console or the command line using the oc client tool.

This basic installation is configured based on the default OpenShift Container Platform settings and is not designed for production use. Use this default installation to verify your installation, and then configure your ServiceMeshControlPlane settings for your environment.

The Service Mesh documentation uses istio-system as the example project, but you can deploy the service mesh to any project.

Deploying the Service Mesh control plane from the web console

You can deploy a basic ServiceMeshControlPlane by using the web console. In this example, istio-system is the name of the Service Mesh control plane project.

Prerequisites

The Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh Operator must be installed.
You are logged in to the OpenShift Container Platform web console as cluster-admin.

Procedure

Log in to the OpenShift Container Platform web console as a user with the cluster-admin role. If you use Red Hat OpenShift Dedicated, you must have an account with the dedicated-admin role.
Create a project named istio-system.
1. Navigate to Home → Projects.
2. Click Create Project.
3. In the Name field, enter istio-system. The ServiceMeshControlPlane resource must be installed in a project that is separate from your microservices and Operators.
  
  These steps use istio-system as an example, but you can deploy your Service Mesh control plane in any project as long as it is separate from the project that contains your services.
4. Click Create.
Navigate to Operators → Installed Operators.
Click the Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh Operator, then click Istio Service Mesh Control Plane.
On the Istio Service Mesh Control Plane tab, click Create ServiceMeshControlPlane.
1. Accept the default Service Mesh control plane version to take advantage of the features available in the most current version of the product. The version of the control plane determines the features available regardless of the version of the Operator.
2. Click Create.
The Operator creates pods, services, and Service Mesh control plane components based on your configuration parameters. You can configure ServiceMeshControlPlane settings at a later time.

Verification

To verify the control plane installed correctly, click the Istio Service Mesh Control Plane tab.
1. Click the name of the new control plane.
2. Click the Resources tab to see the Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh control plane resources the Operator created and configured.

Deploying the Service Mesh control plane using the CLI

You can deploy a basic ServiceMeshControlPlane from the command line.

Prerequisites

The Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh Operator must be installed.
Access to the OpenShift CLI (oc).
You are logged in to OpenShift Container Platform as`cluster-admin`.

Procedure

Create a project named istio-system.
```
$ oc new-project istio-system
```

Create a ServiceMeshControlPlane file named istio-installation.yaml using the following example. The version of the Service Mesh control plane determines the features available regardless of the version of the Operator.

Example version 2.6 istio-installation.yaml

apiVersion: maistra.io/v2
kind: ServiceMeshControlPlane
metadata:
  name: basic
  namespace: istio-system
spec:
  version: v2.6
  tracing:
    type: None
    sampling: 10000
  addons:
    kiali:
      enabled: true
      name: kiali
    grafana:
      enabled: true

Run the following command to deploy the Service Mesh control plane, where <istio_installation.yaml> includes the full path to your file.
```
$ oc create -n istio-system -f <istio_installation.yaml>
```

To watch the progress of the pod deployment, run the following command:

$ oc get pods -n istio-system -w

You should see output similar to the following:

NAME                                   READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
grafana-b4d59bd7-mrgbr                 2/2     Running   0          65m
istio-egressgateway-678dc97b4c-wrjkp   1/1     Running   0          108s
istio-ingressgateway-b45c9d54d-4qg6n   1/1     Running   0          108s
istiod-basic-55d78bbbcd-j5556          1/1     Running   0          108s
kiali-6476c7656c-x5msp                 1/1     Running   0          43m
prometheus-58954b8d6b-m5std            2/2     Running   0          66m

Validating your SMCP installation with the CLI

You can validate the creation of the ServiceMeshControlPlane from the command line.

Prerequisites
- The Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh Operator must be installed.
- Access to the OpenShift CLI (oc).
- You are logged in to OpenShift Container Platform as`cluster-admin`.

