#Updating ambient mode components

This page describes how to update the Istio control plane, the Istio CNI plugin, and the ZTunnel proxy in ambient mode. All three components use the InPlace update strategy and must be updated in this exact order. Waypoint proxies are rolled out automatically after the control plane update; see Updating waypoint proxies for the related verification steps.

#Installing ambient mode with a specific version

You can install the Istio control plane, the Istio CNI plugin, and the ZTunnel proxy in ambient mode with an explicitly pinned version, which lets you exercise the update procedure afterwards.

#Procedure

1. Create the istio-cni, istio-system, and ztunnel namespaces, each labeled with istio-discovery=enabled so that the control plane discovers them:

   kubectl create namespace istio-cni
   kubectl create namespace istio-system
   kubectl create namespace ztunnel
   kubectl label namespace istio-cni istio-system ztunnel istio-discovery=enabled

2. Create the IstioCNI resource with the starting version:

   cat <<EOF | kubectl apply -f -
   apiVersion: sailoperator.io/v1
   kind: IstioCNI
   metadata:
     name: default
   spec:
     version: v1.28.3
     namespace: istio-cni
     profile: ambient
     values:
       cni:
         cniConfDir: /etc/cni/multus/net.d
         excludeNamespaces:
           - istio-cni
           - kube-system
         ambient:
           reconcileIptablesOnStartup: true
   EOF
   1. Pinning spec.version defines the version that the update procedure starts from.
   2. The reconcileIptablesOnStartup option lets the CNI agent detect and repair incompatible iptables rules in already-running ambient pods when the agent restarts — exactly the situation an upgrade creates.

3. Wait for the Istio CNI pods to become ready:

   kubectl wait --for=condition=Ready istiocnis/default --timeout=3m

4. Create the Istio resource with the same starting version:

   cat <<EOF | kubectl apply -f -
   apiVersion: sailoperator.io/v1
   kind: Istio
   metadata:
     name: default
   spec:
     version: v1.28.3
     namespace: istio-system
     profile: ambient
     updateStrategy:
       type: InPlace
     values:
       pilot:
         trustedZtunnelNamespace: ztunnel
       meshConfig:
         discoverySelectors:
           - matchLabels:
               istio-discovery: enabled
   EOF
   1. InPlace is the default strategy, so this field is optional; it is shown here to make the strategy explicit. Ambient mode supports no other strategy.

5. Wait for the Istio control plane to become ready:

   kubectl wait --for=condition=Ready istios/default --timeout=3m

6. Create the ZTunnel resource with the same starting version:

   cat <<EOF | kubectl apply -f -
   apiVersion: sailoperator.io/v1
   kind: ZTunnel
   metadata:
     name: default
   spec:
     version: v1.28.3
     namespace: ztunnel
   EOF
   1. Unlike the installation guide, this example sets spec.version so that the ZTunnel update step below has an older version to move away from.

7. Wait for the ZTunnel pods to become ready:

   kubectl wait --for=condition=Ready ztunnel/default --timeout=3m

8. Set up the application workloads in the cluster. For instance, you can deploy the Bookinfo sample application into the bookinfo namespace. The following steps are a condensed version of Deploying the Bookinfo application in ambient mode.

   a. Create the bookinfo namespace and add the istio-discovery=enabled label so that the control plane discovers it:

   kubectl create namespace bookinfo
   kubectl label namespace bookinfo istio-discovery=enabled

   b. Deploy the Bookinfo application:

   kubectl apply -n bookinfo -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/alauda-mesh/istio/refs/heads/istio-1.28/samples/bookinfo/platform/kube/bookinfo.yaml

   c. Deploy the per-version services of the Bookinfo application:

   kubectl apply -n bookinfo -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/alauda-mesh/istio/refs/heads/istio-1.28/samples/bookinfo/platform/kube/bookinfo-versions.yaml

   d. Enroll all workloads of the namespace in the ambient mesh:

   kubectl label namespace bookinfo istio.io/dataplane-mode=ambient

#Updating the components

#Prerequisites

• You are logged in to the Alauda Container Platform web console as cluster-admin.
• You have installed the Alauda Container Platform Networking for Multus plugin, and kube-ovn must be v4.1.5 or later.
• You have upgraded the Alauda Service Mesh Operator to version 2.1.2 or later, and the new target version is available in the Operator. For more information, see Understanding Operator updates and channels.
• Istio is deployed in ambient mode. In this example, the Istio, IstioCNI, and ZTunnel resources are all named default.
• You have installed istioctl on your local machine.
• Application workloads are enrolled in the ambient mesh. In this example, the Bookinfo application runs in the bookinfo namespace; see Deploying the Bookinfo application in ambient mode.

#Updating the Istio control plane

1. Change the version in the Istio resource. For example, to update to Istio 1.28.6, set the spec.version field to v1.28.6 by running the following command:

   kubectl patch istio default --type='merge' -p '{"spec":{"version":"v1.28.6"}}'

   The Operator replaces the running control plane with the new version. ZTunnel and any waypoint proxies reconnect to the new istiod instance automatically; the application pods keep running and do not need a restart.

