Installation

• 1: Quick Start
• 2: Installation Guide
• 2.1: Prerequisites
• 2.2: Install via Helm
• 2.3: Install via OperatorHub
• 2.4: The Kiali CR
• 2.5: The OSSMConsole CR
• 2.6: Accessing Kiali
• 2.7: Advanced Install
• 2.8: Example Install
• 3: Deployment Options

1 - Quick Start

You can quickly install and try Kiali via one of the following two methods.

Install via Istio Addons

If you downloaded Istio, the easiest way to install and try Kiali is by running:

kubectl apply -f ${ISTIO_HOME}/samples/addons/kiali.yaml

To uninstall:

kubectl delete -f ${ISTIO_HOME}/samples/addons/kiali.yaml --ignore-not-found

Install via Helm

To install the latest version of Kiali Server using Helm, run the following command:

helm install \
  --namespace istio-system \
  --set auth.strategy="anonymous" \
  --repo https://kiali.org/helm-charts \
  kiali-server \
  kiali-server

To uninstall:

helm uninstall --namespace istio-system kiali-server

Access to the UI

Run the following command:

kubectl port-forward svc/kiali 20001:20001 -n istio-system

Then, access Kiali by visiting https://localhost:20001/ in your preferred web browser.

2 - Installation Guide

This section describes the production installation methods available for Kiali.

The recommended way to deploy Kiali is via the Kiali Operator, either using Helm Charts or OperatorHub.

The Kiali Operator is a Kubernetes Operator and manages your Kiali installation. It watches the Kiali Custom Resource (Kiali CR), a YAML file that holds the deployment configuration.

2.1 - Prerequisites

Istio

Before you install Kiali you must have already installed Istio along with its telemetry storage addon (i.e. Prometheus). You might also consider installing Istio’s optional tracing addon (i.e. Jaeger) and optional Grafana addon but those are not required by Kiali. Refer to the Istio documentation for details.

Enable the Debug Interface

Like istioctl, Kiali makes use of Istio’s port 8080 “Debug Interface”. Despite the naming, this is required for accessing the status of the proxies and the Istio registry.

The ENABLE_DEBUG_ON_HTTP setting controls the relevant access. Istio suggests to disable this for security, but Kiali requires ENABLE_DEBUG_ON_HTTP=true, which is the default.

For more information, see the Istio documentation.

Version Compatibility

Each Kiali release is tested against the most recent Istio release. In general, Kiali tries to maintain compatibility with older Istio releases and Kiali versions later than those posted in the below table may work, but such combinations are not tested and will not be supported. Known incompatibilities are noted in the compatibility table below.

Maistra Version Compatibility

OpenShift Console Plugin (OSSMC) Version Compatibility

Kiali server with the same version of OSSMC plugin must be installed previously in your OpenShift cluster.

OpenShift Service Mesh Version Compatibility

Browser Compatibility

Kiali requires a modern web browser and supports the last two versions of Chrome, Firefox, Safari or Edge.

Hardware Requirements

Any machine capable of running a Kubernetes based cluster should also be able to run Kiali.

However, Kiali tends to grow in resource usage as your cluster grows. Usually the more namespaces and workloads you have in your cluster, the more memory you will need to allocate to Kiali.

Platform-specific requirements

OpenShift

If you are installing on OpenShift, you must grant the cluster-admin role to the user that is installing Kiali. If OpenShift is installed locally on the machine you are using, the following command should log you in as user system:admin which has this cluster-admin role:

$ oc login -u system:admin

Google Cloud Private Cluster

Private clusters on Google Cloud have network restrictions. Kiali needs your cluster’s firewall to allow access from the Kubernetes API to the Istio Control Plane namespace, for both the 8080 and 15000 ports.

To review the master access firewall rule:

gcloud compute firewall-rules list --filter="name~gke-${CLUSTER_NAME}-[0-9a-z]*-master"

To replace the existing rule and allow master access:

gcloud compute firewall-rules update <firewall-rule-name> --allow <previous-ports>,tcp:8080,tcp:15000

2.2 - Install via Helm

Introduction

Helm is a popular tool that lets you manage Kubernetes applications. Applications are defined in a package named Helm chart, which contains all of the resources needed to run an application.

Kiali has a Helm Charts Repository at https://kiali.org/helm-charts. Two Helm Charts are provided:

• The kiali-operator Helm Chart installs the Kiali operator which in turn installs Kiali when you create a Kiali CR.
• The kiali-server Helm Chart installs a standalone Kiali without the need of the Operator nor a Kiali CR.

Make sure you have the helm command available by following the Helm installation docs.