Procedure

Run the following command to verify the Service Mesh control plane installation, where istio-system is the namespace where you installed the Service Mesh control plane.
```
$ oc get smcp -n istio-system
```
The installation has finished successfully when the STATUS column is ComponentsReady.
```
NAME    READY   STATUS            PROFILES      VERSION   AGE
basic   10/10   ComponentsReady   ["default"]   2.6.3     66m
```

About control plane components and infrastructure nodes

Infrastructure nodes provide a way to isolate infrastructure workloads for two primary purposes:

To prevent incurring billing costs against subscription counts
To separate maintenance and management of infrastructure workloads

You can configure some or all of the Service Mesh control plane components to run on infrastructure nodes.

Configuring all control plane components to run on infrastructure nodes using the web console

Perform this task if all of the components deployed by the Service Mesh control plane will run on infrastructure nodes. These deployed components include Istiod, Ingress Gateway, and Egress Gateway, and optional applications such as Prometheus, Grafana, and Distributed Tracing.

If the control plane will run on a worker node, skip this task.

Prerequisites

You have installed the Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh Operator.
You are logged in to OpenShift Container Platform as`cluster-admin`.

Procedure

Log in to the OpenShift Container Platform web console.
Navigate to Operators → Installed Operators.
Click the Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh Operator, and then click Istio Service Mesh Control Plane.
Click the name of the control plane resource. For example, basic.
Click YAML.

Add the nodeSelector and tolerations fields to the spec.runtime.defaults.pod specification in the ServiceMeshControlPlane resource, as shown in the following example:

spec:
  runtime:
    defaults:
      pod:
        nodeSelector: (1)
          node-role.kubernetes.io/infra: ""
        tolerations: (2)
        - effect: NoSchedule
          key: node-role.kubernetes.io/infra
          value: reserved
        - effect: NoExecute
          key: node-role.kubernetes.io/infra
          value: reserved

1	Ensures that the `ServiceMeshControlPlane` pod is only scheduled on an infrastructure node.
2	Ensures that the pod is accepted by the infrastructure node for execution.

Click Save.
Click Reload.

Configuring individual control plane components to run on infrastructure nodes using the web console

Perform this task if individual components deployed by the Service Mesh control plane will run on infrastructure nodes. These deployed components include Istiod, the Ingress Gateway, and the Egress Gateway.

If the control plane will run on a worker node, skip this task.

Prerequisites

You have installed the Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh Operator.
You are logged in to OpenShift Container Platform as`cluster-admin`.

Procedure

Log in to the OpenShift Container Platform web console.
Navigate to Operators → Installed Operators.
Click the Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh Operator, and then click Istio Service Mesh Control Plane.
Click the name of the control plane resource. For example, basic.
Click YAML.

Add the nodeSelector and tolerations fields to the spec.runtime.components.pilot.pod specification in the ServiceMeshControlPlane resource, as shown in the following example:

spec:
  runtime:
    components:
      pilot:
        pod:
          nodeSelector: (1)
            node-role.kubernetes.io/infra: ""
          tolerations: (2)
          - effect: NoSchedule
            key: node-role.kubernetes.io/infra
            value: reserved
          - effect: NoExecute
            key: node-role.kubernetes.io/infra
            value: reserved

1	Ensures that the `Istiod` pod is only scheduled on an infrastructure node.
2	Ensures that the pod is accepted by the infrastructure node for execution.

Add the nodeSelector and the tolerations fields to the spec.gateways.ingress.runtime.pod and spec.gateways.egress.runtime.pod specifications in the ServiceMeshControlPlane resource, as shown in the following example:

spec:
  gateways:
    ingress:
      runtime:
        pod:
          nodeSelector: (1)
            node-role.kubernetes.io/infra: ""
          tolerations: (2)
          - effect: NoSchedule
            key: node-role.kubernetes.io/infra
            value: reserved
          - effect: NoExecute
            key: node-role.kubernetes.io/infra
            value: reserved
    egress:
      runtime:
        pod:
          nodeSelector: (1)
            node-role.kubernetes.io/infra: ""
          tolerations: (2)
          - effect: NoSchedule
            key: node-role.kubernetes.io/infra
            value: reserved
          - effect: NoExecute
            key: node-role.kubernetes.io/infra
            value: reserved

1	Ensures that the gateway pod is only scheduled on an infrastructure node
2	Ensures that the pod is accepted by the infrastructure node for execution.

