istio.io/content/docs/ops/setup/istioctl/index.md

title	description	weight	keywords
Using the istioctl command-line tool	Istio includes a supplemental tool that provides debugging and diagnosis for Istio service mesh deployments.	20	istioctl bash zsh shell command-line

Overview

The istioctl tool is a configuration command line utility that allows service operators to debug and diagnose their Istio service mesh deployments. The Istio project also includes two helpful scripts for istioctl that enable auto-completion for Bash and ZSH. Both of these scripts provide support for the currently available istioctl commands.

{{< tip >}} istioctl only has auto-completion enabled for non-deprecated commands. {{< /tip >}}

Documentation for the complete set of supported commands can be found in istioctl reference.

istioctl auto-completion

{{< tabset cookie-name="prereqs" >}}

{{< tab name="macOS" cookie-value="macos" >}}

If you are using the macOS operating system with the Bash terminal shell, make sure that the bash-completion package is installed. With the brew package manager for macOS, you can check to see if the bash-completion package is installed with the following command:

{{< text bash >}} $ brew info bash-completion bash-completion: stable 1.3 (bottled) {{< /text >}}

If you find that the bash-completion package is not installed, proceed with installing the bash-completion package with the following command:

{{< text bash >}} $ brew install bash-completion {{< /text >}}

Once the bash-completion package has been installed on your macOS system, add the following line to your ~/.bash_profile file:

[[ -r "/usr/local/etc/profile.d/bash_completion.sh" ]] && . "/usr/local/etc/profile.d/bash_completion.sh"

{{< /tab >}}

{{< tab name="Linux" cookie-value="linux" >}}

If you are using a Linux-based operating system, you can install the Bash completion package with the apt-get install bash-completion command for Debian-based Linux distributions or yum install bash-completion for RPM-based Linux distributions, the two most common occurrences.

Once the bash-completion package has been installed on your Linux system, add the following line to your ~/.bash_profile file:

[[ -r "/usr/local/etc/profile.d/bash_completion.sh" ]] && . "/usr/local/etc/profile.d/bash_completion.sh"

{{< /tab >}}

{{< /tabset >}}

Enabling auto-completion

To enable istioctl completion on your system, follow the steps for your preferred shell:

{{< tabset cookie-name="profile" >}}

{{< tab name="Bash" cookie-value="bash" >}}

Installing the bash auto-completion file

If you are using bash, the istioctl auto-completion file is located in the tools directory. To use it, copy the istioctl.bash file to your home directory, then add the following line to source the istioctl tab completion file from your .bashrc file:

{{< text bash >}} $ source ~/istioctl.bash {{< /text >}}

{{< /tab >}}

{{< tab name="ZSH" cookie-value="zsh" >}}

Installing the ZSH auto-completion file

For ZSH users, the istioctl auto-completion file is located in the tools directory. Copy the _istioctl file to your home directory, or any directory of your choosing (update directory in script snippet below), and source the istioctl auto-completion file in your .zshrc file as follows:

{{< text zsh >}} source ~/_istioctl {{< /text >}}

You may also add the _istioctl file to a directory listed in the fpath variable. To achieve this, place the _istioctl file in an existing directory in the fpath, or create a new directory and add it to the fpath variable in your ~/.zshrc file.

{{< tip >}}

If you get an error like complete:13: command not found: compdef, then add the following to the beginning of your ~/.zshrc file:

{{< text bash >}} $ autoload -Uz compinit $ compinit {{< /text >}}

If your auto-completion is not working, try again after restarting your terminal. If auto-completion still does not work, try resetting the completion cache using the above commands in your terminal.

{{< /tip >}}

{{< /tab >}}

{{< /tabset >}}

Using auto-completion

If the istioctl completion file has been installed correctly, press the Tab key while writing an istioctl command, and it should return a set of command suggestions for you to choose from:

{{< text bash >}} $ istioctl proxy- proxy-config proxy-status {{< /text >}}