Adding the Kiali Helm Charts repository

Add the Kiali Helm Charts repository with the following command:

$ helm repo add kiali https://kiali.org/helm-charts

If you already added the repository, you may want to update your local cache to fetch latest definitions by running:

$ helm repo update

Installing Kiali using the Kiali operator

Once you’ve added the Kiali Helm Charts repository, you can install the latest Kiali Operator along with the latest Kiali server by running the following command:

$ helm install \
    --set cr.create=true \
    --set cr.namespace=istio-system \
    --set cr.spec.auth.strategy="anonymous" \
    --namespace kiali-operator \
    --create-namespace \
    kiali-operator \
    kiali/kiali-operator

The --namespace kiali-operator and --create-namespace flags instructs to create the kiali-operator namespace (if needed), and deploy the Kiali operator on it. The --set cr.create=true and --set cr.namespace=istio-system flags instructs to create a Kiali CR in the istio-system namespace. Since the Kiali CR is created in advance, as soon as the Kiali operator starts, it will process it to deploy Kiali. After Kiali has started, you can access Kiali UI through ‘http://localhost:20001’ by executing kubectl port-forward service/kiali -n istio-system 20001:20001 because of --set cr.spec.auth.strategy="anonymous". But realize that anonymous mode will allow anyone to be able to see and use Kiali. If you wish to require users to authenticate themselves by logging into Kiali, use one of the other auth strategies.

The Kiali Operator Helm Chart is configurable. Check available options and default values by running:

$ helm show values kiali/kiali-operator

The kiali-operator Helm Chart mirrors all settings of the Kiali CR as chart values that you can configure using regular --set flags. For example, the Kiali CR has a spec.server.web_root setting which you can configure in the kiali-operator Helm Chart by passing --set cr.spec.server.web_root=/your-path to the helm install command.

For more information about the Kiali CR, see the Creating and updating the Kiali CR page.

Operator-Only Install

To install only the Kiali Operator, omit the --set cr.create and --set cr.namespace flags of the helm command previously shown. For example:

$ helm install \
    --namespace kiali-operator \
    --create-namespace \
    kiali-operator \
    kiali/kiali-operator

This will omit creation of the Kiali CR, which you will need to create later to install Kiali Server. This option is good if you plan to do large customizations to the installation.

Installing Multiple Instances of Kiali

By installing a single Kiali operator in your cluster, you can install multiple instances of Kiali by simply creating multiple Kiali CRs. For example, if you have two Istio control planes in namespaces istio-system and istio-system2, you can create a Kiali CR in each of those namespaces to install a Kiali instance in each control plane.

If you wish to install multiple Kiali instances in the same namespace, or if you need the Kiali instance to have different resource names than the default of kiali, you can specify spec.deployment.instance_name in your Kiali CR. The value for that setting will be used to create a unique instance of Kiali using that instance name rather than the default kiali. One use-case for this is to be able to have unique Kiali service names across multiple Kiali instances in order to be able to use certain routers/load balancers that require unique service names.

Standalone Kiali installation

To install the Kiali Server without the operator, use the kiali-server Helm Chart:

$ helm install \
    --namespace istio-system \
    kiali-server \
    kiali/kiali-server

The kiali-server Helm Chart mirrors all settings of the Kiali CR as chart values that you can configure using regular --set flags. For example, the Kiali CR has a spec.server.web_fqdn setting which you can configure in the kiali-server Helm Chart by passing the --set server.web_fqdn flag as follows:

$ helm install \
    --namespace istio-system \
    --set server.web_fqdn=example.com \
    kiali-server \
    kiali/kiali-server

Upgrading Helm installations

If you want to upgrade to a newer Kiali version (or downgrade to older versions), you can use the regular helm upgrade commands. For example, the following command should upgrade the Kiali Operator to the latest version:

$ helm upgrade \
    --namespace kiali-operator \
    --reuse-values \
    kiali-operator \
    kiali/kiali-operator

WARNING: No migration paths are provided. However, Kiali is a stateless application and if the helm upgrade command fails, please uninstall the previous version and then install the new desired version.

Managing configuration of Helm installations

After installing either the kiali-operator or the kiali-server Helm Charts, you may be tempted to manually modify the created resources to modify the installation. However, we recommend using helm upgrade to update your installation.

For example, assuming you have the following installation:

$ helm list -n kiali-operator
NAME            NAMESPACE       REVISION        UPDATED                                 STATUS          CHART                   APP VERSION
kiali-operator  kiali-operator  1               2021-09-14 18:00:45.320351026 -0500 CDT deployed        kiali-operator-1.40.0   v1.40.0

Notice that the current installation is version 1.40.0 of the kiali-operator. Let’s assume you want to use your own mirrors of the Kiali Operator container images. You can update your installation with the following command:

$ helm upgrade \
    --namespace kiali-operator \
    --reuse-values \
    --set image.repo=your_mirror_registry_url/owner/kiali-operator-repo \
    --set image.tag=your_mirror_tag \
    --version 1.40.0 \
    kiali-operator \
    kiali/kiali-operator

Uninstalling

Removing the Kiali operator and managed Kialis

If you used the kiali-operator Helm chart, first you must ensure that all Kiali CRs are deleted. For example, the following command will agressively delete all Kiali CRs in your cluster:

$ kubectl delete kiali --all --all-namespaces

The previous command may take some time to finish while the Kiali operator removes all Kiali installations.

