istio-traffic-management
Comprehensive guide to Istio traffic management for production service mesh deployments.
Documentation
Istio Traffic Management
Comprehensive guide to Istio traffic management for production service mesh deployments.
Do not use this skill when
- The task is unrelated to istio traffic management
- You need a different domain or tool outside this scope
Instructions
- Clarify goals, constraints, and required inputs.
- Apply relevant best practices and validate outcomes.
- Provide actionable steps and verification.
- If detailed examples are required, open
resources/implementation-playbook.md.
Use this skill when
- Configuring service-to-service routing
- Implementing canary or blue-green deployments
- Setting up circuit breakers and retries
- Load balancing configuration
- Traffic mirroring for testing
- Fault injection for chaos engineering
Core Concepts
1. Traffic Management Resources
| Resource | Purpose | Scope |
|---|---|---|
| VirtualService | Route traffic to destinations | Host-based |
| DestinationRule | Define policies after routing | Service-based |
| Gateway | Configure ingress/egress | Cluster edge |
| ServiceEntry | Add external services | Mesh-wide |
2. Traffic Flow
Client → Gateway → VirtualService → DestinationRule → Service
(routing) (policies) (pods)
Templates
Template 1: Basic Routing
apiVersion: networking.istio.io/v1beta1
kind: VirtualService
metadata:
name: reviews-route
namespace: bookinfo
spec:
hosts:
- reviews
http:
- match:
- headers:
end-user:
exact: jason
route:
- destination:
host: reviews
subset: v2
- route:
- destination:
host: reviews
subset: v1
---
apiVersion: networking.istio.io/v1beta1
kind: DestinationRule
metadata:
name: reviews-destination
namespace: bookinfo
spec:
host: reviews
subsets:
- name: v1
labels:
version: v1
- name: v2
labels:
version: v2
- name: v3
labels:
version: v3
Template 2: Canary Deployment
apiVersion: networking.istio.io/v1beta1
kind: VirtualService
metadata:
name: my-service-canary
spec:
hosts:
- my-service
http:
- route:
- destination:
host: my-service
subset: stable
weight: 90
- destination:
host: my-service
subset: canary
weight: 10
---
apiVersion: networking.istio.io/v1beta1
kind: DestinationRule
metadata:
name: my-service-dr
spec:
host: my-service
trafficPolicy:
connectionPool:
tcp:
maxConnections: 100
http:
h2UpgradePolicy: UPGRADE
http1MaxPendingRequests: 100
http2MaxRequests: 1000
subsets:
- name: stable
labels:
version: stable
- name: canary
labels:
version: canary
Template 3: Circuit Breaker
apiVersion: networking.istio.io/v1beta1
kind: DestinationRule
metadata:
name: circuit-breaker
spec:
host: my-service
trafficPolicy:
connectionPool:
tcp:
maxConnections: 100
http:
http1MaxPendingRequests: 100
http2MaxRequests: 1000
maxRequestsPerConnection: 10
maxRetries: 3
outlierDetection:
consecutive5xxErrors: 5
interval: 30s
baseEjectionTime: 30s
maxEjectionPercent: 50
minHealthPercent: 30
Template 4: Retry and Timeout
apiVersion: networking.istio.io/v1beta1
kind: VirtualService
metadata:
name: ratings-retry
spec:
hosts:
- ratings
http:
- route:
- destination:
host: ratings
timeout: 10s
retries:
attempts: 3
perTryTimeout: 3s
retryOn: connect-failure,refused-stream,unavailable,cancelled,retriable-4xx,503
retryRemoteLocalities: true
Template 5: Traffic Mirroring
apiVersion: networking.istio.io/v1beta1
kind: VirtualService
metadata:
name: mirror-traffic
spec:
hosts:
- my-service
http:
- route:
- destination:
host: my-service
subset: v1
mirror:
host: my-service
subset: v2
mirrorPercentage:
value: 100.0
Template 6: Fault Injection
apiVersion: networking.istio.io/v1beta1
kind: VirtualService
metadata:
name: fault-injection
spec:
hosts:
- ratings
http:
- fault:
delay:
percentage:
value: 10
fixedDelay: 5s
abort:
percentage:
value: 5
httpStatus: 503
route:
- destination:
host: ratings
Template 7: Ingress Gateway
apiVersion: networking.istio.io/v1beta1
kind: Gateway
metadata:
name: my-gateway
spec:
selector:
istio: ingressgateway
servers:
- port:
number: 443
name: https
protocol: HTTPS
tls:
mode: SIMPLE
credentialName: my-tls-secret
Quick Info
- Source
- antigravity
- Category
- AI & Agents
- Repository
- View Repo
- Scraped At
- Jan 29, 2026
Tags
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