2. Wait for the control plane to become ready:

   kubectl wait --for=condition=Ready istios/default --timeout=3m

3. Confirm that the control plane reports the new version:

   kubectl get istio default

   Example output

   NAME      NAMESPACE      PROFILE   REVISIONS   READY   IN USE   ACTIVE REVISION   STATUS    VERSION   AGE
   default   istio-system   ambient   1           1       0        default           Healthy   v1.28.6   12m

#Updating the Istio CNI plugin

Update the Istio CNI plugin only after the control plane update has completed, because a CNI plugin at version 1.x supports a control plane at version 1.x or 1.x+1.

1. Set the spec.version field of the IstioCNI resource to the same version as the control plane:

   kubectl patch istiocni default --type='merge' -p '{"spec":{"version":"v1.28.6"}}'

2. Watch the istio-cni-node DaemonSet roll out:

   kubectl rollout status daemonset/istio-cni-node -n istio-cni

3. Wait for the IstioCNI resource to report readiness:

   kubectl wait --for=condition=Ready istiocnis/default --timeout=5m

4. Confirm that the CNI plugin reports the new version:

   kubectl get istiocni default

   Example output

   NAME      NAMESPACE   PROFILE   READY   STATUS    VERSION   AGE
   default   istio-cni   ambient   True    Healthy   v1.28.6   15m

For details about the IstioCNI resource and its update behavior, see The Istio CNI update process.

#Updating the ZTunnel proxy

Update the ZTunnel proxy last, after both the control plane and the CNI plugin run the new version.

1. Set the spec.version field of the ZTunnel resource to the same version as the control plane:

   kubectl patch ztunnel default --type='merge' -p '{"spec":{"version":"v1.28.6"}}'

2. Watch the ZTunnel DaemonSet roll out:

   kubectl rollout status daemonset/ztunnel -n ztunnel
   NOTE

   The DaemonSet replaces ZTunnel pods node by node to keep mesh connectivity available, so the rollout can take several minutes on larger clusters.

3. Wait for the ZTunnel resource to report readiness:

   kubectl wait --for=condition=Ready ztunnel/default --timeout=10m

4. Confirm that the ZTunnel proxy reports the new version:

   kubectl get ztunnel default

   Example output

   NAME      NAMESPACE   READY   STATUS    VERSION   AGE
   default   ztunnel     True    Healthy   v1.28.6   18m

5. Inspect the per-node ZTunnel pods:

   kubectl get pods -n ztunnel -o wide

   Example output

   NAME            READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE     IP           NODE
   ztunnel-2b6pb   1/1     Running   0          2m11s   10.3.0.202   192.168.136.57
   ztunnel-2s7m7   1/1     Running   0          2m3s    10.3.0.203   192.168.143.119
   ztunnel-95g2q   1/1     Running   0          115s    10.3.0.204   192.168.141.97

#Verifying ambient workloads

After all components run the new version, confirm that the workloads still participate in the mesh.

1. Check that the application pods are running:

   kubectl get pods -n bookinfo

   Example output

   NAME                              READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
   details-v1-657cf9fcfb-r75r4       1/1     Running   0          25m
   productpage-v1-667466dfd9-k6ddq   1/1     Running   0          25m
   ratings-v1-5bdc95577b-s7n8w       1/1     Running   0          25m
   reviews-v1-8468d47c78-m7fww       1/1     Running   0          25m
   reviews-v2-869977f6f8-jklhm       1/1     Running   0          25m
   reviews-v3-7bcdd7dd74-zdc87       1/1     Running   0          25m

2. Confirm that ZTunnel still proxies the workloads. Pods enrolled in the ambient mesh report the HBONE protocol:

   istioctl -n ztunnel ztunnel-config workloads

   Example output

   NAMESPACE    POD NAME                        ADDRESS    NODE            WAYPOINT PROTOCOL
   bookinfo     details-v1-657cf9fcfb-r75r4     10.3.0.192 192.168.141.97  None     HBONE
   bookinfo     productpage-v1-667466dfd9-k6ddq 10.3.0.197 192.168.141.97  None     HBONE
   bookinfo     ratings-v1-5bdc95577b-s7n8w     10.3.0.193 192.168.143.119 None     HBONE
   bookinfo     reviews-v1-8468d47c78-m7fww     10.3.0.194 192.168.143.119 None     HBONE
   bookinfo     reviews-v2-869977f6f8-jklhm     10.3.0.195 192.168.143.119 None     HBONE
   bookinfo     reviews-v3-7bcdd7dd74-zdc87     10.3.0.196 192.168.141.97  None     HBONE

3. Test connectivity through the mesh by calling a service from another pod:

   kubectl exec "$(kubectl get pod -l app=ratings -n bookinfo \
     -o jsonpath='{.items[0].metadata.name}')" \
     -c ratings -n bookinfo \
     -- curl -sS productpage:9080/productpage | grep -o "<title>.*</title>"

   Example output

   <title>Simple Bookstore App</title>

If you deployed waypoint proxies, additionally verify them as described in Updating waypoint proxies.

#Removing update resources from a development environment

After you finish verifying the update procedure in a development environment, remove the sample application and the mesh components to release the resources:

# Remove the Bookinfo namespace from the ambient data plane and delete it
kubectl label namespace bookinfo istio.io/dataplane-mode-
kubectl delete namespace bookinfo
# Remove the mesh components and their namespaces
kubectl delete istio/default istiocni/default ztunnel/default
kubectl delete ns/istio-system ns/istio-cni ns/ztunnel