Then, remove the Kiali operator using a standard helm uninstall command. For example:

$ helm uninstall --namespace kiali-operator kiali-operator
$ kubectl delete crd kialis.kiali.io

Known problem: uninstall hangs (unable to delete the Kiali CR)

Typically this happens if not all Kiali CRs are deleted prior to uninstalling the operator. To force deletion of a Kiali CR, you need to clear its finalizer. For example:

$ kubectl patch kiali kiali -n istio-system -p '{"metadata":{"finalizers": []}}' --type=merge

Removing standalone Kiali

If you installed a standalone Kiali by using the kiali-server Helm chart, use the standard helm uninstall commands. For example:

$ helm uninstall --namespace istio-system kiali-server

2.3 - Install via OperatorHub

Introduction

The OperatorHub is a website that contains a catalog of Kubernetes Operators. Its aim is to be the central location to find Operators.

The OperatorHub relies in the Operator Lifecycle Manager (OLM) to install, manage and update Operators on any Kubernetes cluster.

The Kiali Operator is being published to the OperatorHub. So, you can use the OLM to install and manage the Kiali Operator installation.

Installing the Kiali Operator using the OLM

Go to the Kiali Operator page in the OperatorHub: https://operatorhub.io/operator/kiali.

You will see an Install button at the right of the page. Press it and you will be presented with the installation instructions. Follow these instructions to install and manage the Kiali Operator installation using OLM.

Afterwards, you can create the Kiali CR to install Kiali.

Installing the Kiali Operator in OpenShift

The OperatorHub is bundled in the OpenShift console. To install the Kiali Operator, simply go to the OperatorHub in the OpenShift console and search for the Kiali Operator. Then, click on the Install button and follow the instruction on the screen.

Afterwards, you can create the Kiali CR to install Kiali.

2.4 - The Kiali CR

The Kiali Operator watches the Kiali Custom Resource (Kiali CR), a custom resource that contains the Kiali Server deployment configuration. Creating, updating, or removing a Kiali CR will trigger the Kiali Operator to install, update, or remove Kiali.

$ kubectl annotate kiali my-kiali -n istio-system --overwrite kiali.io/reconcile="$(date)"

The Operator provides comprehensive defaults for all properties of the Kiali CR. Hence, the minimal Kiali CR does not have a spec:

apiVersion: kiali.io/v1alpha1
kind: Kiali
metadata:
  name: kiali

Assuming you saved the previous YAML to a file named my-kiali-cr.yaml, and that you are installing Kiali in the same default namespace as Istio, create the resource with the following command:

$ kubectl apply -f my-kiali-cr.yaml -n istio-system

Once created, the Kiali Operator should shortly be notified and will process the resource, performing the Kiali installation. You can wait for the Kiali Operator to finish the reconcilation by using the standard kubectl wait command and ask for it to wait for the Kiali CR to achieve the condition of Successful. For example:

kubectl wait --for=condition=Successful kiali kiali -n istio-system

You can check the installation progress by inspecting the status attribute of the created Kiali CR:

$ kubectl describe kiali kiali -n istio-system
Name:         kiali
Namespace:    istio-system
Labels:       <none>
Annotations:  <none>
API Version:  kiali.io/v1alpha1
Kind:         Kiali

  (...some output is removed...)

Status:
  Conditions:
    Last Transition Time:  2021-09-15T17:17:40Z
    Message:               Running reconciliation
    Reason:                Running
    Status:                True
    Type:                  Running
  Deployment:
    Instance Name:  kiali
    Namespace:      istio-system
  Environment:
    Is Kubernetes:       true
    Kubernetes Version:  1.27.3
    Operator Version:    v1.89.0
  Progress:
    Duration:    0:00:16
    Message:     5. Creating core resources
  Spec Version:  default
Events:        <none>

You may want to check the example install page to see some examples where the Kiali CR has a spec and to better understand its structure. Most available attributes of the Kiali CR are described in the pages of the Installation and Configuration sections of the documentation. For a complete list, see the Kiali CR Reference.

Once you created a Kiali CR, you can manage your Kiali installation by editing the resource using the usual Kubernetes tools:

$ kubectl edit kiali kiali -n istio-system

To confirm your Kiali CR is valid, you can utilize the Kiali CR validation tool.

2.5 - The OSSMConsole CR

OpenShift ServiceMesh Console (aka OSSMC) provides a Kiali integration with the OpenShift Console; in other words it provides Kiali functionality within the context of the OpenShift Console. OSSMC is applicable only within OpenShift environments.

The main component of OSSMC is a plugin that gets installed inside the OpenShift Console. Prior to installing this plugin, you are required to have already installed the Kiali Operator and Kiali Server in your OpenShift environment. Please the Installation Guide for details.

The Kiali Operator watches the OSSMConsole Custom Resource (OSSMConsole CR), a custom resource that contains the OSSMC deployment configuration. Creating, updating, or removing a OSSMConsole CR will trigger the Kiali Operator to install, update, or remove OSSMC.

Creating the OSSMConsole CR to Install the OSSMC Plugin

With the Kiali Operator and Kial Server installed and running, you can install the OSSMC plugin in one of two ways - either via the OpenShift Console or via the “oc” CLI. Both methods are described below. You choose the method you want to use.

Installing via OpenShift Console

From the Kiali Operator details page in the OpenShift Console, create an instance of the “OpenShift Service Mesh Console” resource. Accept the defaults on the installation form and press “Create”.

