Installation Configuration Profiles
This page describes the built-in configuration profiles that can be used when installing Istio.
Configuration profiles are simply named groups of Helm chart value overrides that are built into the charts,
and can be used when installing via either helm
or istioctl
.
The profiles provide high-level customization of the Istio control plane and data plane for common deployment topologies and target platforms.
There are 2 kinds of configuration profiles: deployment profiles and platform profiles, and using both is recommended.
- deployment profiles are intended to provide good defaults for a given deployment topology (
default
,remote
,ambient
, etc). - platform profiles are intended to provide necessary platform-specific defaults, for a given target platform (
eks
,gke
,openshift
, etc).
For example, if you are installing default
sidecar dataplane on GKE, we recommend using the following deployment and platform profiles to get started:
For Helm, supply the same profile
and platform
for every chart you install, for example istiod
:
$ helm install istiod istio/istiod -n istio-system --set profile=default --set global.platform=gke --wait
For istioctl
, supply the same profile
and platform
as arguments:
$ istioctl install --set profile=default --set values.global.platform=gke
Deployment Profiles
The following built-in deployment profiles are currently available for both istioctl
and helm
install mechanisms. Note that as these are just sets of Helm values overrides, using them is not strictly required to install Istio, but they do provide a convenient baseline and are recommended for new installs. Additionally, you may customize the configuration
beyond what the deployment profile includes, for your specific needs. The following built-in deployment profiles are currently available:
default: enables components according to the default settings of the
IstioOperator
API. This profile is recommended for production deployments and for primary clusters in a multicluster mesh.demo: configuration designed to showcase Istio functionality with modest resource requirements. It is suitable to run the Bookinfo application and associated tasks. This is the configuration that is installed with the quick start instructions.
minimal: same as the default profile, but only the control plane components are installed. This allows you to configure the control plane and data plane components (e.g., gateways) using separate profiles.
remote: used for configuring a remote cluster that is managed by an external control plane or by a control plane in a primary cluster of a multicluster mesh.
ambient: the ambient profile is designed to help you get started with ambient mode.
empty: deploys nothing. This can be useful as a base profile for custom configuration.
preview: the preview profile contains features that are experimental. This is intended to explore new features coming to Istio. Stability, security, and performance are not guaranteed - use at your own risk.
Istio’s deployment profile value sets are defined here, for both istioctl
and helm
.
For istioctl
only, specifying configuration profiles additionally automatically selects certain Istio components for installation, as marked with ✔ below:
default | demo | minimal | remote | empty | preview | ambient | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Core components | |||||||
istio-egressgateway | ✔ | ||||||
istio-ingressgateway | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ||||
istiod | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ||
CNI | ✔ | ||||||
Ztunnel | ✔ |
Platform Profiles
The following built-in platform profiles are currently available for both istioctl
and helm
install mechanisms. Note that as these are just sets of Helm values overrides, using them is not strictly required to install Istio in these environments, but they do provide a convenient baseline and are recommended for new installs:
gke: Sets chart options required or recommended for installing Istio in Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) environments.
eks: Sets chart options required or recommended for installing Istio in Amazon’s Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) environments.
openshift: Sets chart options required or recommended for installing Istio in OpenShift environments.
k3d: Sets chart options required or recommended for installing Istio in k3d environments.
k3s: Sets chart options required or recommended for installing Istio in K3s environments.
microk8s: Sets chart options required or recommended for installing Istio in MicroK8s environments.
minikube: Sets chart options required or recommended for installing Istio in minikube environments.
Istio’s platform profiles are defined here, for both istioctl
and helm
.