Kiali

Introduction

Kiali provides answers to the questions: What microservices are part of my Istio service mesh and how are they connected?

Table of contents

• Introduction
• Table of contents
  • Description
  • Getting Started
  • Docker Image
  • License and Copyright
• Building
• Running
  • Secrets
  • Running on OpenShift
  • Running on Kubernetes
  • Running Standalone
• Environment Variables
• Configure External Services
  • Jaeger
  • Grafana
• Additional Notes
  • Customize the UI web context root
  • Running the UI Outside the Core
  • Running A Locally Built UI Inside the Core
  • Disabling SSL
  • Running Kiali with commands
• Contributing
  • Talk to us
  • Issue tracking
  • Code Style Guide

Description

A Microservice Architecture breaks up the monolith into many smaller pieces that are composed together. Patterns to secure the communication between services like fault tolerance (via timeout, retry, circuit breaking, etc.) have come up as well as distributed tracing to be able to see where calls are going.

A service mesh can now provide these services on a platform level and frees the application writers from those tasks. Routing decisions are done at the mesh level.

Kiali works with Istio to visualise the service mesh topology, features like circuit breakers or request rates.

Kiali also includes Jaeger Tracing to provide distributed tracing out of the box.

Getting Started

If you are not a developer but just want to run something to see Kiali, then go to https://www.kiali.io for some instructions.

You could also try to use our hack script to quickly install OpenShift, Istio, and Kiali like this:

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kiali/kiali/master/hack/cluster-openshift.sh
sh cluster-openshift.sh --kiali-enabled true up

If you do not already have an Istio-enabled application to test with, you can install one using the Bookinfo Demo install script provided here as a convenience.

There are other demo applications to choose from as well: see some examples.

Docker Image

Kiali is published as a docker image on Docker hub at kiali/kiali

License and Copyright

See the LICENSE file.

Building

Note

These build instructions assume you have the following installed on your system: (1) Go Programming Language which must be at least version 1.8.3, (2) git, (3) Docker, and (4) make. To run Kiali on OpenShift after you build it, it is assumed you have a running OpenShift environment available to you. If you do not, you can find a set of instructions on how to set up OpenShift below. To run Kiali on Kubernetes after you built it, it is assumed you have a running Kubernetes environment available to you.

To build Kiali:

• Clone this repository inside a GOPATH. These instructions will use the example GOPATH of "/source/kiali/kiali" but you can use whatever you want. Just change the first line of the below instructions to use your GOPATH.

export GOPATH=/source/kiali/kiali
mkdir -p $GOPATH
cd $GOPATH
mkdir -p src/github.com/kiali
cd src/github.com/kiali
git clone git@github.com:kiali/kiali
export PATH=${PATH}:${GOPATH}/bin

• Install Glide - the Go dependency management tool that Kiali uses to build itself

cd ${GOPATH}/src/github.com/kiali/kiali
make dep-install

• Tell the dependency manager tool to update the Kiali dependencies

  Note	You should only run this command if you add, remove, or modify a dependency. If you are simply git cloning and building from source, you should skip this step.

cd ${GOPATH}/src/github.com/kiali/kiali
make dep-update

• Build Kiali

cd ${GOPATH}/src/github.com/kiali/kiali
make build

• At this point you can run the Kiali tests

cd ${GOPATH}/src/github.com/kiali/kiali
make test

Running

Note

If you want to quickly get up and running to play with Kiali and do not wish to git clone the repository, or build anything, see https://kiali.org for instructions. If you do not have a cluster environment (e.g. OpenShift) yet, grab the cluster-openshift.sh convenience script and run it to quickly start an OpenShift cluster environment with Istio installed. If you do not have a service mesh to test with, grab the install-bookinfo-demo.sh convenience script to download and install the Istio Bookinfo Demo service mesh.

Secrets

Note: There is a secret variable in the configuration called TOKEN_SECRET, be careful with this secret.