Installing via “oc” CLI

To instruct the Kiali Operator to install the plugin, simply create a small OSSMConsole CR. A minimal CR can be created like this:

cat <<EOM | oc apply -f -
apiVersion: kiali.io/v1alpha1
kind: OSSMConsole
metadata:
  namespace: openshift-operators
  name: ossmconsole
spec:
  version: default
EOM

Note that the operator will deploy the plugin resources in the same namespace where you create this OSSMConsole CR - in this case openshift-operators but you can create the CR in any namespace.

For a complete list of configuration options available within the OSSMConsole CR, see the OSSMConsole CR Reference.

To confirm your OSSMConsole CR is valid, you can utilize the OSSMConsole CR validation tool.

Installation Status

After the plugin is installed, you can see the “OSSMConsole” resource that was created in the OpenShift Console UI. Within the operator details page in the OpenShift Console UI, select the OpenShift Service Mesh Console tab to view the resource that was created and its status. The CR status field will provide you with any error messages should the deployment of OSSMC fail.

Once the operator has finished processing the OSSMConsole CR, you must then wait for the OpenShift Console to load and initialize the plugin. This may take a minute or two. You will know when the plugin is ready when the OpenShift Console pops up this message - when you see this message, refresh the browser window to reload the OpenShift Console:

Uninstalling OSSMC

This section will describe how to uninstall the OpenShift Service Mesh Console plugin. You can uninstall the plugin in one of two ways - either via the OpenShift Console or via the “oc” CLI. Both methods are described in the sections below. You choose the method you want to use.

Uninstalling via OpenShift Console

Remove the OSSMConsole CR by navigating to the operator details page in the OpenShift Console UI. From the operator details page, select the OpenShift Service Mesh Console tab and then select the Delete option in the kebab menu.

Uninstalling via “oc” CLI

Remove the OSSMConsole CR via oc delete ossmconsoles <CR name> -n <CR namespace>. To make sure any and all CRs are deleted from any and all namespaces, you can run this command:

for r in $(oc get ossmconsoles --ignore-not-found=true --all-namespaces -o custom-columns=NS:.metadata.namespace,N:.metadata.name --no-headers | sed 's/  */:/g'); do oc delete ossmconsoles -n $(echo $r|cut -d: -f1) $(echo $r|cut -d: -f2); done

2.6 - Accessing Kiali

Introduction

After Kiali is succesfully installed you will need to make Kiali accessible to users. This page describes some popular methods of exposing Kiali for use.

If exposing Kiali in a custom way, you may need to set some configurations to make Kiali aware of how users will access Kiali.

Accessing Kiali using port forwarding

You can use port-forwarding to access Kiali by running any of these commands:

# If you have oc command line tool
oc port-forward svc/kiali 20001:20001 -n istio-system
# If you have kubectl command line tool
kubectl port-forward svc/kiali 20001:20001 -n istio-system

These commands will block. Access Kiali by visiting https://localhost:20001/ in your preferred web browser.

Accessing Kiali through an Ingress

You can configure Kiali to be installed with an Ingress resource defined, allowing you to access the Kiali UI through the Ingress. By default, an Ingress will not be created. You can enable a simple Ingress by setting spec.deployment.ingress.enabled to true in the Kiali CR (a similar setting for the server Helm chart is available if you elect to install Kiali via Helm as opposed to the Kiali Operator).

Exposing Kiali externally through this spec.deployment.ingress mechanism is a convenient way of exposing Kiali externally but it will not necessarily work or be the best way to do it because the way in which you should expose Kiali externally will be highly dependent on your specific cluster environment and how services are exposed generally for that environment.

The default Ingress that is created will be configured for a typical NGinx implementation. If you have your own Ingress implementation you want to use, you can override the default configuration through the settings spec.deployment.ingress.override_yaml and spec.deployment.ingress.class_name. More details on customizing the Ingress can be found below.

The Ingress IP or domain name should then be used to access the Kiali UI. To find your Ingress IP or domain name, as per the Kubernetes documentation, try the following command (though this may not work if using Minikube without the ingress addon):

kubectl get ingress kiali -n istio-system -o jsonpath='{.status.loadBalancer.ingress[0].ip}'

If it doesn’t work, unfortunately, it depends on how and where you had setup your cluster. There are several Ingress controllers available and some cloud providers have their own controller or preferred exposure method. Check the documentation of your cloud provider. You may need to customize the pre-installed Ingress rule or expose Kiali using a different method.

Customizing the Ingress resource

The created Ingress resource will route traffic to Kiali regardless of the domain in the URL. You may need a more specific Ingress resource that routes traffic to Kiali only on a specific domain or path. To do this, you can specify route settings.