Click Save.
Click Reload.

Configuring all control plane components to run on infrastructure nodes using the CLI

If the control plane will run on a worker node, skip this task.

Prerequisites

You have installed the Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh Operator.
You are logged in to OpenShift Container Platform as`cluster-admin`.

Procedure

Open the ServiceMeshControlPlane resource as a YAML file:
```
$ oc -n istio-system edit smcp <name> (1)
```
1 <name> represents the name of the ServiceMeshControlPlane resource.

To run all of the Service Mesh components deployed by the ServiceMeshControlPlane on infrastructure nodes, add the nodeSelector and tolerations fields to the spec.runtime.defaults.pod spec in the ServiceMeshControlPlane resource:

spec:
  runtime:
    defaults:
      pod:
        nodeSelector: (1)
          node-role.kubernetes.io/infra: ""
        tolerations: (2)
        - effect: NoSchedule
          key: node-role.kubernetes.io/infra
          value: reserved
        - effect: NoExecute
          key: node-role.kubernetes.io/infra
          value: reserved

1	Ensures that the SMCP pods are only scheduled on an infrastructure node.
2	Ensures that the pods are accepted by the infrastructure node.

Configuring individual control plane components to run on infrastructure nodes using the CLI

If the control plane will run on a worker node, skip this task.

Prerequisites

You have installed the Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh Operator.
You are logged in to OpenShift Container Platform as`cluster-admin`.

Procedure

Open the ServiceMeshControlPlane resource as a YAML file.
```
$ oc -n istio-system edit smcp <name> (1)
```
1 <name> represents the name of the ServiceMeshControlPlane resource.

To run the Istiod component on an infrastructure node, add the nodeSelector and the tolerations fields to the spec.runtime.components.pilot.pod spec in the ServiceMeshControlPlane resource.

spec:
  runtime:
    components:
      pilot:
        pod:
          nodeSelector: (1)
            node-role.kubernetes.io/infra: ""
          tolerations: (2)
          - effect: NoSchedule
            key: node-role.kubernetes.io/infra
            value: reserved
          - effect: NoExecute
            key: node-role.kubernetes.io/infra
            value: reserved

1	Ensures that the `Istiod` pod is only scheduled on an infrastructure node.
2	Ensures that the pod is accepted by the infrastructure node.

To run Ingress and Egress Gateways on infrastructure nodes, add the nodeSelector and the tolerations fields to the spec.gateways.ingress.runtime.pod spec and the spec.gateways.egress.runtime.pod spec in the ServiceMeshControlPlane resource.

spec:
  gateways:
    ingress:
      runtime:
        pod:
          nodeSelector: (1)
            node-role.kubernetes.io/infra: ""
          tolerations: (2)
          - effect: NoSchedule
            key: node-role.kubernetes.io/infra
            value: reserved
          - effect: NoExecute
            key: node-role.kubernetes.io/infra
            value: reserved
    egress:
      runtime:
        pod:
          nodeSelector: (1)
            node-role.kubernetes.io/infra: ""
          tolerations: (2)
          - effect: NoSchedule
            key: node-role.kubernetes.io/infra
            value: reserved
          - effect: NoExecute
            key: node-role.kubernetes.io/infra
            value: reserved

1	Ensures that the gateway pod is only scheduled on an infrastructure node
2	Ensures that the pod is accepted by the infrastructure node.

Verifying the Service Mesh control plane is running on infrastructure nodes

Procedure

Confirm that the nodes associated with Istiod, Ingress Gateway, and Egress Gateway pods are infrastructure nodes:
```
$ oc -n istio-system get pods -owide
```

About control plane and cluster-wide deployments

A cluster-wide deployment contains a Service Mesh Control Plane that monitors resources for an entire cluster. Monitoring resources for an entire cluster closely resembles Istio functionality in that the control plane uses a single query across all namespaces to monitor Istio and Kubernetes resources. As a result, cluster-wide deployments decrease the number of requests sent to the API server.