Running on OpenShift

Setting up OpenShift

The following section assumes that the user has OpenShift Origin installed.

The OpenShift Origin Documentation will outline all the steps required.

Building the Docker Image

Create the Kiali docker image through the "docker-build" make target:

cd ${GOPATH}/src/github.com/kiali/kiali
make docker-build

Deploying Kiali to OpenShift

Note	Before deploying and running Kiali, you must first install and deploy Istio. Required Istio Version: 1.0. There are a few places that you can reference in order to learn how to do this such as here, here, and here.

Note	The following make targets assume that the oc command is available in the user’s PATH and that the user is logged in. If you have istiooc instead, create a symlink in your PATH pointing oc to your istiooc binary.

The deploy and undeploy commands are automated in the Makefile. The following will undeploy an old installation of Kiali, if available, and deploy a new one:

make openshift-deploy

If you need to set the JAEGER or GRAFANA services, set the URL in the environment variable JAEGER_URL and GRAFANA_URL

Deploying Kiali to OpenShift with commands

Undeploying Kiali from OpenShift

If you want to remove Kiali from your OpenShift environment, you can do so by running the following command:

make openshift-undeploy

Reloading Kiali image in OpenShift

If you already have Kiali installed but you want to recreate the pod with a new docker image, you can run the following command:

make openshift-reload-image

Running on Kubernetes

Setting up Kubernetes

The following section assumes that the user has Kubernetes installed.

Building the Docker Image

Create the Kiali docker image through the "docker-build" make target:

cd ${GOPATH}/src/github.com/kiali/kiali
make docker-build

Note that if you are using minikube, you can build the docker image and push it directly into the minikube docker daemon using the alternative make target minikube-docker:

cd ${GOPATH}/src/github.com/kiali/kiali
make minikube-docker

Deploying Kiali to Kubernetes

Note	Before deploying and running Kiali, you must first install and deploy Istio. Required Istio Version: 1.0. There are a few places that you can reference in order to learn how to do this such as here, here, and here.

Note	The following make targets assume that the kubectl command is available in the user’s PATH.

Note

In order to deploy on Kubernetes and to be able to access the deployed service, you must ensure you have Ingress support. If you are using minikube, you need to run minikube addons enable ingress and add kiali as a hostname in your /etc/hosts via something like this command: echo "$(minikube ip) kiali" | sudo tee -a /etc/hosts

The deploy and undeploy commands are automated in the Makefile. The following will undeploy an old installation of Kiali, if available, and deploy a new one:

make k8s-deploy

If you need to set the JAEGER or GRAFANA services, set the URL in the environment variable JAEGER_URL and GRAFANA_URL

Undeploying Kiali from Kubernetes

If you want to remove Kiali from your Kubernetes environment, you can do so by running the following command:

make k8s-undeploy

Reloading Kiali image in Kubernetes

If you already have Kiali installed but you want to recreate the pod with a new docker image, you can run the following command:

make k8s-reload-image

Running Standalone

Sometimes you may want to run Kiali outside of any container environment, perhaps for debugging purposes. To do this, run:

cd ${GOPATH}/src/github.com/kiali/kiali
make install
make run

The "install" target installs the Kiali executable in your GOPATH /bin directory so you can run it outside of the Makefile:

cd ${GOPATH}/src/github.com/kiali/kiali
make install
${GOPATH}/bin/kiali -config <your-config-file>

Environment Variables

Many configuration settings can optionally be set via environment variables. If one of the environment variables below are set, they serve as the default value for its associated YAML configuration setting. The following are currently supported:

Environment Variable Name	Description and YAML Setting
IDENTITY_CERT_FILE	Certificate file used to identify the file server. If set, you must go over https to retrieve content from the file server. identity: cert_file: VALUE
IDENTITY_PRIVATE_KEY_FILE	Private key file used to identify the server. If set, you must go over https to retrieve content from the file server. identity: private_key_file: VALUE
ISTIO_NAMESPACE	The namespace where Istio is installed. (Default: istio-system) istio_namespace: VALUE
ISTIO_LABEL_NAME_APP	The label name of app required by Istio. (Default: app) istio_labels: app_label_name: VALUE
ISTIO_LABEL_NAME_VERSION	The label name of version required by Istio. (Default: version) istio_labels: version_label_name: VALUE
SERVER_ADDRESS	Where the http server is bound to. server: address: VALUE
SERVER_PORT	Where the http server is listening. server: port: VALUE
SERVER_CREDENTIALS_USERNAME	If this (and password) is set, these credentials are required in order to get content from the server. server: credentials: username: VALUE
SERVER_CREDENTIALS_PASSWORD	If this (and username) is set, these credentials are required in order to get content from the server. server: credentials: password: VALUE
SERVER_WEB_ROOT	Context root path to serve Kiali API and webapp from. (Default: /) server: web_root: /VALUE
SERVER_CORS_ALLOW_ALL	When true, allows the web console to send requests to other domains other than where the console came from. Typically used for development environments only. server: cors_allow_all: (true|false)
SERVER_STATIC_CONTENT_ROOT_DIRECTORY	The file server will serve all static content found under this root directory. server: static_content_root_directory: VALUE
IN_CLUSTER	The annotation used by Istio in a Deployment template. If in_cluster is false then you need to set environments: KUBERNETES_SERVICE_HOST, KUBERNETES_SERVICE_PORT (Local development mode : oc proxy --port KUBERNETES_SERVICE_PORT ). (default is true) in_cluster: (true|false)
PROMETHEUS_SERVICE_URL	The URL used to access and query the Prometheus Server. It must be accessible from Kiali pod. (default is http://prometheus.istio-system:9090) external_services: prometheus_service_url: VALUE
PROMETHEUS_CUSTOM_METRICS_URL	The URL used to query the Prometheus Server for building the runtime metrics dashboards. It must be accessible from Kiali pod. (default is PROMETHEUS_SERVICE_URL) external_services: prometheus_custom_metrics_url: VALUE
ISTIO_SIDECAR_ANNOTATION	The annotation used by Istio in Pods. (default is sidecar.istio.io/status) external_services: istio: istio_sidecar_annotation: VALUE
ISTIO_IDENTITY_DOMAIN	The annotation used by Istio how Identity Domain. (default is svc.cluster.local) external_services: istio: istio_identity_domain: VALUE
ISTIO_URL_SERVICE_VERSION	The Service of Istio to check version. (default is http://istio-pilot:9093/version) external_services: istio: istio_url_service_version: VALUE
GRAFANA_DISPLAY_LINK	When true, a link to Grafana will be displayed for more dashboards. (default is true) external_services: grafana: display_link: (true|false)
GRAFANA_URL	The URL to the Grafana service. When not set, Kiali will report an error as it cannot generate links to Grafana. To avoid this error, either set a valid URL (it must be accessible from user browser), or turn off GRAFANA_DISPLAY_LINK options. external_services: grafana: url: VALUE
GRAFANA_API_KEY	API key to access Grafana. API key only requires viewer permissions. external_services: grafana: api_key: VALUE
GRAFANA_USERNAME	Username to be used when making requests to Grafana. User only requires viewer permissions. Requires GRAFANA_PASSWORD. external_services: grafana: username: VALUE
GRAFANA_PASSWORD	Password to be used when making requests to Grafana. User only requires viewer permissions. Has no effect without GRAFANA_USERNAME. external_services: grafana: password: VALUE
GRAFANA_SERVICE_NAMESPACE	The Kubernetes namespace that holds the Grafana service. (default is istio-system) external_services: grafana: service_namespace: VALUE
GRAFANA_SERVICE	The Kubernetes service name for Grafana. (default is grafana) external_services: grafana: service: VALUE
GRAFANA_SERVICE_DASHBOARD_PATTERN	Search pattern for Grafana Service dashboard. (default is Istio%20Service%20Dashboard) external_services: grafana: service_dashboard_pattern: VALUE
GRAFANA_WORKLOAD_DASHBOARD_PATTERN	Search pattern for Grafana Workload dashboard. (default is Istio%20Workload%20Dashboard) external_services: grafana: workload_dashboard_pattern: VALUE
GRAFANA_VAR_NAMESPACE	The name of the Grafana variable that controls namespaces in dashboards. (default is var-namespace) external_services: grafana: var_namespace: VALUE
GRAFANA_VAR_SERVICE	The name of the Grafana variable that controls services in dashboards. (default is var-service) external_services: grafana: var_service: VALUE
GRAFANA_VAR_WORKLOAD	The name of the Grafana variable that controls workloads in dashboards. (default is var-workload) external_services: grafana: var_workload: VALUE
JAEGER_URL	The URL to the Jaeger service. When not set, Kiali throw an error when the user try request to Jaeger (/api/jaeger). external_services: jaeger: url: VALUE
API_NAMESPACES_EXCLUDE	An optional list of namespaces/projects excluded from the list of namespaces provided by the API and UI. Regex is supported. This does not affect explicit namespace access. api: namespaces: exclude: - namespacePattern1 - namespacePattern2 - etc..
LOGIN_TOKEN_SIGNING_KEY	The signing key used to generate tokens for user authentication. (default is kiali) login_token: signing_key: VALUE
LOGIN_TOKEN_EXPIRATION_SECONDS	The token expiration in seconds. (default is 10 hours ⇒ 36000) login_token: expiration_seconds: VALUE
KUBERNETES_BURST	The Burst value of Kubernetes client (default is 200) kubernetes_config: burst: VALUE
KUBERNETES_QPS	The QPS value of Kubernetes client (default is 175) kubernetes_config: qps: VALUE
KUBERNETES_CACHE_ENABLED	Flag to use a Kubernetes cache for watching changes and updating pods and controllers data asynchronously. Important Kubernetes cache is not compatible with reduced permissions scenearios. (default is false) kubernetes_config: cache_enabled: VALUE
KUBERNETES_CACHE_DURATION	The ratio interval (expressed in nanoseconds) used for the cache to perform a full refresh. (default is 300000000) kubernetes_config: cache_duration: VALUE