Alternatively, and for more advanced Ingress configurations, you can provide your own Ingress declaration in the Kiali CR. For example:

spec:
  deployment:
    ingress:
      class_name: "nginx"
      enabled: true
      override_yaml:
        metadata:
          annotations:
            nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/secure-backends: "true"
            nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/backend-protocol: "HTTPS"
        spec:
          rules:
          - http:
              paths:
              - path: /kiali
                backend:
                  serviceName: kiali
                  servicePort: 20001

Accessing Kiali in Minikube

If you enabled the Ingress controller, the default Ingress resource created by the installation (mentioned in the previous section) should be enough to access Kiali. The following command should open Kiali in your default web browser:

xdg-open https://$(minikube ip)/kiali

Accessing Kiali through a LoadBalancer or a NodePort

By default, the Kiali service is created with the ClusterIP type. To use a LoadBalancer or a NodePort, you can change the service type in the Kiali CR as follows:

spec:
  deployment:
    service_type: LoadBalancer

Once the Kiali operator updates the installation, you should be able to use the kubectl get svc -n istio-system kiali command to retrieve the external address (or port) to access Kiali. For example, in the following output Kiali is assigned the IP 192.168.49.201, which means that you can access Kiali by visiting http://192.168.49.201:20001 in a browser:

NAME    TYPE           CLUSTER-IP       EXTERNAL-IP      PORT(S)                          AGE
kiali   LoadBalancer   10.105.236.127   192.168.49.201   20001:31966/TCP,9090:30128/TCP   34d

If you are using the LoadBalancer service type to directly expose the Kiali service, you may want to check the available options for the HTTP Server and Metrics server.

Accessing Kiali through an Istio Ingress Gateway

If you want to take advantage of Istio’s infrastructure, you can expose Kiali using an Istio Ingress Gateway. The Istio documentation provides a good guide explaining how to expose the sample add-ons. Even if the Istio guide is focused on the sample add-ons, the steps are the same to expose a Kiali installed using this Installation guide.

Accessing Kiali in OpenShift

By default, Kiali is exposed through a Route if installed on OpenShift. The following command should open Kiali in your default web browser:

xdg-open https://$(oc get routes -n istio-system kiali -o jsonpath='{.spec.host}')/console

Specifying route settings

If you are using your own exposure method or if you are using one of the methods mentioned in this page, you may need to configure the route that is being used to access Kiali.

In the Kiali CR, route settings are broken in several attributes. For example, to specify that Kiali is being accessed under the https://apps.example.com:8080/dashboards/kiali URI, you would need to set the following:

spec:
  server:
    web_fqdn: apps.example.com
    web_port: 8080
    web_root: /dashboards/kiali
    web_schema: https

If you are letting the installation create an Ingress resource for you, the Ingress will be adjusted to match these route settings. If you are using your own exposure method, these spec.server settings are only making Kiali aware of what its public endpoint is.

It is possible to omit these settings and Kiali may be able to discover some of these configurations, depending on your exposure method. For example, if you are exposing Kiali via LoadBalancer or NodePort service types, Kiali can discover most of these settings. If you are using some kind of Ingress, Kiali will honor X-Forwarded-Proto, X-Forwarded-Host and X-Forwarded-Port HTTP headers if they are properly injected in the request.

The web_root receives special treatment, because this is the path where Kiali will serve itself (both the user interface and its api). This is useful if you are serving multiple applications under the same domain. It must begin with a slash and trailing slashes must be omitted. The default value is /kiali for Kubernetes and / for OpenShift.

2.7 - Advanced Install

Canary upgrades

During a canary upgrade where multiple controlplanes are present, Kiali will automatically detect both controlplanes. You can visit the mesh page to visualize your controlplanes during a canary upgrade. You can also manually specify a controlplane you want Kiali to connect to through the Kiali CR however if you do this then you will need to update these settings during each canary upgrade.

spec:
  external_services:
    istio:
      config_map_name: "istio"
      istiod_deployment_name: "istiod"
      istio_sidecar_injector_config_map_name: "istio-sidecar-injector"

Installing a Kiali Server of a different version than the Operator

When you install the Kiali Operator, it will be configured to install a Kiali Server that is the same version as the operator itself. For example, if you have Kiali Operator v1.34.0 installed, that operator will install Kiali Server v1.34.0. If you upgrade (or downgrade) the Kiali Operator, the operator will in turn upgrade (or downgrade) the Kiali Server.

There are certain use-cases in which you want the Kiali Operator to install a Kiali Server whose version is different than the operator version. Read the following section «Using a custom image registry» section to learn how to configure this setup.

Using a custom image registry

Kiali is released and published to the Quay.io container image registry. There is a repository hosting the Kiali operator images and another one for the Kiali server images.

If you need to mirror the Kiali container images to some other registry, you still can use Helm to install the Kiali operator as follows:

$ helm install \
    --namespace kiali-operator \
    --create-namespace \
    --set image.repo=your.custom.registry/owner/kiali-operator-repo
    --set image.tag=your_custom_tag
    --set allowAdHocKialiImage=true
    kiali-operator \
    kiali/kiali-operator

Then, when creating the Kiali CR, use the following attributes:

spec:
  deployment:
    image_name: your.custom.registry/owner/kiali-server-repo
    image_version: your_custom_tag

Change the default image

As explained earlier, when you install the Kiali Operator, it will be configured to install a Kiali Server whose image will be pulled from quay.io and whose version will be the same as the operator. You can ask the operator to use a different image by setting spec.deployment.image_name and spec.deployment.image_version within the Kiali CR (as explained above).