You can configure the Service Mesh Control Plane for cluster-wide deployments using either the OpenShift Container Platform web console or the CLI.

Configuring the control plane for cluster-wide deployment with the web console

You can configure the ServiceMeshControlPlane resource for cluster-wide deployment using the OpenShift Container Platform web console. In this example, istio-system is the name of the Service Mesh control plane project.

Prerequisites

The Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh Operator is installed.
You are logged in to OpenShift Container Platform as`cluster-admin`.

Procedure

Create a project named istio-system.
1. Navigate to Home → Projects.
2. Click Create Project.
3. In the Name field, enter istio-system. The ServiceMeshControlPlane resource must be installed in a project that is separate from your microservices and Operators.
  
  These steps use istio-system as an example. You can deploy the Service Mesh control plane to any project as long as it is separate from the project that contains your services.
4. Click Create.
Navigate to Operators → Installed Operators.
Click the Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh Operator, then click Istio Service Mesh Control Plane.
On the Istio Service Mesh Control Plane tab, click Create ServiceMeshControlPlane.
Click YAML view. The version of the Service Mesh control plane determines the features available regardless of the version of the Operator.

Modify the spec.mode field of the YAML file to specify ClusterWide.

Example version 2.6 istio-installation.yaml

apiVersion: maistra.io/v2
kind: ServiceMeshControlPlane
metadata:
  name: basic
  namespace: istio-system
spec:
  version: v2.6
  mode: ClusterWide

Click Create. The Operator creates pods, services, and Service Mesh control plane components based on your configuration parameters. The operator also creates the ServiceMeshMemberRoll if it does not exist as part of the default configuration.

Verification

To verify that the control plane installed correctly:
1. Click the Istio Service Mesh Control Plane tab.
2. Click the name of the new ServiceMeshControlPlane object.
3. Click the Resources tab to see the Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh control plane resources that the Operator created and configured.

Configuring the control plane for cluster-wide deployment with the CLI

You can configure the ServiceMeshControlPlane resource for cluster-wide deployment using the CLI. In this example, istio-system is the name of the Service Mesh control plane namespace.

Prerequisites

The Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh Operator is installed.
You have access to the OpenShift CLI (oc).
You are logged in to OpenShift Container Platform as`cluster-admin`.

Procedure

Create a project named istio-system.
```
$ oc new-project istio-system
```

Create a ServiceMeshControlPlane file named istio-installation.yaml using the following example:

Example version 2.6 istio-installation.yaml

apiVersion: maistra.io/v2
kind: ServiceMeshControlPlane
metadata:
  name: basic
  namespace: istio-system
spec:
  version: v2.6
  mode: ClusterWide

Run the following command to deploy the Service Mesh control plane:
```
$ oc create -n istio-system -f <istio_installation.yaml>
```
where:

<istio_installation.yaml>

Specifies the full path to your file.

Verification

To monitor the progress of the pod deployment, run the following command:

$ oc get pods -n istio-system -w

You should see output similar to the following example:

Example output

NAME                                   READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
grafana-b4d59bd7-mrgbr                 2/2     Running   0          65m
istio-egressgateway-678dc97b4c-wrjkp   1/1     Running   0          108s
istio-ingressgateway-b45c9d54d-4qg6n   1/1     Running   0          108s
istiod-basic-55d78bbbcd-j5556          1/1     Running   0          108s
jaeger-67c75bd6dc-jv6k6                2/2     Running   0          65m
kiali-6476c7656c-x5msp                 1/1     Running   0          43m
prometheus-58954b8d6b-m5std            2/2     Running   0          66m

Customizing the member roll for a cluster-wide mesh

In cluster-wide mode, when you create the ServiceMeshControlPlane resource, the ServiceMeshMemberRoll resource is also created. You can modify the ServiceMeshMemberRoll resource after it gets created. After you modify the resource, the Service Mesh operator no longer changes it. If you modify the ServiceMeshMemberRoll resource by using the OpenShift Container Platform web console, accept the prompt to overwrite the modifications.

