istio.io/content/docs/tasks/traffic-management/mirroring/index.md

title	description	weight	keywords
Mirroring	This task demonstrates the traffic mirroring/shadowing capabilities of Istio.	60	traffic-management mirroring

This task demonstrates the traffic mirroring capabilities of Istio.

Traffic mirroring, also called shadowing, is a powerful concept that allows feature teams to bring changes to production with as little risk as possible. Mirroring sends a copy of live traffic to a mirrored service. The mirrored traffic happens out of band of the critical request path for the primary service.

In this task, you will first force all traffic to v1 of a test service. Then, you will apply a rule to mirror a portion of traffic to v2.

Before you begin

• Set up Istio by following the instructions in the Installation guide.

• Start by deploying two versions of the [httpbin]({{< github_tree >}}/samples/httpbin) service that have access logging enabled:

  httpbin-v1:

  {{< text bash >}} $ cat <<EOF | istioctl kube-inject -f - | kubectl create -f - apiVersion: extensions/v1beta1 kind: Deployment metadata: name: httpbin-v1 spec: replicas: 1 template: metadata: labels: app: httpbin version: v1 spec: containers: - image: docker.io/kennethreitz/httpbin imagePullPolicy: IfNotPresent name: httpbin command: ["gunicorn", "--access-logfile", "-", "-b", "0.0.0.0:80", "httpbin:app"] ports: - containerPort: 80 EOF {{< /text >}}

  httpbin-v2:

  {{< text bash >}} $ cat <<EOF | istioctl kube-inject -f - | kubectl create -f - apiVersion: extensions/v1beta1 kind: Deployment metadata: name: httpbin-v2 spec: replicas: 1 template: metadata: labels: app: httpbin version: v2 spec: containers: - image: docker.io/kennethreitz/httpbin imagePullPolicy: IfNotPresent name: httpbin command: ["gunicorn", "--access-logfile", "-", "-b", "0.0.0.0:80", "httpbin:app"] ports: - containerPort: 80 EOF {{< /text >}}

  httpbin Kubernetes service:

  {{< text bash >}} $ kubectl create -f - <<EOF apiVersion: v1 kind: Service metadata: name: httpbin labels: app: httpbin spec: ports:

  • name: http port: 8000 targetPort: 80 selector: app: httpbin EOF {{< /text >}}

• Start the sleep service so you can use curl to provide load:

  sleep service:

  {{< text bash >}} $ cat <<EOF | istioctl kube-inject -f - | kubectl create -f - apiVersion: extensions/v1beta1 kind: Deployment metadata: name: sleep spec: replicas: 1 template: metadata: labels: app: sleep spec: containers: - name: sleep image: tutum/curl command: ["/bin/sleep","infinity"] imagePullPolicy: IfNotPresent EOF {{< /text >}}

Creating a default routing policy

By default Kubernetes load balances across both versions of the httpbin service. In this step, you will change that behavior so that all traffic goes to v1.

1. Create a default route rule to route all traffic to v1 of the service:

   If you installed/configured Istio with mutual TLS Authentication enabled, you must add a TLS traffic policy mode: ISTIO_MUTUAL to the DestinationRule before applying it. Otherwise requests will generate 503 errors as described here.

   {{< text bash >}} $ kubectl apply -f - <<EOF apiVersion: networking.istio.io/v1alpha3 kind: VirtualService metadata: name: httpbin spec: hosts: - httpbin http:

   • route:
     • destination: host: httpbin subset: v1 weight: 100

   ---

   apiVersion: networking.istio.io/v1alpha3 kind: DestinationRule metadata: name: httpbin spec: host: httpbin subsets:

   • name: v1 labels: version: v1
   • name: v2 labels: version: v2 EOF {{< /text >}}

   Now all traffic goes to the httpbin:v1 service.

2. Send some traffic to the service:

   {{< text bash json >}} export SLEEP_POD=(kubectl get pod -l app=sleep -o jsonpath={.items..metadata.name}) $ kubectl exec -it $SLEEP_POD -c sleep -- sh -c 'curl http://httpbin:8000/headers' | python -m json.tool { "headers": { "Accept": "/", "Content-Length": "0", "Host": "httpbin:8000", "User-Agent": "curl/7.35.0", "X-B3-Sampled": "1", "X-B3-Spanid": "eca3d7ed8f2e6a0a", "X-B3-Traceid": "eca3d7ed8f2e6a0a", "X-Ot-Span-Context": "eca3d7ed8f2e6a0a;eca3d7ed8f2e6a0a;0000000000000000" } } {{< /text >}}

3. Check the logs for v1 and v2 of the httpbin pods. You should see access log entries for v1 and none for v2:

   {{< text bash >}} export V1_POD=(kubectl get pod -l app=httpbin,version=v1 -o jsonpath={.items..metadata.name}) $ kubectl logs -f $V1_POD -c httpbin 127.0.0.1 - - [07/Mar/2018:19:02:43 +0000] "GET /headers HTTP/1.1" 200 321 "-" "curl/7.35.0" {{< /text >}}

   {{< text bash >}} export V2_POD=(kubectl get pod -l app=httpbin,version=v2 -o jsonpath={.items..metadata.name}) $ kubectl logs -f $V2_POD -c httpbin {{< /text >}}

Mirroring traffic to v2

1. Change the route rule to mirror traffic to v2:

   {{< text bash >}} $ kubectl apply -f - <<EOF apiVersion: networking.istio.io/v1alpha3 kind: VirtualService metadata: name: httpbin spec: hosts: - httpbin http:

   • route:
     • destination: host: httpbin subset: v1 weight: 100 mirror: host: httpbin subset: v2 EOF {{< /text >}}

   This route rule sends 100% of the traffic to v1. The last stanza specifies that you want to mirror to the httpbin:v2 service. When traffic gets mirrored, the requests are sent to the mirrored service with their Host/Authority headers appended with -shadow. For example, cluster-1 becomes cluster-1-shadow.

   Also, it is important to note that these requests are mirrored as "fire and forget", which means that the responses are discarded.

2. Send in traffic:

   {{< text bash >}} $ kubectl exec -it $SLEEP_POD -c sleep -- sh -c 'curl http://httpbin:8000/headers' | python -m json.tool {{< /text >}}

   Now, you should see access logging for both v1 and v2. The access logs created in v2 are the mirrored requests that are actually going to v1.

   {{< text bash >}} $ kubectl logs -f $V1_POD -c httpbin 127.0.0.1 - - [07/Mar/2018:19:02:43 +0000] "GET /headers HTTP/1.1" 200 321 "-" "curl/7.35.0" 127.0.0.1 - - [07/Mar/2018:19:26:44 +0000] "GET /headers HTTP/1.1" 200 321 "-" "curl/7.35.0" {{< /text >}}

   {{< text bash >}} $ kubectl logs -f $V2_POD -c httpbin 127.0.0.1 - - [07/Mar/2018:19:26:44 +0000] "GET /headers HTTP/1.1" 200 361 "-" "curl/7.35.0" {{< /text >}}

Cleaning up

1. Remove the rules:

   {{< text bash >}} $ kubectl delete virtualservice httpbin $ kubectl delete destinationrule httpbin {{< /text >}}

2. Shutdown the [httpbin]({{< github_tree >}}/samples/httpbin) service and client:

   {{< text bash >}} $ kubectl delete deploy httpbin-v1 httpbin-v2 sleep $ kubectl delete svc httpbin {{< /text >}}