However, you may wish to alter this default behavior exhibited by the operator. In other words, you may want the operator to install a different Kiali Server image by default. For example, if you have an air-gapped environment with its own image registry that contains its own copy of the Kiali Server image, you will want the operator to install a Kiali Server that uses that image by default, as opposed to quay.io/kiali/kiali. By configuring the operator to do this, you will not force the authors of Kiali CRs to have to explicitly define the spec.deployment.image_name setting and you will not need to enable the allowAdHocKialiImage setting in the operator.

To change the default Kiali Server image installed by the operator, set the environment variable RELATED_IMAGE_kiali_default in the Kiali Operator deployment. The value of that environment variable must be the full image tag in the form repoName/orgName/imageName:versionString (e.g. my.internal.registry.io/mykiali/mykialiserver:v1.50.0). You can do this when you install the operator via helm:

$ helm install \
    --namespace kiali-operator \
    --create-namespace \
    --set "env[0].name=RELATED_IMAGE_kiali_default" \
    --set "env[0].value=my.internal.registry.io/mykiali/mykialiserver:v1.50.0" \
    kiali-operator \
    kiali/kiali-operator

Development Install

This option installs the latest Kiali Operator and Kiali Server images which are built from the master branches of Kiali GitHub repositories. This option is good for demo and development installations.

helm install \
  --set cr.create=true \
  --set cr.namespace=istio-system \
  --set cr.spec.deployment.image_version=latest \
  --set image.tag=latest \
  --namespace kiali-operator \
  --create-namespace \
  kiali-operator \
  kiali/kiali-operator

2.8 - Example Install

This is a quick example of installing Kiali. This example will install the operator and two Kiali Servers - one server will require the user to enter credentials at a login screen in order to obtain read-write access and the second server will allow anonymous read-only access.

For this example, assume there is a Minikube Kubernetes cluster running with an Istio control plane installed in the namespace istio-system and the Istio Bookinfo Demo installed in the namespace bookinfo:

$ kubectl get deployments.apps -n istio-system
NAME                   READY   UP-TO-DATE   AVAILABLE   AGE
grafana                1/1     1            1           8h
istio-egressgateway    1/1     1            1           8h
istio-ingressgateway   1/1     1            1           8h
istiod                 1/1     1            1           8h
jaeger                 1/1     1            1           8h
prometheus             1/1     1            1           8h

$ kubectl get deployments.apps -n bookinfo
NAME             READY   UP-TO-DATE   AVAILABLE   AGE
details-v1       1/1     1            1           21m
productpage-v1   1/1     1            1           21m
ratings-v1       1/1     1            1           21m
reviews-v1       1/1     1            1           21m
reviews-v2       1/1     1            1           21m
reviews-v3       1/1     1            1           21m

Install Kiali Operator via Helm Chart

First, the Kiali Operator will be installed in the kiali-operator namespace using the operator helm chart:

$ helm repo add kiali https://kiali.org/helm-charts
$ helm repo update kiali
$ helm install \
    --namespace kiali-operator \
    --create-namespace \
    kiali-operator \
    kiali/kiali-operator

Install Kiali Server via Operator

Next, the first Kiali Server will be installed. This server will require the user to enter a Kubernetes token in order to log into the Kiali dashboard and will provide the user with read-write access. To do this, a Kiali CR will be created that looks like this (file: kiali-cr-token.yaml):

apiVersion: kiali.io/v1alpha1
kind: Kiali
metadata:
  name: kiali
  namespace: istio-system
spec:
  auth:
    strategy: "token"
  deployment:
    cluster_wide_access: false
    discovery_selectors:
      default:
      - matchLabels:
          kubernetes.io/metadata.name: bookinfo
    view_only_mode: false
  server:
    web_root: "/kiali"

This Kiali CR will command the operator to deploy the Kiali Server in the same namespace where the Kiali CR is (istio-system). The operator will configure the server to: respond to requests to the web root path of /kiali, enable read-write access, use the authentication strategy of token, and be given access to the bookinfo namespace:

$ kubectl apply -f kiali-cr-token.yaml

Get the Status of the Installation

The status of a particular Kiali Server installation can be found by examining the status field of its corresponding Kiali CR. For example:

$ kubectl get kiali kiali -n istio-system -o jsonpath='{.status}'

When the installation has successfully completed, the status field will look something like this (when formatted):

$ kubectl get kiali kiali -n istio-system -o jsonpath='{.status}' | jq
{
  "conditions": [
    {
      "ansibleResult": {
        "changed": 21,
        "completion": "2021-10-20T19:17:35.519131",
        "failures": 0,
        "ok": 102,
        "skipped": 90
      },
      "lastTransitionTime": "2021-10-20T19:17:12Z",
      "message": "Awaiting next reconciliation",
      "reason": "Successful",
      "status": "True",
      "type": "Running"
    }
  ],
  "deployment": {
    "discoverySelectorNamespaces": "bookinfo,istio-system",
    "instanceName": "kiali",
    "namespace": "istio-system"
  },
  "environment": {
    "isKubernetes": true,
    "kubernetesVersion": "1.28.0",
    "operatorVersion": "v1.88.0"
  },
  "progress": {
    "duration": "0:00:14",
    "message": "7. Finished all resource creation"
  }
}

Access the Kiali Server UI

The Kiali Server UI is accessed by pointing a browser to the Kiali Server endpoint and requesting the web root /kiali:

xdg-open http://$(minikube ip)/kiali

Because the auth.strategy was set to token, that URL will display the Kiali login screen that will require a Kubernetes token in order to authenticate with the server. For this example, you can use the token that belongs to the Kiali service account itself:

$ kubectl get secret -n istio-system $(kubectl get sa kiali-service-account -n istio-system -o jsonpath='{.secrets[0].name}') -o jsonpath='{.data.token}' | base64 -d

The output of that command above can be used to log into the Kiali login screen.