Configure External Services

Jaeger

If you are using the Make task openshift-deploy or k8s-deploy you need to change in the configmap.yaml the value of the jaeger > url

apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
  name: kiali
  labels:
    app: kiali
    version: ${VERSION_LABEL}
data:
  config.yaml: |
    server:
      port: 20001
    external_services:
      jaeger:
        url: http://jaeger-query-istio-system.127.0.0.1.nip.io
      grafana:
        url: http://grafana-istio-system.127.0.0.1.nip.io

Grafana

If you are using the Make task openshift-deploy or k8s-deploy you need to change in the configmap.yaml the value of the grafana > url

apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
  name: kiali
  labels:
    app: kiali
    version: ${VERSION_LABEL}
data:
  config.yaml: |
    server:
      port: 20001
    external_services:
      jaeger:
        url: http://jaeger-query-istio-system.127.0.0.1.nip.io
      grafana:
        url: http://grafana-istio-system.127.0.0.1.nip.io

Additional Notes

Customize the UI web context root

By default Kiali UI is deployed to the top level of https://kiali-istio-system.<your_cluster_domain_or_ip>/. In some situation such as when you want to serve Kiali UI along with other apps under the same host name, e.g., example.com/kiali, example.com/app1, you can edit Kiali Config Map and provide a different value for web_root. Note: the path must begin with a /.

An example of custom web root:

server:
  port: 20001
  web_root: /kiali
external_services:
  jaeger:
  ...