Alternatively, you can create a ServiceMeshMemberRoll resource before deploying the ServiceMeshControlPlane resource. When you create the ServiceMeshControlPlane resource, the Service Mesh Operator will not modify the ServiceMeshMemberRoll.

The ServiceMeshMemberRoll resource name must be named default and must be created in the same project namespace as the ServiceMeshControlPlane resource.

There are two ways to add a namespace to the mesh. You can either add the namespace by specifying its name in the spec.members list, or configure a set of namespace label selectors to include or exclude namespaces based on their labels.

Regardless of how members are specified in the ServiceMeshMemberRoll resource, you can also add members to the mesh by creating the ServiceMeshMember resource in each namespace.

Validating your SMCP installation with Kiali

You can use the Kiali console to validate your Service Mesh installation. The Kiali console offers several ways to validate your Service Mesh components are deployed and configured properly.

Prerequisites
- The Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh Operator must be installed.
- Access to the OpenShift CLI (oc).
- You are logged in to OpenShift Container Platform as`cluster-admin`.

Procedure

In the OpenShift Container Platform web console, navigate to Networking → Routes.
On the Routes page, select the Service Mesh control plane project, for example istio-system, from the Namespace menu.

The Location column displays the linked address for each route.
If necessary, use the filter to find the route for the Kiali console. Click the route Location to launch the console.
Click Log In With OpenShift.

When you first log in to the Kiali Console, you see the Overview page which displays all the namespaces in your service mesh that you have permission to view. When there are multiple namespaces shown on the Overview page, Kiali shows namespaces with health or validation problems first.

Figure 1. Kiali Overview page

The tile for each namespace displays the number of labels, the Istio Config health, the number of and Applications health, and Traffic for the namespace. If you are validating the console installation and namespaces have not yet been added to the mesh, there might not be any data to display other than istio-system.
Kiali has four dashboards specifically for the namespace where the Service Mesh control plane is installed. To view these dashboards, click the Options menu on the tile for the control plane namespace, for example, istio-system, and select one of the following options:
- Istio Mesh Dashboard
- Istio Control Plane Dashboard
- Istio Performance Dashboard
- Istio Wasm Exetension Dashboard
  
  Figure 2. Grafana Istio Control Plane Dashboard
  
  Kiali also installs two additional Grafana dashboards, available from the Grafana Home page:
- Istio Workload Dashboard
- Istio Service Dashboard
To view the Service Mesh control plane nodes, click the Graph page, select the Namespace where you installed the ServiceMeshControlPlane from the menu, for example istio-system.
1. If necessary, click Display idle nodes.
2. To learn more about the Graph page, click the Graph tour link.
3. To view the mesh topology, select one or more additional namespaces from the Service Mesh Member Roll from the Namespace menu.
To view the list of applications in the istio-system namespace, click the Applications page. Kiali displays the health of the applications.
1. Hover your mouse over the information icon to view any additional information noted in the Details column.
To view the list of workloads in the istio-system namespace, click the Workloads page. Kiali displays the health of the workloads.
1. Hover your mouse over the information icon to view any additional information noted in the Details column.
To view the list of services in the istio-system namespace, click the Services page. Kiali displays the health of the services and of the configurations.
1. Hover your mouse over the information icon to view any additional information noted in the Details column.
To view a list of the Istio Configuration objects in the istio-system namespace, click the Istio Config page. Kiali displays the health of the configuration.
1. If there are configuration errors, click the row and Kiali opens the configuration file with the error highlighted.

Additional resources

Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh supports multiple independent control planes within the cluster. You can create reusable configurations with ServiceMeshControlPlane profiles. For more information, see Creating control plane profiles.

Next steps

Add a project to the Service Mesh so that applications can be made available. For more information, see Adding services to a service mesh.