Install a Second Kiali Server

The second Kiali Server will next be installed. This server will not require the user to enter any login credentials but will only provide a view-only look at the service mesh. To do this, a Kiali CR will be created that looks like this (file: kiali-cr-anon.yaml):

apiVersion: kiali.io/v1alpha1
kind: Kiali
metadata:
  name: kiali
  namespace: kialianon
spec:
  installation_tag: "Kiali - View Only"
  istio_namespace: "istio-system"
  auth:
    strategy: "anonymous"
  deployment:
    cluster_wide_access: false
    discovery_selectors:
      default:
      - matchLabels:
          kubernetes.io/metadata.name: bookinfo
    view_only_mode: true
    instance_name: "kialianon"
  server:
    web_root: "/kialianon"

This Kiali CR will command the operator to deploy the Kiali Server in the same namespace where the Kiali CR is (kialianon). The operator will configure the server to: respond to requests to the web root path of /kialianon, disable read-write access, not require the user to authenticate, have a unique instance name of kialianon and be given access to the bookinfo namespace. The Kiali UI will also show a custom title in the browser tab so the user is aware they are looking at a “view only” Kiali dashboard. The unique deployment.instance_name is needed in order for this Kiali Server to be able to share access to the Bookinfo application with the first Kiali Server.

$ kubectl create namespace kialianon
$ kubectl apply -f kiali-cr-anon.yaml

The UI for this second Kiali Server is accessed by pointing a browser to the Kiali Server endpoint and requesting the web root /kialianon. Note that no credentials are required to gain access to this Kiali Server UI because auth.strategy was set to anonymous; however, the user will not be able to modify anything via the Kiali UI - it is strictly “view only”:

xdg-open http://$(minikube ip)/kialianon

Reconfigure Kiali Server

A Kiali Server can be reconfigured by simply editing its Kiali CR. The Kiali Operator will perform all the necessary tasks to complete the reconfiguration and reboot the Kiali Server pod when necessary. For example, to change the web root for the Kiali Server:

$ kubectl patch kiali kiali -n istio-system --type merge --patch '{"spec":{"server":{"web_root":"/specialkiali"}}}'

The Kiali Operator will update the necessary resources (such as the Kiali ConfigMap) and will reboot the Kiali Server pod to pick up the new configuration.

Uninstall Kiali Server

To uninstall a Kiali Server installation, simply delete the Kiali CR. The Kiali Operator will then perform all the necessary tasks to remove all remnants of the associated Kiali Server.

kubectl delete kiali kiali -n istio-system

Uninstall Kiali Operator

To uninstall the Kiali Operator, use helm uninstall and then manually remove the Kiali CRD.

$ kubectl delete kiali --all --all-namespaces
$ helm uninstall --namespace kiali-operator kiali-operator
$ kubectl delete crd kialis.kiali.io

3 - Deployment Options

There are other, more complex deployment settings, described in dedicated pages:

• Authentication
• Customization of the Ingress resource
• Customization of the service type (LoadBalancer or NodePort)
• Namespace management (configuring namespaces accessible and visible to Kiali)

Kiali and Istio installation namespaces

By default, the Kiali operator installs Kiali in the same namespace where the Kiali CR is created. However, it is possible to specify a different namespace for installation:

spec:
  deployment:
    namespace: "custom-kiali-namespace"

It is assumed that Kiali is installed to the same namespace as Istio. Kiali reads some Istio resources and may not work properly if those resources are not found. Thus, if you are installing Kiali and Istio on different namespaces, you must specify what is the Istio namespace:

spec:
  istio_namespace: "istio-system"

Log level and format

By default, Kiali will print up to INFO-level messages in simple text format. You can change the log level, output format, and time format as in the following example:

spec:
  deployment:
    logger:
      # Supported values are "trace", "debug", "info", "warn", "error" and "fatal"
      log_level: error  
      # Supported values are "text" and "json".
      log_format: json  
      time_field_format: "2006-01-02T15:04:05Z07:00"

The syntax for the time_field_format is the same as the Time.Format function of the Go language.

The json format is useful if you are parsing logs of your applications for further processing.

In Kiali, there are some special logs called audit logs that are emitted each time a user creates, updates or deletes a resource through Kiali. Audit logs are INFO-level messages and are enabled by default. If audit logs are too verbose, you can disable them without reducing the log level as follows:

spec:
  server:
    audit_log: false

Kiali instance name

If you plan to install more than one Kiali instance on the same cluster, you may need to configure an instance name to avoid conflicts on created resources:

spec:
  deployment:
    instance_name: "secondary"

The instance_name will be used as a prefix for all created Kiali resources. The exception is the kiali-signing-key secret which will always have the same name and will be shared on all deployments of the same namespace, unless you specify a custom secret name.