Running the UI Outside the Core

When developing the Kiali UI you will find it useful to run it outside of the core to make it easier to update the UI code and see the changes without having to recompile. The prefered approach for this is to use a proxy on the UI to mount the core. The process is described here.

To connect with the backend and avoid the javascript prompt requesting authentication you need to send the requests with a specific header.

X-Auth-Type-Kiali-UI: 1

The response will contain the header

WWW-Authenticate: xBasic realm="Kiali"

Otherwise the header will be

WWW-Authenticate: Basic realm="Kiali"

Running A Locally Built UI Inside the Core

If you are developing the UI on your local machine but you want to see it deployed and running inside of the core server, you can do so by setting the environment variable CONSOLE_VERSION to the value "local" when building the docker image via the docker-build target. By default, your UI’s build/ directory is assumed to be in a directory called kiali-ui that is a peer directory of the GOPATH root directory for the core server. If it is not, you can set the environment variable CONSOLE_LOCAL_DIR to the value of the path of the root directory for the UI such that $CONSOLE_LOCAL_DIR/build contains the generated build files for the UI.

For example, if your GOPATH directory for the Kiali project is /source/kiali/kiali and you have git cloned the Kiali UI repository in /source/kiali/kiali-ui then you do not need to set CONSOLE_LOCAL_DIR. You can embed your locally built console into the core docker image via:

CONSOLE_VERSION=local make docker-build

If you git cloned the Kiali UI repository in directory /my/git/repo and have built the UI there (such that the build files are located at /my/git/repo/build) then you can embed that locally built console into the core docker image via:

CONSOLE_VERSION=local CONSOLE_LOCAL_DIR=/my/git/repo make docker-build

Disabling SSL

In the provided OpenShift templates, SSL is turned on by default. If you want to turn it off, you should:

• Remove the "tls: termination: reencrypt" option from the Kiali route

• Remove the "identity" block, with certificate paths, from the Kiali Config Map.

• Optionally you can also remove the annotation "service.alpha.openshift.io/serving-cert-secret-name", and the related volume that is declared and mounted in Kiali Deployment (but if you don’t, they will just be ignored).

In the provided Kubernetes templates, SSL is turned on by default. If you want to turn it off, you should:

• Remove the "identity" block, with certificate paths, from the Kiali Config Map.

• Optionally you can also remove the volume that is declared and mounted in Kiali Deployment (the name of the volume and mount are both "kiali-cert". If you don’t remove these, they will just be ignored.

Running Kiali with commands

Note	Before deploying and running Kiali, you must first install and deploy Istio. Required Istio Version: 1.0. There are a few places that you can reference in order to learn how to do this such as here, here, and here.

Note	The installation scripts obtained by curl below can be customized with environment variables. Read the installation scripts for details on what environment variables are used.

Running in Openshift

Note	The following assumes that the oc command is available in the user’s PATH and that the user is logged in. If you have istiooc instead, create a symlink in your PATH pointing oc to your istiooc binary.

curl -L http://git.io/getLatestKiali | sh

Running in Kubernetes

Note	The following assumes kubectl command is available in the user’s PATH.

curl -L http://git.io/getLatestKialiKubernetes | sh

Contributing

All contributions are welcome - Kiali uses the Apache 2 license and does not require any contributor agreement to submit patches. To setup your environment, check instructions in the Building and Running sections.

Get involved by submitting pull requests on GitHub. Before you do, please talk to us.

Talk to us

Ask questions on the Kiali IRC channel (#kiali on freenode) or the Google Groups: kiali-users or kiali-dev.

Issue tracking

The Kiali team is using JIRA for issue tracking. If you do not have a JIRA account, you can also open issues here on GitHub (we are monitoring this as well) for any bugs or problems you encounter or to suggest new features.

When you are looking for issues to get started, you can use this JIRA query for good first issues. If you pick one from the list, please let us know by the above mentioned means.

Code Style Guide

See the Backend Style Guide and the Frontend Style Guide.