Resource requests and limits

You can set the amount of resources available to Kiali using the spec.deployment.resources attribute, like in the following example:

spec:
  deployment:
    resources:
      requests:
        memory: "128Mi"
        cpu: "100m"
      limits:
        memory: "1Gi"
        cpu: "500m"

Please, read the Managing Resources for Containers section in the Kubernetes documentation for more details about possible configurations.

Custom labels and annotations on the Kiali pod and service

Although some labels and annotations are set on the Kiali pod and on its service (depending on configurations), you can add additional ones. For the pod, use the spec.deployment.pod_labels and spec.deployment.pod_annotations attributes. For the service, you can only add annotations using the spec.deployment.service_annotations attribute. For example:

spec:
  deployment:
    pod_annotations:
      a8r.io/repository: "https://github.com/kiali/kiali"
    pod_labels:
      sidecar.istio.io/inject: "true"
    service_annotations:
      a8r.io/documentation: "https://kiali.io/docs/installation/deployment-configuration"

Kiali page title (browser title bar)

If you have several Kiali installations and you are using them at the same time, there are good chances that you will want to identify each Kiali by simply looking at the browser’s title bar. You can set a custom text in the title bar with the following configuration:

spec:
  installation_tag: "Kiali West"

The installation_tag is any human readable text of your desire.

Kubernetes scheduler settings

Replicas and automatic scaling

By default, only one replica of Kiali is deployed. If needed, you can change the replica count like in the following example:

spec:
  deployment:
    replicas: 2

If you prefer automatic scaling, creation of an HorizontalPodAutoscaler resource is supported. For example, the following configuration automatically scales Kiali based on CPU utilization:

spec:
  deployment:
    hpa:
      api_version: "autoscaling/v1"
      spec:
        minReplicas: 1
        maxReplicas: 2
        targetCPUUtilizationPercentage: 80

Read the Kubernetes Horizontal Pod Autoscaler documentation to learn more about the HPA.

Allocating the Kiali pod to specific nodes of the cluster

You can constrain the Kiali pod to run on a specific set of nodes by using some of the standard Kubernetes scheduler configurations.

The simplest option is to use the nodeSelector configuration which you can configure like in the following example:

spec:
  deployment:
    node_selector:
      worker-type: infra

You can also use the affinity/anti-affinity native Kubernetes feature if you prefer its more expressive syntax, or if you need more complex matching rules. The following is an example for configuring node affinity:

spec:
  deployment:
    affinity:
      node:
        requiredDuringSchedulingIgnoredDuringExecution:
          nodeSelectorTerms:
          - matchExpressions:
            - key: worker-type
              operator: In
              values:
              - infra

Similarly, you can also configure pod affinity and pod anti-affinity using the spec.deployment.affinity.pod and spec.deployment.affinity.pod_anti attributes.

Finally, if you want to run Kiali in a node with taints, the following is an example to configure tolerations:

spec:
  deployment:
    tolerations: # Allow to run Kiali in a tainted master node
    - key: "node-role.kubernetes.io/master"
      operator: "Exists"
      effect: "NoSchedule"

Read the following Kubernetes documentation to learn more about these configurations:

• Assigning Pods to Nodes
• Taints and Tolerations

Priority class of the Kiali pod

If you are using priority classes in your cluster, you can specify the priority class that will be set on the Kiali pod. For example:

spec:
  deployment:
    priority_class_name: high-priority

For more information about priority classes, read Pod Priority and Preemption in the Kubernetes documentation.

Adding host aliases to the Kiali pod

If you need to provide some static hostname resolution in the Kiali pod, you can use HostAliases to add entries to the /etc/hosts file of the Kiali pod, like in the following example:

spec:
  deployment:
   host_aliases:
   - ip: 192.168.1.100
     hostnames:
     - "foo.local"
     - "bar.local"

HTTP server

Kiali is served over HTTP. You can configure a few options of the HTTP server. The following are the defaults, but you can change them to suit your needs.

spec:
  server:
    # Listen/bind address of the HTTP server. By default it is empty, which means to
    # listen on all interfaces.
    address: ""

    # Listening port of the HTTP server. If you change it, also Kiali's Kubernetes
    # Service is affected to use this port.
    port: 20001

    # Use GZip compression for responses larger than 1400 bytes. You may want to disable
    # compression if you are exposing Kiali via a reverse proxy that is already
    # doing compression.
    gzip_enabled: true

    # For development purposes only. Controls if "Cross-Origin Resourse Sharing" is
    # enabled. 
    cors_allow_all: false

There is one additional spec.server.web_root option that affects the HTTP server, but that one is described in the Specifying route settings section of the Instalation guide.

Metrics server

Kiali emits metrics that can be collected by Prometheus. Most of these metrics are performance measurements.

The metrics server is enabled by default and listens on port 9090:

spec:
  server:
    metrics_enabled: true
    metrics_port: 9090

The bind address is the same as the HTTP server. Thus, make sure that the HTTP Server and the metrics server are not configured to the same port.